Ohio Employer Law Blog

The 10th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Folder Philanderer

2026-11-09T06:51:00.000-05:00

An office manager finds a sex contract in a folder on her desk. The COO asks if she got it. She refuses to discuss it. He fires her.

That's what the EEOC says happened at Gator Strong Services. The company just agreed to pay $25,000 to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit.

Twenty-five thousand dollars. Let that sink in.

According to the EEOC, the company's former COO subjected his office manager to a campaign of sexual harassment. He repeatedly made sexual comments to her. He humiliated her in front of coworkers. He hugged her without her consent. He shared intimate details of his sex life with a woman whose job was to run his office, not listen to his sexual exploits.

And then came the folder.

The COO left a sex contract on her desk. When he asked whether she'd received it, she refused to discuss it. According to the EEOC, that refusal cost her her job.

Think about what this woman allegedly endured. Showing up every day to a boss who treated her as his audience, his punching bag, and his prop. Being humiliated in front of colleagues. Being touched without consent. Having to navigate unwanted sexual advances from someone who controlled her livelihood.

And when she finally drew a line, she lost her paycheck.

Now look at the settlement. $25,000. For alleged harassment that escalated into an unwanted sexual proposition and ended with the employee's termination.

The settlement isn't just monetary. Gator Strong also agreed to a two-year consent decree requiring revised anti-harassment policies, training for managers and executives, and periodic reporting to the EEOC. In other words, the company agreed to implement basic protections that should have existed long before someone thought leaving a sex contract on an employee's desk was acceptable workplace behavior.

To be clear, these are allegations, not judicial findings. Still, there's a lesson here for every employer. Your anti-harassment policy is only as effective as your willingness to enforce it against the people with the most power. An employee needs a safe way to report misconduct that bypasses the alleged harasser, particularly when that person sits in the executive suite. And no executive's title should provide immunity from accountability.

For that reason, this employer has earned its nomination as the Worst Employer of 2026.

WIRTW #817 (the 'grace' edition)

2026-11-06T06:58:00.000-05:00

Grace is earned, not owed.

On election night, Ohio's governor-elect reportedly let a phone call from her opponent go to voicemail. Vivek Ramaswamy said in his concession speech that his team "left her a message to congratulate her on her victory." Amy Acton didn't pick up.

Some people will call that petty. Concession calls are a ritual. The loser calls, the winner answers, and everyone performs a little grace for the cameras and the country.

That misses the point.

Two weeks before the election, the Ramaswamy campaign spent millions to air an ad featuring Acton's estranged mother, who called her daughter a liar and suggested she needed help. Acton has spoken openly about being removed from her mother's home at age 12, after her stepfather was charged with raping her. The ad drew condemnation from Republicans and Democrats alike, including Governor DeWine, who called on the campaign to pull it. The campaign defended it and continued to run it.

That wasn't a policy disagreement or even a hard-hitting contrast ad. It was a deliberate decision to weaponize the most painful chapter of someone's childhood.

So did Governor-Elect Acton owe Ramaswamy a conversation on election night? And what do we owe anyone who has intentionally mistreated us?

We teach people, especially professionals, to be the bigger person. Don't burn bridges. Take the call. Smile at the handshake. That is good advice for ordinary friction, like a sharp-elbowed negotiation, a bruising cross-examination, or a rival who plays hard but plays fair.

It's not good advice, however, for someone who looked at your worst moments and decided to use them against you. Grace is a gift. It is not a debt that accrues to whoever happens to be on the other side of the table. Someone who intentionally mistreats you does not get to cash in on your civility the moment it becomes convenient for them.

I see this in workplaces all the time. The manager who undermined an employee for months and then expects a warm exit interview. The executive who ran a smear campaign and then wants a "clean break" and a glowing reference. The business partner who went scorched-earth and now wants to "move forward." They want the benefits of decency without having practiced any.

You can be professional without being warm. You can be polite without being available. You can decline the call and still behave lawfully, avoid retaliation, and keep your own conduct beyond reproach. Boundaries and bitterness are not the same thing.

Respect is something people earn by how they treat others. When someone spends weeks and millions of dollars showing you who they are, you are allowed to believe them.

Leaders should remember that before they approve the next ad, the next email, or the next performance review. Your conduct is also your reputation. And sometimes the consequence of your conduct is a voicemail.

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Project 2025's Impact on Employment Policy and Practice is Controversial but Undeniable — HR Daily Advisor

Employees Had to Arrive Early. The Manager Had the Keys. Who Pays for the Wait? — The Employer Handbook

What Sycophantic AI Can Cost Your Organization — Harvard Business Review

Till Dissolution Do Us Part: Inside Weil's Biglaw Breakup — Above the Law

EEOC signals rollback of Pregnant Workers Fairness Act regulations — HR Dive

Horseshoe Casino Baltimore to pay $150,000 to settle bias suit — The Baltimore Sun

Lockheed Will Pay $29.5 Million Over Claims It Discriminated Against White Employees — 24/7 Wall St.

Democrats seize Congress in sweeping midterm repudiation of Trump — Virginia Lawyers Weekly

'Are You With Us, the Workers, Or Are You With the Big Tech Billionaires?' — Politico

Self-checkout was supposed to cut costs. Instead, it created a problem retailers didn't anticipate — Fast Company

Columbus is losing breweries amid rising costs, lower demand — NBC4 Columbus

A general release is just that

2026-11-05T06:58:00.000-05:00

"Quite simply, full means full and any means any."

That's a federal judge explaining to a plaintiff the meaning of a general release.

Jackilyn Bunnell sued William Beaumont Hospital for pregnancy discrimination and FMLA interference. She lost on summary judgment, won a partial reversal at the Sixth Circuit, and on remand sat down for a settlement conference with Judge Brandy McMillion. After hours of negotiation, the parties reached a deal that included a full release of all claims.

Then the deal started to move.

First she wanted a structured settlement. The court reminded her that was never a term. Next she wanted the release narrowed to employment claims, so she could carve out possible medical malpractice claims involving her minor child. Then came still more asks: 21 additional names in the non-disparagement clause, a different job title in her separation letter, and a third-party number for employment verification.

The court said no to all of it. She had to sign the settlement agreement by a date certain or risk contempt. Her lawyers, who said they couldn't ethically pursue her position, were allowed to withdraw, with their fees protected.

The timing here is what matters. The malpractice and other concerns never came up during negotiations. They surfaced only after the structured settlement idea died. That wasn't negotiated either.

For employers, the lesson is that the scope of the release is a material term. Settle it in the room. Put "full release of all claims" in the term sheet and get signatures before anyone leaves the conference. You won't always have a judge who sat through the whole negotiation and remembers every word. "He said/she said" motions to enforce settlements are messy, expensive, and uncertain.

If you're paying for a general release, make sure you get one, and make sure the other side understands it before they sign. A general release is just that: general.

The most expensive thing on this brewery's menu? Retaliation.

2026-11-04T06:49:00.000-05:00

Notch 8 Brewery's owner told a bartender he would not tolerate her "backdoor" conversations with coworkers. The NLRB just said those words are direct evidence of animus.

Rebecca Spitzer had been a beertender at the brewery for about seven weeks. She heard coworkers complaining about long hours and missed breaks, and told them they might be owed overtime and could contact the NLRB or the Department of Labor. Then she contacted the Department of Labor herself.

Two days later, the owner called her into his office, angrily said someone he trusted had told him what she was doing, and sent her home. That same day, the brewery posted on Facebook that it was hiring beertenders.

In defending against the unfair labor practice charge, the brewery claimed that she drank on the job, served beer from competing breweries, committed petty theft, and lacked an alcohol certificate. It also said she abandoned her job. The ALJ found the misconduct unproven and concluded that the brewery had unlawfully fired Spitzer because of her protected concerted activity.

The NLRB just affirmed that decision. Sending her home, posting her job, and cutting off her scheduling access would lead a prudent person to believe she'd been fired. The Board also rebuked the brewery's claims of misconduct. It never investigated them during Spitzer's employment and raised them for the first time only after the charge was filed. That's classic pretext, said the Board.

I have three key lessons for employers to take away from this case.

1. When an employee says pay or breaks look wrong, or you have a safety or some other workplace issue, you have a compliance question to answer. Fix the problem if there is one. Explain it if there isn't. Firing the messenger turns the question into a federal labor charge or a lawsuit.

2. Nothing here required a union. Employees talking about overtime and breaks is protected concerted activity, and one employee's call to a state agency can be a logical outgrowth of that.

3. If a union is sniffing around your workers, retaliation is the best organizing pitch you can hand it. The organizer's whole argument is that speaking up gets you punished unless someone has your back. Fire the person who raised a concern and you've proven the point. At Notch 8, coworkers followed the whole thing in group texts, and one wrote that firing a whistleblower "sounds kinda illegal." Your workforce reads the same signals.

Employee complaints are free advice. Acting on them costs little, and punishing them costs far more. You don't want the most expensive thing on your menu to be retaliation.

Your noncompete is only as good as the document it lives in.

2026-11-03T06:48:00.000-05:00

A proposed class action against Ashley Furniture alleges the company buried a noncompete in its handbook-style "Culture Guide" and didn't disclose the terms until after workers accepted their job offers.

This case raises an important question for employers to consider: can you enforce a noncompete that lives only in your handbook?

Probably not, and your own handbook is why.

Most handbooks say they are not a contract. We put that language there to defeat implied-contract claims. But it cuts both ways. If the handbook isn't a contract, it can't be the contract that restricts someone from working after they leave.

Courts agree. In Elite Cleaning Co. v. Capel, a noncompete appeared only in an employee manual, acknowledged on a short form. The court held that a handbook for an at-will employee is not a contract, and the employer offered nothing more. In Morgan v. Raymours Furniture Co., a handbook arbitration clause failed for the same reason. The court wouldn't let the employer disclaim a contract when convenient and then insist on one when it wasn't.

The lesson is that a separate, signed agreement changes the outcome. In ASI System Integration v. Mollenkopf, the handbook provision was unenforceable because of its disclaimer, but the employer survived dismissal because the employee had signed a separate stand-alone agreement.

There's a second problem. A handbook applies to everyone, so the noncompete does too: the receptionist, the stocker, and the sales director who holds your biggest accounts. Under the law of most states (including Ohio), a covenant must be no greater than needed to protect legitimate interests like trade secrets and customer goodwill. Most employees have none. In Elite Cleaning, for example, the court found the employer's interest weak as to an unskilled worker with no trade secrets. A blanket restriction invites the inference that the goal is controlling labor, not protecting the business.

Courts can narrow an overbroad covenant rather than void it, but that's a gamble, not a plan.

The fix is to use a stand-alone agreement, signed by the employee, tied to a legitimate interest and tailored to the role. Reserve it for employees who actually have something to protect, and use confidentiality and non-solicitation terms for everyone else. And keep it out of the handbook if you have hopes of enforcement.

If your noncompete is a paragraph on page 47 of a handbook that applies to every employee, you probably don't have one to enforce at all.

The EEOC pulled its criminal background check guidance. Title VII is still here.

2026-11-02T06:56:00.000-05:00

Last week, the EEOC voted 2-1 to rescind its 2012 guidance on arrest and conviction records. If you're wondering whether criminal background checks are now a free-for-all for employers, I'm here to tell you they're not.

The EEOC's guidance was never the law. Title VII is. Disparate impact is written into the statute, and private plaintiffs don't need the EEOC's blessing to bring those claims. Disparate treatment (applying harsher screening standards to applicants because of race or national origin) is still illegal. And the Fair Credit Reporting Act, along with state and local fair-chance and ban-the-box laws, haven't gone anywhere.

What changes is agency enforcement. That's it. The reality is that the EEOC has largely moved away from disparate impact cases. Expect more right-to-sue letters and fewer EEOC lawsuits. But those claims won't disappear. They'll move into court, where you're the defendant.

Here's what the 2012 guidance said:

Arrests aren't convictions. An arrest alone doesn't prove anyone did anything wrong.

Convictions can justify an exclusion, but the offense needs to matter to the job. Embezzlement matters for a bookkeeper. It matters a lot less for a forklift operator.

Blanket bans are a red flag. Relevance depends on the nature and gravity of the offense, how much time has passed, and the nature of the job.

Individualized assessments matter. Give applicants an opportunity to explain their records before pulling an offer.

So what should employers do now that the EEOC has rescinded its guidance?

1. Keep your process. The guidance is gone, but its logic remains a sound way to defend against a Title VII disparate impact claim: job-related and consistent with business necessity.

2. Don't turn arrests into automatic rejections. Without more, an arrest record is a weak reason to reject an applicant.

3. Audit blanket exclusions. A "no felonies, ever" policy invites legal scrutiny unless a law requires it.

4. Apply your screens consistently. Inconsistent enforcement can become evidence of disparate treatment.

5. Document your reasons. If you reject someone because of a criminal record, write down the offense, how old it is, and why it matters to the job.

6. Follow the FCRA. When using third-party background reports, disclosure, authorization, and applicable pre-adverse and adverse action notice requirements still apply.

7. Check state and local law. Fair-chance rules vary by jurisdiction. Know yours before changing anything.

8. Train your hiring managers. Managers who improvise create risk. Give them a process and make sure they follow it.

Employers, the EEOC may have stepped back. Plaintiffs' lawyers haven't. Plan and act accordingly.

WIRTW #816 (the 'Claudette' edition)

2026-10-30T07:06:00.000-04:00

"Now I know what tear gas smells like" is not what a parent wants to hear from a child who is living 4,500 miles away, separated by an ocean. But it's also the reality of being in France in October 2026.

On the latest episode of The Norah and Dad Show, Norah shares what it's really like on the ground in France, living through the current wave of protests as a student. Yes, there is tear gas, but she says she feels no less safe than she would at a school in the U.S. She also says the coverage fixates on the looting—which may not even be coming from the protesters—because that's what gets attention.

Norah also recounts her 20-hour bus ride to Luxembourg to see Courtney Barnett in concert and getting lost in the Paris Metro during her layover. She also tells the story of buying a guitar off Facebook Marketplace from a sweet widower in his 70s in Aix-en-Provence. Here is a preview of that story.

You can hear all about on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, Overcast, in your browser, and everywhere else you get your podcasts.

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Company's DEI policy made White men 'second-class' candidates, judge rules — HR Dive

EEOC's Lawsuit Over a Women-Only Work Event Clears Its First Court Hurdle — The Employer Handbook Blog

Third Circuit: No FLSA "Overtime Gap Time" Claims — Lawffice Space

Can Opposing Counsel Reach Your Employees' Personal Phones? The Answer May Depend on Your Policies — EntertainHR

Compliance Is Not Prevention – Felix P. Nater, CSC, Nater Associates Ltd. — Nater Associates

Recruiters Don't Know What Hiring Managers Want. The Real Failure Starts Before the Job Is Posted — Evil HR Lady

Leaders Need to Grapple with Employee Ambivalence on AI — Harvard Business Review

What Will You Do With Your Employee's "Agents"? — Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Clio Says AI Is Boosting Billable Hours: Maybe I Was Wrong. Or Maybe Not. — Above the Law

3 workplace horrors that keep employment lawyers up at night — Employment & Labor Insider (Constangy)

my coworker goes overboard with grisly Halloween decorations — Ask a Manager

What Brews to Barns Could Mean for Your Brewery's Tax Bill — Brewers Association

Remember When: The Hooters Open Live Aid in America to the Dismay of the Event's Main Organizer in 1985 — American Songwriter

Meet the ChatGPT plaintiff; there are a lot more of them.

2026-10-28T07:01:07.854-04:00

Your company's next employment plaintiff might not have a lawyer.

But they have ChatGPT, unlimited discovery and motions to draft, and all the time in the world. You have attorneys who bill by the hour.

That's a problem.

Pro se employment filings jumped 56% in 2025, from 4,100 to 6,400. Lex Machina's 2026 report found unrepresented plaintiffs filed more than 16% of federal employment cases in 2025, up from under 10% in 2021. I expect that number to keep growing.

AI is helping fuel the surge. A chatbot can draft a professional-looking complaint and churn out motions in minutes. It can also reinforce what an unrepresented plaintiff wants to believe about the strength and value of their case.

Take Donaldson v. Hiland Dairy. A magistrate judge recommended dismissing a former employee's Title VII claim as time-barred. He responded with 29 objections totaling 677 pages, much of it AI-generated answers to Google searches that had little to do with the limitations issue. The Texas federal court dismissed the case with prejudice.

By one estimate, defending a pro se case costs 10% to 15% more than a typical employment claim. Here's why.

A plaintiff's lawyer is a filter. They decline cases that aren't worth bringing, tell clients when a claim is weaker than they hoped, and put a realistic number on what it's worth. Lex Machina found that pro se plaintiffs frequently get knocked out on procedural defenses like failure to exhaust administrative remedies or the statute of limitations. A lawyer would likely have caught those problems before anything was filed.

Then there's the math. The plaintiff isn't paying a lawyer. You are. They can generate another motion in mere minutes. Your attorneys spend billable hours figuring out how to respond.

And the usual exit ramp is harder to find. Pro se cases settle far less often than represented ones, frequently because plaintiffs have unrealistic expectations about damages, and nobody has reset them. Among cases decided on the merits, these plaintiffs lose at better than 40 to 1. You'll probably win. You'll just pay for the whole trip.

So what do you do? Treat it as a real lawsuit. Courts still read pro se filings generously, and a sloppy response is how a weak case gets a second life. Raise exhaustion and limitations defenses early, and push for a scheduling order and discovery limits before the motions pile up.

Then tell your CFO to budget more, not less. And if those AI-generated filings cross the line into frivolous, talk to your lawyer about whether Rule 11 sanctions could recover some of the fees spent responding.

Pro se used to mean cheap. Not anymore.

The 9th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Predatory Power Brokers

2026-10-27T06:56:00.000-04:00

Imagine pitching a project at work, only to have your supervisor tell you the best way to get it approved is to flirt with a senior manager.

That's how this story allegedly began for Boeing employee VyVy Nguyen.

According to a lawsuit just filed in Washington state court, Nguyen's supervisor encouraged her to entertain the advances of senior manager Brandon Mitchell, telling her, "It could benefit us all."

Then it got much worse.

Nguyen alleges Mitchell showered her with unwanted attention, gifts, and physical advances before pressuring her into sex. When she tried to end it, he allegedly promised her father a job at Boeing. She further alleges he later forced her to have sex and threatened her employment.

When she became pregnant and refused to have an abortion, Mitchell allegedly wanted nothing further to do with her or their child.

Surely HR stepped in? Not according to the lawsuit. Nguyen says her supervisor told coworkers about her pregnancy and suggested she could lose her job. She reported it to HR, which assigned an investigator who interviewed her but allegedly never followed up. In November, she is expected to return to her regular assignment, under the same supervisor, in the same building as Mitchell.

She sued for hostile work environment and disparate treatment. She also alleges negligent hiring and retention. According to the complaint, Mitchell's girlfriend told her he had been fired from a prior job for sexual misconduct and had a history with subordinates. If Boeing knew, or should have known, that's an even stronger liability case.

These are allegations, not proven facts. Boeing and the individual defendants deserve their day in court. But if even a fraction of this complaint is substantiated, it's a spectacular failure of workplace accountability.

Employers, a beautifully written anti-harassment policy is worthless if management ignores it, enables the misconduct, or participates in it.

Boeing builds airplanes. It knows catastrophic failures rarely happen without warning signs. The same is true of workplace harassment.

If even some of these allegations are proven, Boeing will have more than earned its place on my list of 2026's worst employers.

One sexual harassment claim is the off switch for an entire arbitration agreement

2026-10-26T07:05:00.000-04:00

"Making a mountain out of a molehill."

That's what TransDigm's then-CEO allegedly told its general counsel when she raised a pattern of sexual assault and harassment at the company's management meetings. An Ohio appellate court just sent her entire case to a courtroom instead of an arbitrator.

The allegations in Warren v. TransDigm Group are ugly. Jessica Warren says an operating unit president followed her to her hotel room in 2021 and tried to kiss her. In 2023, another kept dancing with her until a male executive stepped in. In 2024, a third choked her from behind, kissed her face, and smacked her hip and backside in front of coworkers.

She reported 2021 and 2024. Both men were fired. She alleges each still got a substantial severance package, with no contract requiring one.

She also alleges that CEO Michael Lisman asked what she did to cause the 2024 assault and why it took so long to report. He allegedly told her that he doubted a woman with a family could be general counsel. He called harassment training a "waste of time." And in July 2025, she was told she'd be replaced by "an objectively less qualified male."

Warren sued. The trial court dismissed her discrimination, harassment, and retaliation claims, and stayed the rest of the case, including a breach of contract claim, under the arbitration clause in her employment agreement.

The appellate court reversed. The Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act lets a person alleging harassment elect court over a predispute arbitration agreement. If the harassment claim survives a motion to dismiss, it is "by definition nonfrivolous," and the EFAA applies.

Warren's survived. TransDigm argued that firing both men was corrective action and that the conduct wasn't severe or pervasive. The court called those proof questions, not pleading questions. The retaliation claim survived too.

Then the kicker. The EFAA doesn't just free the harassment claims. The agreement is unenforceable as to the entire case. Thus, even a claim for breach of the very agreement that contains the arbitration clause is not arbitrable and must be heard in court.

So here's my bigger question: do you really want arbitration anyway? Businesses favor arbitration for privacy, speed, lower fees, and less risk of a jackpot jury verdict. In my experience, however, it doesn't limit discovery, shorten the case, cut the expense, or hedge your risk. In fact, because you pay for the arbitrator's time, it often costs more.

If privacy matters most to your business, by all means keep using arbitration clauses. Just know that one sexual harassment claim is going to shred that agreement.

Otherwise, before you put a broad arbitration clause in your next agreement, consider a jury-trial waiver instead, which at least hedges against a runaway jury.

Arbitration promises privacy. It rarely delivers anything else, assuming its it's enforceable in your case at all. And if it rarely delivers, why require it in the first place?