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One frequently-occurring personal injury case is the so-called “slip-and-fall” case, which in turn is a species of “premises liability” claims. One court[1]Decker v. Middletown Walmart Supercenter Store, No. 15 CIV. 2886 (JCM), 2017 WL 568761 (S.D.N.Y. Feb. 10, 2017) recently summarized the law as follows: In New York, [t]o establish a prima facie case of…

Read More Surviving Summary Judgment in a Slip-and-Fall Premises Liability Case
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Proving employment discrimination is no easy task. Over time, courts have developed an analytical method for evaluating such claims. Proving Employment Discrimination With “Indirect” or “Circumstantial” Evidence When a plaintiff alleges employment discrimination based on indirect, or circumstantial, evidence, courts employ the “burden-shifting” framework set out in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792…

Read More Proving Employment Discrimination
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You may have read a recent news story about a group of teens who recorded and mocked a disabled man, Jamel Dunn, as he was drowning. If this happened in New York, could the observers be liable in a civil action to recover damages for personal injury/wrongful death?[1]Whether criminal liability may be found is beyond…

Read More Duty to Help Those in Danger
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Every legal case is different. This is because there essentially is an infinite permutation of facts and circumstances that may give rise to a legal claim. Changing even one (seemingly inconsequential) fact, and you might very well get a different result. That said, lawsuits all have the same basic structure. Here I’ll outline the basic…

Read More The Litigation Process
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One employer action that may, under certain circumstances, give rise to an employment discrimination claim is the implementation of a so-called “English only” policy. It has been reported, for example, that one North Carolina employer has implemented such a policy. The EEOC takes the position that English-only rules “violate the law unless the employer can show…

Read More English-Only Policies and the Anti-Discrimination Laws
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Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 makes it an unlawful discriminatory practice for an employer to discriminate against an employee because of (among other protected characteristics) “sex.” The term “sexual harassment” typically conjures up images of a male boss acting inappropriately towards a female subordinate. This is one, but not the only,…

Read More Same-Sex Sexual Harassment
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In employment discrimination cases, assuming a plaintiff sufficiently/plausibly alleges one or more claims in their complaint, the next procedural battleground is (usually) “summary judgment”. You can think of summary judgment as the last procedural hurdle – often after discovery is complete and all the facts are “in” – standing between a plaintiff and the holy grail…

Read More Surviving Summary Judgment: Sexual Harassment (Hostile Work Environment)
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Donald J. Trump’s election is likely to be a major topic of discussion among many people, particularly at work. The topic of sex – including sexual harassment and sexual assault – has, one could say, dominated this election. While sex is no stranger to politics (see, e.g., Clinton/Lewinsky) this time seems … different. Examples include…

Read More Donald Trump, Sexual Harassment, and the Workplace
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The Americans with Disabilities Act, New York State Human Rights Law, and New York City Human Rights Law all prohibit discrimination on the basis of a “disability”. The term “disability” is defined by the statutes in a specific way; thus a medical condition must come under the statutory definition of “disability” in order for a disability discrimination…

Read More What is a “Disability” Within the Meaning of the Anti-Discrimination Laws?
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