Law Commons^™

Keeping Fair Chance Laws Fair: Implications For Employers And Employees Given The Expansion And Variety Of Fair Chance Laws In The United States, Caitlin T. Gaines

Catholic University Law Review

Jurisdictions around the United States have adopted, and are considering adopting, fair chance laws, also known as “ban the box” laws, to improve access to employment opportunities for those with criminal histories. For years, individuals with criminal records – approximately one in four U.S. adults – have been disadvantaged when employers heavily rely upon criminal background checks during the hiring process. Now, with the proliferation of fair chance laws which require employers to avoid considering criminal history in hiring decisions, public and private employers are faced with implementation concerns as they adapt their hiring practices to ensure compliance with the …

Climate Discrimination, Duane Rudolph

Catholic University Law Review

This Article focuses on the coming legal plight of workers in the United States, who will likely face discrimination as they search for work outside their home states. The Article takes for granted that climate change will have forced those workers across state and international boundaries, a reality dramatically witnessed in the United States during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. During that environmental emergency (and the devastation it wrought), workers were forced across boundaries only to be violently discriminated against upon arrival in their new domiciles. Such discrimination is likely to recur, and it will threaten the livelihoods of …

Swipe Right Into A Disciplinary Hearing: How The Use Of Dating Apps Could Earn An Attorney More Than A Bad First Date, Zachary S. Aman

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

The Model Rules of Professional Conduct seek to police the conduct of attorneys. Each jurisdiction adopts its own rules of professional conduct to apply to the attorneys licensed within it. Notably, the model rules prohibit any sexual relationship between the attorney and client unless that relationship precedes the attorney-client relationship. Traditionally, defining a "sexual relationship" was simple, particularly if the attorney and client engaged in sexual intercourse. The introduction of dating apps, however, has blurred the line.

This article outlines the inherent risks of attorneys using dating apps at a time when most newly-licensed attorneys make up the majority of …

One Size Does Not Fit All: How The California Privacy Rights Act Will Not Improve Employee Data Collection And Privacy Rights, Kayla N. Bushey

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No abstract provided.

Transparency And Reliance In Antidiscrimination Law, Steven L. Willborn

Catholic University Law Review

All antidiscrimination laws have two structural features – transparency and reliance – that are important, even central, to their design, but have gone largely unnoticed. On transparency, some laws, like the recent salary-ban laws, attempt to prevent the employer from learning about the disfavored factor on the theory that an employer cannot rely on an unknown factor. Other laws require publication of the disfavored factor, such as salary, on the theory that it is harder to discriminate in the sunlight. Still other laws are somewhere between these two extremes. The Americans with Disabilities Act, for example, limits but does not …

Compelled Unionism In The Private Sector After Janus: Why Unions Should Not Profit From Dissenting Employees, Giovanna Bonafede

Catholic University Law Review

This Note examines the impact of the 2018 landmark labor law case Janus v. AFSCME. Janus held it unconstitutional under the First Amendment to require public sector employees to pay fees to a union to which they are not a member. The Supreme Court based their decision on the idea that compelling public employees to subsidize union speech to which they disagreed violated their free speech rights. The author argues that the Court’s holding in Janus should be extended to protect the free speech rights of private sector employees through a finding of state action in the private unionized …

But We Didn’T Agree To That!: Why Class Proceedings Should Not Be Implied From Silent Or Ambiguous Arbitration Clauses After Lamps Plus, Inc. V. Varela, Andrea Demelo Laprade

Catholic University Law Review

The application of class arbitrability when a contract is silent on the matter remains a mystery. The Supreme Court has not clarified its stance on class arbitrability and preemptive effects of the Federal Arbitration Act on state law when applied to determine if class arbitrability is available. The purpose of this Paper is to address how the Lamps Plus v. Varela decision created more confusion about the question of class arbitrability. It argues that the failure to address the particulars of the availability of class arbitration will perpetuate litigation on this issue. This Paper suggests that the FAA’s purpose supports …

Taxation Of Long-Term Unemployment In The Digital Economy: Facing The Twenty-First Century Challenges, Limor Riza

Catholic University Law Review

The article examines the policy of taxing long-term unemployment. We claim that tax systems should not tax the unemployed regardless of whether they reenter the labor market. Unemployment is a socioeconomic problem. The fear of expanding unemployment increases due to COVID-19 that shut down large sectors of the economy for a long period and also due to the digital economy. As early as the 1930s, Keynes expressed his fear of the economic challenges his grandchildren's generation would face, coining the term "technological unemployment." Several contemporary economists substantiate this fear by showing that some occupations are bound to disappear. Unemployment insurance …

A Democratic View Of Public Employee Speech Rights, R. George Wright

Catholic University Law Review

The question of the scope of public employee free speech rights is of obvious importance. Such cases are frequently litigated. The speaker's continuing employment is commonly at stake. The appropriate functioning of the government agency may be at issue as well. But government agencies are intended to operate not only with internal efficiency but with proper accountability to the public. And such accountability requires an appropriate degree of agency openness, transparency, and meaningful disclosure on publicly significant matters. Adequately assuring the democratic accountability of government agencies, it turns out, requires greater protection of public employee speech than is currently available.

Defining Who Is An Employee After A.B.5: Trading Uniformity And Simplicity For Expanded Coverage, Edward A. Zelinsky

Catholic University Law Review

A.B.5 made a significant but limited expansion of the coverage of California labor law but at a notable cost. Even as A.B.5 broadened the reach of the Golden State’s labor protections, A.B.5 also made the definition of “employee” more complex and less uniform. Those seeking federal or state legislation like A.B.5 confront the same trade-off under which greater coverage is achieved at the expense of more complexity and less uniformity in the definition of who is an employee. The same political forces and policy considerations which molded A.B.5 in California will have similar effects in other states and in the …

Whose Choice?: The Future Of Construction (And Maybe All) Labor Law, Michael J. Hayes

Catholic University Law Review

The current National Labor Relations Board ("Board') since 2018 has indicated an interest in changing the law on employee representation by unions in the construction industry, culminating in a final rule issued on April 1, 2020. As the article discusses, this proposal is likely to have effects in many industries other than construction, because many other industries in the U.S. are becoming more like the construction industry has long been. The Board’s rule has changed what's required for a construction union to remain the representative of a construction employer's employees, which the Board justified as serving "employee choice" about union …

The Bumpy Road Of Home States’ Regulation Of Globalized Businesses—Legal And Institutional Disruptions To Supply Chain Disclosure Under The Modern Slavery Act, Shuangge Wen, Jingchen Zhao

Catholic University Law Review

In response to the paradigm shift from territorial corporations to global businesses and supply chains, states are increasingly engaging in regulating extraterritorial business activities, supply chain disclosure regulation being a primary example. Much ink has thus far spilled on the intrinsic doctrinal and conceptual aspects of this regulatory approach, with its interactions to the external regulatory and institutional environment far less considered. This article seeks to correct the scholarly imbalance by critically examining how s.54 of the UK Modern Slavery Act (MSA) – a prominent attempt among state-level initiatives designed to promote human rights protection within global supply chains – …

Split Over Sex: Federal Circuits And Executive Agencies Split Over Sexual Orientation Discrimination Under Title Vii, Darria Turner

Catholic University Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressly prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of an individual’s sex. Since its enactment, neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has definitively stated whether sex discrimination based on sexual orientation is protected under Title VII. Though the judicial interpretation of sex has evolved, courts have routinely held that the protections of Title VII do not extend to claims based on sexual orientation discrimination. As three circuits faced these claims, a split was created in the circuits as well as in the two agencies tasked with the enforcement of Title VII. This …

Artificial Intelligence Is Here, Get Ready!, Jessica G. Martz

Catholic University Journal of Law and Technology

No one is certain whether Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) will make the future a better place or make it look like an apocalyptic Hollywood blockbuster. An opinion that is emerging among experts and nation-state leaders is that the nation-states that lead in AI advancements and implementation will likely have a greater influence on and power over the world economic and national security stages. The goal of this book review is to encourage the reader to enter the conversation about the role AI will play in global society and American life because AI will influence the job market in the near future. …

Alternative Remedies For Undocumented Workers Left Behind In A Post-Hoffman Plastic Era, Rachel S. Steber

Catholic University Law Review

Congress enacted the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) in 1935 in order to level the bargaining power of employees and employers to prevent burdening the flow of commerce and depressing workers’ wages. The NLRA vests the administration of promulgating the goals of the NLRA in the National Labor Relations Board (Board), broadly stating that the Board should take such affirmative action as necessary to effectuate the policies of the Act.

In 1935, however, Congress could not predict the future demographic makeup of the American workforce, and in its definition of an “employee” as covered under the NLRA, the statute makes …

Is A Delayed Result A Just Result? The Use Of Laches As An Equitable Defense To Remedial Back Pay Under The Eeoc's Sovereignty, Ruth Ann Mueller

Catholic University Law Review

The equitable defense of laches generally cannot be used against the sovereign. This broad proposition, adopted from English Courts of Equity, cements itself in United States federal case law. It is a longstanding principle that the federal government protects the public good and must be exempt from the defenses that could be brought up in a private suit. Administrative agencies bear a similar role, and exemption, when litigating as the United States on behalf of the public.

However, courts do not affirmatively restrict the use of laches against administrative agencies who may be acting on behalf of a private litigant. …

The Essence Test: Picking Up A Supreme Court Fumble, Thomas Gentry

Catholic University Law Review

Labor arbitration is the primary mean by which employers and employees resolve disputes. The shortcomings of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on labor arbitration have intensified as more employees opt for arbitration. These shortcomings are no more apparent than with the National Football League and its players.

This Comment uses NFL player Adrian Peterson and his player-discipline arbitration process as an example of the gaps in the Supreme Court’s case law. The Supreme Court announced the Essence Test in 1960 with the seminal Steelworker Trilogy Cases. Since 1960, lower courts have been unable to consistently apply the test, leading to a …

The Perfect Play: Why The Fair Labor Standards Act Covers Division I Men’S Basketball And Football Players, Richard Smith Jr.

Catholic University Law Review

An emerging labor and employment issue during the last decade—and one which has yet to be conclusively decided—is whether college athletes are employees of the colleges and universities for which they compete. The most employed attack by college athletes has been to attempt to gain coverage under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which would allow the athletes to unionize and collectively bargain with the colleges and universities. However, this method has been largely unsuccessful, and the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) decision denying coverage does not provide any hope that future attempts under the NLRA will be any more …

Analytical Nightmare: The Materially Adverse Action Requirement In Disparate Treatment Cases, Esperanza N. Sanchez

Catholic University Law Review

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressly prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of an individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Since its passage, however, federal courts have imported an adverse employment action requirement into Title VII jurisprudence despite its absence from the statutory language. Inconsistent determinations as to which employment actions qualify as sufficiently adverse under Title VII have resulted in an analytical confusion, yielding anemic anti-discrimination protections that, in effect, shelter invidious employment practices from liability. This Note argues that the anti-discrimination jurisprudence surrounding the adverse action requirement diametrically opposes both the letter …

Cat Scratch Fever: The Spread Of The Cat’S Paw Doctrine In The Second Circuit, Crystal Jackson-Kaloz

Catholic University Law Review

The phrase “cat’s paw” comes from an Aesop’s fable and has been used to define a person used by another as a tool or a scapegoat. The phrase was coined and injected into employment discrimination law by Judge Richard Posner in Shager v. Upjohn Co. and later adopted by the U.S. Supreme Court in Staub v. Proctor Hospital. In Staub, the Supreme Court held that an employer could be liable for an adverse employment decision that was based on the recommendation of a supervisor who possessed a discriminatory or retaliatory bias against the adversely affected employee. However, the …

At The Intersection Of Religious Organization Missions And Employment Laws: The Case Of Minister Employment Suits, Jarod S. Gonzalez

Catholic University Law Review

Reviewing the intersection of a religious organization’s right to select employees based on their goals and mission and modern employment law, this article argues that the analysis of the ministerial exception will depend on the type of suit brought. Specifically, the Article identifies five analytical categories: (1) employment discrimination/employment retaliation claims; (2) breach of employment contract claims; (3) whistleblower claims; (4) tort claims; and (5) miscellaneous claims.

The Article begins by describing the ministerial exception and ecclesiastical abstention doctrines that exist under the First Amendment through the lens of the Supreme Court’s decision in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church & School …

Classifying Obesity As A Disability Under The Americans With Disabilities Act: How Seff V. Broward County Is Incongruent With Recent Ada Litigation, Maura Flaherty Mccoy

Catholic University Law Review

This Note discusses how employer wellness programs are potential breeding grounds for Americans with Disabilities Act discrimination claims in light of recent ADA cases relating to obesity and how courts’ treatment of the safe harbor provision of the ADA is incongruent with the broadening of ADA claims. It looks at the provisions of the ADA and how courts have traditionally defined “disability” in obesity cases, describes the ADA safe harbor provision, and discusses the advent of corporate wellness programs. This Note then analyzes Seff v. Broward County, the most notable wellness program case to-date, and how the court’s decision …

Blue Skies For Black Lung Benefits Act Survivors? Courts' Interpretations Of § 932(L) Following The Enactment Of The Patient Protection And Affordable Care Act, Maureen Hughes

Catholic University Law Review

This Note summarizes the amendments made to the Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA) following its passage in 1969 through the enactment of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). The Note also addresses the split among the circuits over the meaning of the revised language in 30 U.S.C. § 932(l) (2012), and explains the reasoning of the Third, Fourth, Sixth, and Eleventh Circuits regarding the effect of the PPACA on BLBA benefit eligibility for miners’ dependent survivors. Further, this Note explains the significance of, and necessity in, resolving the confusion over § 932(l), and …

Land Ho! Two Words An Injured Longshore Or Harbor Worker Never Wants To Hear, Adam Hare

Catholic University Law Review

In 1927, the United States Congress passed the Longshoremen’s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA) to provide workers’ compensation coverage to maritime workers injured outside the purview of state workers’ compensation laws. Rigid judicial interpretation of the original Act, however, led to inequitable outcomes in the maritime industry. Workers neither on land nor on the water when injured could not claim workers’ compensation benefits under state or federal laws. The 1972 amendments to the LHWCA sought to cure this inequity. The amended Act included a situs requirement. This Comment analyzes the most important judicial interpretations of the situs requirement of …

Alt-Labor, Secondary Boycotts, And Toward A Labor Organization Bargain, Michael C. Duff

Catholic University Law Review

Recently, workers led by non-union labor advocacy groups, popularly labeled “ALT-Labor,” staged strikes and other job actions across the low-wage economy. Some observers see this activity as the harbinger of a reinvigorated labor movement or as audacious dissent by low-wage workers with nothing to lose. Others view the activity cynically as an exercise in futility, a struggle against inexorable market forces that refuse to pay $15 per hour to a fast food restaurant or big box retail worker. This article presumes that employers will respond to ALT-Labor in a historically typical manner—by seeking labor injunctions and civil damages in courts. …

Breastfeeding And A New Type Of Employment Law, Marcy Karin, Robin Runge

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Preserving The Sanctity Of Collective Bargaining: The Compensability Of Travel Time Following Flsa Section 203(O) Donning And Doffing Activity, Nicholas Hart

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Once Is Enough: The Need To Apply The Full Ellerth/Faragher Affirmative Defense In Single Incident And Incipient Hostile Work Environment Sexual Harassment Claims, Charles W. Garrison

Catholic University Law Review

No abstract provided.

Freedom Not To Listen: A Constitutional Analysis Of Compulsory Indoctrination Through Workplace Captive Audience Meetings, Roger C. Hartley

Scholarly Articles

Workplace captive audience meetings are assemblies of employees during paid work time in which employers compel employees to listen to antiunion and other types of proselytizing. Employers enforce attendance at workplace captive audience meetings by threats of discharge. Typically, employers deny employees the right to ask questions or express disagreement with the anti-union views presented during these mandatory meetings. Soon after the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that workplace captive audience meetings discussing unionization are per se unlawful. However, the NLRB reversed course following the enactment of the 1947 Taft-Hartley …

The Ongoing Battle Over Weingarten Rights For Nonunion Employees: What Do Terrorism, Corporate Fraud And Workplace Violence Have To Do With It?, Sarah Helene Duggin

Scholarly Articles

Part I of this article offers a brief history of the development of the right of employees to co-worker representation. Part II analyzes the Board's June 2004 decision to withdraw Weingarten rights from non-union employees, and Part III explores key policy factors relevant to recognition of an employee's right to the presence of a co-worker in an investigative interview. Part IV argues that, rather than eliminating Weingarten rights for non-unionized workers, the NLRB should take the next available opportunity to reaffirm and enhance these safeguards.