By: Yoon-Woo Nam, Alexandra R. Hassell, and Christopher DeGroff Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) recently released its 2023 Annual Performance Report and a new dashboard highlighting resolved cases. Compared to the prior fiscal year, the EEOC contacted substantially more potential claimants and filed a great number of merits lawsuits in 2023. It also released a new tool called “EEOC Explore” to track litigation statistics across the country. EEOC Litigation Lurches Forward In Fiscal Year 2023 The EEOC released its Annual Performance Report for fiscal ..read more

By: Matthew J. Gagnon We are pleased to announce the publication of the latest edition of Developments in Equal Pay Litigation, available as an eBook here. This report contains our annual analysis of trends and developments in the relentlessly dynamic body of law that is the equal pay litigation and legislation landscape. It was released along with Seyfarth’s 50 State Equal Pay Reference Guide, Global Pay Equity Desktop Reference, and Pay Transparency Wage Range Disclosure Compendium reports. We hope our readers will find these resources useful as a guide to these developing legal issues ..read more

Author: Seyfarth Shaw LLP Each year, our team at Seyfarth analyzes every EEOC case filing—as well as EEOC-related legal decisions from around the country—to compile the definitive A-Z desk reference for “everything EEOC.” As we turn the page into 2024, we are pleased to announce the publication of Seyfarth Shaw’s 2024 Edition of its EEOC-Initiated Litigation Report. This year’s Report comes amidst a surge in EEOC lawsuit filings following notable personnel changes at the Commission. In the last Fiscal Year alone, the EEOC launched a 52% increase in merit filings, going from 95 cases in FY 202 ..read more

By: Connor Bateman, Michael Jacobsen, and Yoon Woo-Nam Seyfarth Synopsis: For the final blog in this series regarding the legacy of TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (“TransUnion”), the Workplace Class Action blog closes its survey of federal Circuit Courts with key rulings from the Ninth, Tenth, Eleventh, and D.C. Circuits. TransUnion at a Glance Among other things as we have discussed, the U.S. Supreme Court held in TransUnion that every class member must have Article III standing in order to recover individual damages, as well as that an informational injury that causes no adverse e ..read more

By: Michael Jacobsen, Chris Kelleher, and Yoon Woo-Nam Seyfarth Synopsis: As reported here, for the two-year anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rulings regarding Article III standing in TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez (“TransUnion”), the Workplace Class Action blog is providing a survey of how each of the federal Circuit Courts have applied the Supreme Court’s teachings. In our prior installment, we analyzed how the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Circuit Courts of Appeals have interpreted TransUnion. Now, we discuss rulings from the Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Circuits that employers s ..read more

By: Christine M. Costantino, Taylor Iaculla, and Andrew Scroggins Seyfarth Synopsis: One of the most anticipated employment cases of the term was recently argued before the United States Supreme Court. In Muldrow v. City of St. Louis the Court requested the parties address the issue: Whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits discrimination in transfer decisions absent a separate court determination that the transfer decision caused a significant disadvantage. Background Plaintiff Jatonya Muldrow is a sergeant in the St. Louis Police Department. After initially ..read more

By: Rachel V. See Seyfarth Synopsis: Following President Biden’s comprehensive Executive Order on AI, the White House announced the formation of the “US AI Safety Institute” within the Commerce Department’s technology arm, the NIST.  The Institute has been directed to develop technical guidance used by regulators, such as the EEOC, considering rulemaking and enforcement on discrimination related to AI. The White House has also released for public comment draft guidance relating to the federal government’s use of AI. These standards contain an expansive scope of AI applications in the emp ..read more

By: Danielle Kays and Kristin Stokes Seyfarth Synopsis:  While the plaintiffs’ bar has aggressively pursued class actions under the Biometric Information Privacy Act (“BIPA”) in recent years, these cases soon may be rivaled by the influx of class actions brought under the Genetic Information Privacy Act (“GIPA”), 410 Ill. Comp. Stat. Ann. 513/1, et seq.  After GIPA’s 1998 enactment, only two cases were brought under the statute in nearly 25 years; however, in 2023, over 40 GIPA class action complaints have been filed in Illinois courts. What is the Illinois Genetic Information Priva ..read more

By: Matthew J. Gagnon Seyfarth Synopsis: On October 17, 2023, the Second Circuit issued the eagerly-awaited decision in Eisenhauer v. Culinary Institute of America. The court clarified that the federal EPA never required employers to show that a “factor other than sex” must be related to the job in question, contrary to arguments by many plaintiffs and commentators. This was a notable appeal because it raised several critical issues, any one of which could have changed the contours of equal pay litigation dramatically. The Second Circuit chose to leave most of those issues undecided, and ..read more

By: Matthew J. Gagnon Seyfarth Synopsis: On October 17, 2023, the Second Circuit issued its long-awaited decision in Eisenhauer v. Culinary Institute of America. The Court clarified that the federal EPA never required employers to show that a “factor other than sex” must be related to the job in question, despite what many plaintiffs and commentators have argued over the years. This was a notable appeal because it raised several critical issues, any one of which could have changed the contours of equal pay litigation dramatically. The Second Circuit chose to leave most of those issues un ..read more