Welcome to Part 2 of the 2021 Year-End Edition of the State Law Round-Up, covering states in the second half of the alphabet. Part 1, covering the first part of the alphabet, can be found here. Maine’s ban-the-box law, HP 845, went into effect October 18, 2021.
Bostock v. Clayton County.
[1] There, the Court held that by barring employer discrimination against any individual “because of such individual’s . . . sex,” Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 also bars employment discrimination because an individual is gay or transgender. The paper then speculates about how much
Bostock will affect how likely lower court judges will read other “sex” discrimination prohibitions in the U.S. Code in the same way, in part based on a canvass of the text of about 150 of those prohibitions. The paper also discusses the religion-based defenses that defendants may raise in response under Title VII itself, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. And the paper suggests how
, 966 F.3d 1038 (10th Cir. 2020), the Tenth Circuit reversed dismissal and summary judgment in favor of Affinity Gaming Black Hawk, LLC (Affinity) on three of four discrimination claims brought by former Casino employees. The basis for the Court’s decision highlights several key takeaways for employers to consider in responding to discrimination claims after implementing layoffs.
The
Frappied Plaintiffs were nine employees, eight women and one man, working at the Golden Mardi Gras Casino (Casino) in Blackhawk, Colorado. In 2012, Affinity purchased the Casino in 2012, and took over its operations in November. In January 2013, Affinity laid off many of the Casino’s employees, including the nine Plaintiffs. All of the Plaintiffs were over 40 years of age when Affinity terminated their employment. It was not a reduction in force. Affinity posted an advertisement listing 59 open positions and hired a large percentage of employees in their twenties. The female Plaintiffs brought “