Ohio Employer Law Blog

WIRTW #798: the 'gunner' edition

2026-05-08T06:53:00.008-04:00

I never expected to fall in love with English football in my 50s. Yet here we are.

A couple of years ago, I started following Arsenal FC. What began as casual curiosity turned into waking up early on weekends, structuring Saturdays around matches, and finding my way to our local Arsenal supporters' bar.

What's struck me most about Premier League culture isn't just the football. It's the songs.

Every player has one. Every meaningful moment has one. The supporters don’t just watch the match; they participate in it. One chant starts in the corner, another picks up across the room, and suddenly the whole bar is singing in unison for a defender, a winger, or the club's newest star.

It's joyful. Tribal. Loud. Completely unlike anything in American sports culture.

So I decided to see what would happen if I asked ChatGPT to write a football song about me.

The result was better than it had any right to be.

🎶 🎶 🎶

He tells you the risk and the move you should make,
Then wins the damn case while plaintiffs pump their brakes.
From breweries to boardrooms they all sing his name:
OH, JON HYMAN, HE MAKES HR GREAT AGAIN!

🎶 🎶 🎶

Come on you Gunners!!!

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

Dems urge EEOC to retain pregnancy rule's IVF protections — via HR Dive

Can an Employee Sue for Failure to Accommodate a Disability She Said She Didn't Have? — via Eric Meyer's Employer Handbook Blog

Hallucinations, Inaccuracies, and the Erosion of the Rule of Law — via Above the Law

Asking people to do a one-week work trial before offering them the job — via Ask a Manager

DOL Proposes New Joint Employer Rule: What Employers Need to Know — via Employment Law Letter

AI Resume Screeners Have a Favorite Candidate: Other AI — via Improve Your HR by Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady

The Psychological Costs of Adopting AI — via Harvard Business Review

Vibes Versus Numbers: The Real State of Craft Beer — via Beervana

Why Breweries Can Hire Staff But Can't Keep Them (And How to Fix It) — via The Brewer Magazine

Tag, You're It: The NFL Franchise Tag as a Modern Non-Compete Agreement — via The L•E•Jer

3 Dangerous Password Habits You Should Avoid — via Boy Genius Report

When employers gamble on bad facts, they usually lose

2026-05-07T06:51:00.006-04:00

How does a case like this ever get to trial?

That was my first thought after reading Griffin v. Copper Cellar Corp.

Rose Griffin worked as a cook at a Tennessee restaurant. According to the 6th Circuit, one coworker repeatedly grabbed her breasts, arranged food at her workstation to look like an ejaculating penis, told her he wanted to have sex with her, pushed her down onto a prep station while thrusting against her, and stuck his hands down his pants while massaging himself in front of her.

This was not subtle workplace misconduct. It was repeated, physical sexual harassment.

And when Griffin complained? A supervisor allegedly told her to "keep [her] head down and [her] mouth shut." Managers allegedly laughed about the harassment. The damage to Griffin was severe. She testified that she felt humiliated and violated, suffered nightmares, lost sleep and appetite, experienced chest tightness and muscle spasms, and even contemplated suicide.

A jury found for Griffin on her hostile-work-environment claim and awarded her $179,000 in compensatory damages. The district court later awarded another $480,364.50 in attorneys' fees.

Copper Cellar appealed. The 6th Circuit affirmed everything.

So let's do the math. Copper Cellar now owes more than $659,000, before interest and costs, plus whatever it paid its own lawyers to defend the case through trial, post-trial motions, and appeal. All after reportedly offering just $25,000 to settle the case before trial.

Sometimes, the smartest litigation strategy is knowing when you have a losing hand.

Employers hate paying settlements. I understand why. No company wants to reward litigation or admit wrongdoing.

But litigation is not about pride. It is about risk.

And when your risk includes a jury hearing evidence that a female employee was groped, sexually humiliated, ignored by management, and pushed into suicidal thoughts, you do not roll the dice unless you've exhausted all options.

This employer chose to roll the dice. And it lost badly.

The lesson is not merely "don't sexually harass employees." That should be obvious.

The real lesson is that when the facts are this bad, listen to your lawyer when they tell you it is time to settle.

Because juries do not like employers that tolerate this kind of conduct. And appellate courts are not going to rescue you from the consequences.

The 11th Circuit just lowered the bar on racial harassment

2026-05-06T08:18:00.004-04:00

A noose. A blackface doll. Hung at a Black employee's desk.

If you're thinking, "that's a textbook hostile work environment," congratulations—you have better instincts than the 11th Circuit.

In Nevins v. DCH Health Systems, the court acknowledged exactly what happened: an unknown employee hung a blackface doll by a noose in the plaintiff's workspace. The panel even called it what it is—"repugnant and racially hostile."

And then it shrugged.

According to the court, that incident—paired with a couple of stray racist comments over a two-year period—still isn't "severe or pervasive" enough to alter the terms and conditions of employment. Three incidents. Spread out. Case dismissed.

Read that again.
A noose.
A blackface effigy.
At your desk.
Not enough.

Yes, Title VII isn't supposed to be a "code of workplace civility." But this case isn't about someone being rude, crude, or socially clueless. This is about a symbol of racial terror, paired with blackface, deliberately placed in a Black employee's workspace. That's not incivility. That's intimidation. And it should be unlawful.

This is not a close call. The Supreme Court has told us for decades that "severe or pervasive" is disjunctive. You don't need frequency if the conduct is severe. And if anything qualifies as severe, it's a noose—a symbol soaked in the history of racial terror and lynching—paired with blackface.

Courts across the country have recognized that a single noose can be enough. Because of course it can. The message is unmistakable.

But the 11th Circuit treats it like just another data point in a tally: three incidents over two years, some not said to her face, no evidence it interfered with her job performance. Move along.

That framing misses the point entirely. This isn't about counting comments. It's about the nature of the conduct. Some acts are so egregious that they poison the workplace instantly. This is one of them.

Worse, the court leans on the employer's "prompt remedial action"—telling the employee to throw the doll away.

That's it? Dispose of the evidence and call it a day?

If that satisfies Title VII, then we've set the bar somewhere far below basic human decency.

Here's the practical consequence: this decision hands employers and bad actors a roadmap. One noose? Probably safe. One grotesque racist display? Maybe two? As long as it's not "pervasive," you might dodge liability.

That's not what Title VII is supposed to do. The law is meant to protect employees from workplaces poisoned by discrimination—not to parse whether a lynching symbol shows up often enough to count.

A noose and a blackface doll at a Black employee's desk is severe. Full stop. Anything less turns "hostile work environment" into an empty promise.

Is paid family and medical leave finally coming to Ohio?

2026-05-05T06:59:00.003-04:00

Ohio just took another swing at paid family and medical leave. This one might matter.

On April 23, Senators Beth Liston (D) and Louis Blessing (R) introduced SB 396—a bipartisan bill that would create a statewide paid leave insurance program run by ODJFS. It's early. No hearings yet. But bipartisan sponsorship gives this version more legs than prior attempts.

Here's the gist.

The bill sets up a social insurance model funded through payroll contributions (estimated around 0.4%). Employers with 15+ employees would have to contribute. Smaller employers might dodge the payments, but not necessarily the paperwork.

Eligible employees could receive up to 14 weeks of paid leave (18 in some cases) for the usual suspects—serious health conditions, bonding with a new child, caring for a family member, or certain military needs. Benefits would replace up to 85% of wages, capped.

Job protection? Yes. Health insurance continuation? Also yes. And leave would run concurrently with FMLA where applicable.

Employers could opt out—sort of. The bill allows private plans, but expect strict equivalency rules, ongoing reporting, and oversight. If you've dealt with similar programs in other states, you know "opt-out" doesn't mean "hands-off."

If this all sounds familiar, it should. This bill largely mirrors paid leave frameworks already in place across a growing number of states. Ohio is starting to look like the outlier.

So what should employers do now? Don't panic. But don't ignore it either.

Start by pressure-testing your current leave policies against what's proposed. Look at your short-term disability, PTO, and FMLA practices. Model the financial hit of payroll contributions. If you offer generous benefits already, explore whether a private plan could make sense.

And if you operate in multiple states, brace for more complexity. Another jurisdiction means more coordination, more compliance risk, and more administrative lift.

Also worth watching: enforcement. The current draft is light on details, but expect anti-retaliation provisions, penalties, and agency oversight to show up as the bill evolves.

This isn't law. Not yet. But it's not nothing either.

Paid leave keeps coming back to the Ohio legislature. This version has bipartisan backing and a familiar blueprint. That combination makes it harder to dismiss.

Now is the time to get ahead of it. Loop in your HR team. Talk to your payroll provider. Start modeling costs and stress-testing your policies. And if you need help figuring out what this could mean for your business, reach out.

WIRTW #797: the 'compliment' edition

2026-05-01T06:47:00.075-04:00

What is the best professional compliment you can get?

For me, it's this: "You don't sound like a lawyer."

I hear this often. And every time, I take it as a win.

Because when someone says that, what they're really saying is this: you're clear. You're direct. You're understandable. You're not hiding behind jargon, hedging every sentence, or turning a simple idea into an explanation that we can't understand or a 500-word paragraph.

In other words, you're communicating.

Too many lawyers confuse complexity with intelligence. They speak and write like they're being graded by a law professor instead of heard or read by a business owner. They default to legalese because it feels safe. Precise. Familiar.

It's a massive barrier.

Clients don't hire lawyers to sound like lawyers. They hire us to solve problems, explain risk, and help them make decisions. None of that requires Latin phrases or sentences that run on for half a page.

In fact, the opposite is true. The more complicated the issue, the more valuable plain English becomes.

If your client has to read your email twice to understand it, you've already lost ground. If they have to ask you to explain in "plain English," you've already lost them. If they forward it to someone else (or an AI) with "Can you translate this?" you've missed the mark entirely.

Clarity isn't dumbing things down. It's doing the hard work of making the complex accessible. It's knowing your subject well enough to explain it simply.

That's my job.

So no, I don't want to "sound like a lawyer." I want to sound like someone my clients can understand.

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

Employment Agency Pushes Discrimination Cases That Match Trump's Agenda — via The New York Times

'New girls clubs' took on the old boys. Now Trump wants to ban them — via USA Today

7 stories about the state of DEI at the federal level — via HR Dive

Claude AI agent's confession after deleting a firm's entire database: 'I violated every principle I was given' — via The Guardian

Generative AI and Privilege: What Recent Court Decisions Mean for Your Company — via EntertainHR

The AI Layoff Trap — via Brett Hemenway Falk and Gerry Tsoukalas

When FMLA Has Impeccable Timing Around a Holiday, This is What Employers Shouldn’t Do. — via Jeff Nowak's FMLA Insights

Groovy! DOL Proposes New Joint Employment Test for FLSA and FMLA — via Who Is My Employee?

Why The Rules Exist — via Improve Your HR by Suzanne Lucas, the Evil HR Lady

ICE Reclassifies Common Form I-9 Errors as Substantive Violations — via Hiring To Firing Law Blog

What the ADA Requires When a Drug Test Flags a Legally Prescribed Medication — via Eric Meyer's Employer Handbook Blog

HHS seeks employee reassignments to tackle months-long reasonable accommodation backlog — via Federal News Network

Can You Get in Any Legal Trouble by Flipping the Bird to Gaudy Trump-Branded Properties? — via Above the Law

Minocqua Brewing Is Going Viral. Not For Their Beer. — via Beer Street Journal

This Was CBC26: Craft Brewers Conference® & BrewExpo America® Recap — via Brewers Association

In Philly, the Brewers Association Pilots Craft Beer’s Comeback Narrative — via VinePair

The 5th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Caucasian Chooser

2026-04-30T07:00:00.006-04:00

Dimerco Express USA didn't hide it. They didn't bury it in coded language. They didn't even pretend it was anything else.

They wanted to hire white employees—and they acted on it.

That directive came from the top. The company’s president pushed for "Caucasian" sales hires because he believed that’s who would best attract business. HR was expected to follow that lead. Recruiting reflected it. Internal materials reflected it. Candidate decisions reflected it.

And when someone inside the company raised the obvious issue—this is illegal discrimination—the response wasn't to stop.

It was to be more careful about saying it out loud.

An internal warning spelled it out in plain terms: if this ever becomes a lawsuit, these emails will lead to a "guilty verdict and large damage award."

The company didn't dispute that risk. It just wanted the language cleaned up.

Then came the real-world test.

Kenny Faulk applied. He had the credentials. He interviewed. He got the offer.

Then the company learned he was Black.

The offer was pulled.

The explanation given to Faulk pointed to a background issue. But internally, the story didn't hold. Because not long after, the company hired a white candidate with a more serious record—someone who got a chance to explain and was ultimately approved.

Same company. Same decision-maker. Same type of issue.

Different race. Different result.

And when HR asked why, the answer wasn't nuanced. The company wanted to hire white employees.

That's not a close call. That's not a miscommunication. That's not a poorly applied policy.

That's discrimination, carried out exactly as intended.

It was also repeated. The evidence showed a pattern of rejecting non-white candidates, reinforcing the same preferences, and continuing the practice even after internal warnings made clear it violated the law.

This wasn't a one-off decision. It was how the company operated.

A jury saw that and returned a verdict: $390,000 in compensatory damages and $3 million in punitive damages. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed it all, concluding the conduct was intentional, repeated, and reprehensible enough to justify significant punishment.

There's a lot of bad employer behavior out there. This one separates itself from the pack.

When you adopt a race-based hiring preference, enforce it, ignore internal warnings about its illegality, and then try to justify the outcome with shifting explanations, you're not just breaking the law.

You're making a statement about who you are as an employer.

And that's why Dimerco Express USA earns its place as the latest nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026.

Voluntary retirement incentives vs. age discrimination

2026-04-29T07:01:00.003-04:00

Microsoft just gave corporate America a new playbook for thinning the ranks without ever uttering the words "layoff" or "older workers."

For the first time in its 51-year history, Microsoft is offering a voluntary retirement program. The eligibility formula? Your age plus your years of service must equal at least 70.

Do the math and the story tells itself. The youngest realistic participant is someone around 45 with 25 years at the company. In other words, this is a program designed—intentionally or not—to target older, long-tenured employees.

And just to make things more interesting, senior directors and above need not apply. This is aimed squarely at the middle layers of the organization.

So, is this illegal age discrimination?

Not so fast.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers age 40 and over. But it does not prohibit employers from offering voluntary early retirement incentives—even ones that disproportionately appeal to older employees. These programs have been around for decades, often built on similar "age + service" formulas (think the old "Rule of 80" in pension plans).

The law even provides a roadmap for how to do this correctly. The Older Workers Benefit Protection Act allows these programs so long as they are truly voluntary and include specific safeguards—clear disclosures, time to consider the offer, encouragement to consult counsel, and a revocation period after signing.

That's the legal framework Microsoft is almost certainly relying on.

But legality on paper doesn't end the analysis.

Because here's where things get risky.

If "voluntary" starts to feel like "you really should take this," the legal exposure changes. If managers subtly (or not so subtly) steer older workers toward the exit, or if those who decline find themselves sidelined, marginalized, or selected for future layoffs, plaintiffs' lawyers will have a field day.

Intent matters. Execution matters more.

There's also something undeniably strategic about the structure. By using a neutral-sounding formula—age plus years of service—Microsoft doesn't have to say anything about age. The math does the talking. And by excluding senior leadership, the company avoids losing its top executives while still reshaping the broader workforce.

Smart? Yes.

Risk-free? Not even close.

And here's the bigger takeaway for employers: when Microsoft moves, others tend to follow. Expect to see variations of this program pop up across industries, especially among companies looking to reduce costs without the optics (or morale hit) of layoffs.

Before you copy and paste, though, understand this: these programs are lawful only if you get the details right. The paperwork, the communications, the training of managers—all of it matters. A poorly executed "voluntary" program can quickly turn into an Exhibit A in an age discrimination lawsuit.

Microsoft may have found a clever way to thread the needle.

Time will tell whether others can do the same without getting stuck on it.

The 4th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2026 is … The Disability Turkey

2026-04-28T06:51:00.001-04:00

A longtime employee tells her employer she has breast cancer. She needs time off—intermittent leave—to undergo chemotherapy and recover. The company sends her to a third-party benefits administrator. She and her daughter try to navigate the system. They file a claim. They call. They follow up.

Nothing happens.

Instead, the absences pile up. The attendance points accrue. Even with doctor's notes.

She shows up to work, scans her badge at the door... and it doesn't open.

That's how she learns she's been fired—for missing work to treat her cancer.

If the EEOC's allegations are true, this case isn't just about a failure to accommodate. It's about an employer that checked out entirely.

According to the complaint, Marie Marc worked for Butterball for more than a decade, starting in 2013. She speaks almost exclusively Haitian Creole and often relied on her daughter to communicate with the company.

When she was diagnosed with breast cancer in August 2023, she did what the law expects. She notified her employer. She asked for leave for treatment. The company's response? Call Voya.

So she did. With her daughter's help, she tried to request leave. Voya pushed her to an online system. She filed what she was told to file.

And—according to the EEOC—no leave request was ever opened.

Meanwhile, Butterball did exactly what the ADA forbids: it treated cancer-related absences like ordinary attendance violations. It assessed points. It issued a final warning. And when chemotherapy forced her to miss additional shifts, it terminated her for exceeding the policy limits.

It gets worse.

The company didn't even tell her she was fired. It removed her from the schedule, terminated her, and left her to figure it out when her badge stopped working.

And when she finally met with HR—after showing up and being locked out—she brought yet another doctor's note and again asked for leave.

The answer was still no.

This is ADA 101. Cancer is a disability. Time off for chemotherapy is a textbook reasonable accommodation. Attendance policies must bend when the law requires it.

What should have happened here? A simple, good-faith interactive process: What do you need? When? For how long? How can we make this work?

Instead—if these allegations prove true—Butterball chose bureaucracy over humanity, rigidity over compliance, and termination over accommodation.

That's how you end up with an EEOC lawsuit alleging not just liability, but reckless indifference to federally protected rights.

And that's how you earn a nomination as the Worst Employer of 2026.

A beast of a harassment lawsuit

2026-04-27T06:45:00.007-04:00

Jimmy Donaldson, better known as YouTube's biggest star, MrBeast, is calling this lawsuit "clout-chasing," a grab for headlines and a payday.

Maybe.

But before you dismiss it, look at what's alleged—and what it says about two issues entirely within an employer's control.

The lawsuit, in brief.

Lorrayne Mavromatis, the former head of Instagram operations for MrBeast, claims she was a fast-rising employee, promoted twice in her first year, until she complained about sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.

According to her complaint, that's when things changed: she was transferred, demoted to a role where "careers go to die," and then fired less than three weeks after returning from maternity leave. She also alleges she was treated differently than male colleagues and that complaints about inappropriate conduct were minimized.

The company denies it all and says it has the "receipts."

We'll see.

But two structural issues jump off the page.

First, HR.

Reports indicate that MrBeast's mother served as head of HR.

Not illegal. Still a flashing red risk light.

HR must be a neutral, trusted channel—especially for complaints about leadership. Now ask yourself, how likely is an employee to report misconduct when HR is run by a close family member of the founder or the CEO?

Even if done well, the perception alone can chill complaints. And when complaints don't surface internally, they show up in lawsuits.

Smart employers build redundancy:

Multiple reporting channels
Paths outside the chain of command
Anonymous options
Third-party resources

If employees don't trust the system, you're not managing risk. You're stockpiling it.

Second, the handbook.

The complaint points to alleged language like this:

"It's okay for the boys to be childish" and "if talent wants to draw a dick on the white board… let them."

You can call it edgy or brand voice.

I call it culture.

Mavromatis's lawyer will call it "Exhibit A."

Handbooks aren't just culture decks. They're also evidence. They tell a jury what kind of workplace you chose to run. If your policies suggest crude or boundary-pushing behavior is acceptable, don't be surprised when someone claims that line was crossed and uses your own words to prove it.

The claims—harassment, retaliation, FMLA violations—will turn on disputed facts. These two issues, however, never should.

When employees don't trust HR, problems don't get reported, they get filed in lawsuits.

And when your handbook blurs the line between humor and harassment, you're the one who erased it and will be held responsible for it.

Poor Richard's Guide to Not Being a Professional Pessimist

2026-04-25T09:00:00.019-04:00

When my daughter was in high school, we fired her therapist.

Not because therapy doesn't work. Not because she didn't need help. But because the therapist insisted on something that was deeply counterproductive—an obsessive focus on the negative.

Every session circled the same drain. What was wrong. What hurt. What wasn't working. Week after week.

And guess what? She didn't get better.

At some point, it clicked for my wife and me: if all you do is stare into the darkness, don’t be surprised when that's all you see.

So we made a change. We found someone who helped her see the full picture—yes, the struggles, but also the wins, the growth, the things worth building on. That's when things started to shift.

I thought about that experience a lot this week in Philadelphia.

I was at the Craft Brewers Conference. Same event as last year. Same people as last year. Very different vibe than last year.

CBC 2025 felt like a funeral.

Breweries were closing at a record pace. Margins were getting squeezed. Then came the steel tariffs—an immediate gut punch to anyone relying on cans, kegs, or equipment. The uncertainty was suffocating. You could feel it in every conversation, every panel, every handshake.

No one knew what came next.

Fast forward one year.

CBC 2026 felt… Lighter. Airier. Hopeful.

Not naive. Not delusional. No one's pretending the challenges have magically disappeared. They haven't. Closures are still happening. Costs are still high. People are still drinking less beer. Competition isn't getting any easier.

But the tone has changed.

People are innovating. Adapting. Talking about opportunity instead of just survival.

Indeed, the Brewers Association made a conscious choice not to let this year's conference become a post-mortem. They didn't ignore the hard truths, but they refused to let the industry wallow in them.

Instead, they created space for optimism.

That matters.

Because culture—whether in a therapist's office or an entire industry—is shaped by what you choose to emphasize.

Focus exclusively on failure, and you'll breed paralysis.

Acknowledge the challenges but elevate the wins, and you create momentum.

This isn't about toxic positivity. It's about balance. It's about perspective. It's about giving people something to build on.

The craft beer industry continues to face significant headwinds. Anyone suggesting otherwise is either being disingenuous or not paying attention.

But there's also resilience. Creativity. Passion. And, yes, opportunity.

The light isn't lacking; you just have to step into it.