The U.S. Supreme Court will confront key questions for employers as it begins its new term. Cases on tap involve LGBT rights in the workplace, the contours of age discrimination and other civil rights laws, and immigration disputes involving as many as 800,000 undocumented workers.
The Justice Department will play a role in many of these cases, testing the majority conservative court on several social issues, as well as stances that pit workers’ rights versus business interests.
LGBT rights in the workplace will take center stage in oral arguments scheduled for the opening week of the Supreme Court’s term, which begins Oct. 7. Another early case could help to determine the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program. Still other cases on the docket will deal with employee benefits disputes as well as the legal bar that workers must meet to bring age and race discrimination claims.
We haven’t had this many active, straight employment cases in years. It will be active and interesting, ” said Paul Mollica, attorney with Outten & Golden in Chicago. The Title VII cases will be the ones to watch, both because they will affect the real lives of employees and will affect the human resources functions of employees. ” Many of the other cases will be important to litigators, affecting in small and potentially big ways ” what kinds of cases can be brought, Mollica said.
LGBT Rights Debated
The justices Oct 8 will consider a trio of cases that weigh whether sexual orientation and gender identity should be protected under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a federal statute that protects workers from discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, and national origin.
The cases are Altitude Express v. Zarda and Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, which deal with sexual orientation protections, and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Home v. EEOC,which revolves around gender identity. The Justice Department will argue both issues on behalf of the employers.
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Mollica of Outten & Golden said the LGBT cases and others will signal how the justices will interpret statutory language, particularly Trump-appointed Justices Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
The new justices have come on the bench with a reputation of strict statutory interpretation and plain language, ” Mollica said. That could impact the analysis of all these questions. ”
Civil Rights and Age Discrimination
Two other cases before the court this term grapple with interpretation of civil rights statutes and plaintiffs’ ability to bring discrimination claims.
Both the Justice Department and the NAACP have weighed in on the first case, Comcast Corp. v. National Association of African American-Owned Media. It revolves around the legal standard needed to show racial bias under a Reconstruction-era law, Section 1981 of the 1866 Civil Rights Act.
The NAACP takes no position on the underlying dispute, but said that the case is an attack on a bedrock civil rights statute. ” The DOJ, meanwhile, weighed in on the side of Comcast.
Comcast hopes to overturn a U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decision that cleared the association’s lawsuit to move forward on the grounds that race discrimination was one of several motivating factors at play in the dispute. Comcast said the association must instead show what’s known as but for causation, ” meaning it must prove that unlawful bias was a main reason behind Comcast’s decision not to carry certain television programming.
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Age discrimination standards will be similarly analyzed in a second case, Babb v. Wilkie. The main question for the court surrounds the standard federal workers must meet to show there was age discrimination underlying a termination, demotion, or some other negative job action.
The justices can resolve an appeals court split on the causation standard for age discrimination complaints under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act filed by federal workers. The high court’s analysis may make it easier or tougher for federal workers to prove they were discriminated against based on age or other protected categories, like race or sex. Federal laws against discrimination in employment have different provisions for workers in the private sector compared to those in public employment.
Immigration
Immigration cases affecting employers are also on the high court’s calendar.
Three cases involving the DACA program will affect 700,000 to 800,000 undocumented workers who are legally employed under the program. Many of them are highly skilled workers, including doctors, lawyers and engineers, said Nicole Saharsky, an attorney with Mayer Brown. Businesses have been able to continue employing DACA recipients through the end of 2019.
The question in the cases surrounds the Trump administration’s decision to end the DACA program, which provides work permits and deportation protection for young immigrants. A final ruling would settle uncertainty for employers, but could mean a loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs if the program is eliminated. Businesses have been able to continue employing DACA recipients through the end of 2019.
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Employers are required only to make sure employees’ documents appear genuine, not to ascertain whether they’re the real deal. That allows undocumented immigrants to obtain sophisticated fake documents that can contain someone else’s Social Security number or other personal information.