Today, we announced the addition of experienced attorney Steve Imm to our firm. Steve is a litigator with 30+ years of experience, and a deep focus on labor and employment law.
You may read more about Steve’s qualifications here.
We are thrilled to have Steve join our firm, and with the depth of experience he brings to “Make a Difference” for our clients.
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the landmark piece of federal legislation in the field of employment discrimination. The statute prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, and national origin. It does not specifically include “sexual orientation” among the types of discrimination it prohibits. Many attempts have been made over the years to add that language to the statute, but Congress has never done so.
Many state and local governments have chosen to outlaw employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation within their jurisdictions. But courts have consistently refused to interpret the federal civil rights statute as prohibiting discrimination against homosexuals.
But that may be changing. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission – the federal agency charged with enforcing the federal laws against employment discrimination – recently began taking the position that the prohibition against “sex” discrimination at least in some circumstances includes discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
Now the United States Court of Appeals for the7th Circuit has agreed to consider the issue. If the Court agrees with the position taken by the EEOC, it would be the first time a federal court of appeals – the Court just below the Supreme Court – has adopted this view. If other courts of appeals follow, it could open the floodgates to a great deal of new employment litigation.
I am often asked, by clients who are considering a lawsuit against a former employer, whether it can hurt them in their search for other employment. They are worried that potential new employers will find out that they have sued a previous employer, and that this will discourage employers from hiring them. Is this a realistic concern?
Yes and no. When a lawsuit is filed in court, it does normally become a matter of public record, meaning that someone searching for information about the parties to the suit could find out about it, even if there is no media coverage of the case. Many employers nowadays, especially larger ones, do comprehensive background checks on job applicants before hiring them. And some employers would be put off by the fact that an applicant has sued a previous employer.
I offer clients the following advice when asked about this. First of all, it is illegal for an employer to refuse to hire someone because they have asserted their rights under statutes prohibiting employment discrimination, even if those rights are asserted against a former, unrelated employer. Secondly, in my experience there are many employers that will not blackball otherwise well qualified applicants just because they have stood up for their rights in the past. Lastly, federal law provides that an employer has to obtain your written consent, and meet several Notice requirements, before it can obtain a background report on you from a third party agency or service.
Having said all that, it is not a bad idea to wait to file your case, if you can, until after you have found another job. Though your new employer may also find out about a past or existing suit, it is far less likely you will be fired for this reason after you have a new job, than that you will not be hired in the first place.
The most controversial employment law initiative of the Obama administration was its implementation of new rules governing overtime pay. The new rules were scheduled to go into effect December 1st. They would have the effect of raising the wages of millions of workers by doubling the amount a salaried worker must receive – to over $47,000 a year – in order to be considered exempt from the requirement that workers be paid overtime when they work more than 40 hours in a week.
The administration and labor advocates considered this a long overdue update that would provide a boost to the incomes of lower income “white collar” workers – people like assistant managers and administrative personnel. Some business groups strongly opposed the new rules, claiming they would greatly increase the cost of doing business and lead to layoffs.
Now the implementation of the new rules is in doubt. On November 22nd a federal judge in Texas issued an injunction, blocking the new rules from going into effect as scheduled. Essentially, the judge ruled the the administration did not have the authority to impose the new rules without the approval of Congress.
The Department of Labor will almost certainly appeal this decision, and the issue may ultimately have to be decided by the Supreme Court. There is also some question as to whether President-elect Trump will try to rescind at least some of the new rules. And Congress may act to change some of the new rules as well. So even if the rules survive the current court challenge, their ultimate fate is very much up in the air at this point.
Finney Law Firm is a growing firm that strives to make a difference in the greater Cincinnati area through their personal and professional work. Members of this firm have extensive experience in a broad range of legal services including business formation and development, litigation, real estate, estate planning and administration, commercial dispute resolution, criminal defense, bankruptcy, and public interest law. The desire is to represent clients, hire employees, and work with vendors who share in the Firm’s key standards of Integrity, Accountability, Communication, and Excellence.
Job Overview
As a growing company with offices in Eastgate and Mt. Adams, the Finney Law Firm seeks to hire a Legal Assistant to contribute to the success of the firm. The primary functions of this position will be to assist and support team of attorneys through all aspects of their practice. A desirable candidate will be able to successfully:
Required Skills and Abilities
How to Apply and Additional Information
Interested candidates should email a cover letter, resume, and references to Katherine Fox at katherine@finneylawfirm.isoc.net. A review of applications will begin immediately. This position is full time and benefits are available. For more information on the firm, please visit finneylawfirm.com.
We learned through a protracted and complicated process about the congressional ethics processes. It was a case we initiated and pursued with some limited degree of success against a sitting member of Congress many years ago.
What we learned is that there are two committees in Washington that have some jurisdiction over whether members of Congress violate the ethics rules that apply to them — the Office of Congressional Ethics and the House Ethics Committee. They have remarkable similar names, so much so that the public would be rightfully confused as to their identities and functions.
The Office of Congressional Ethics is a citizens oversight committee appointed by House leadership that more or less, on private complaints, makes “probable cause” findings for further consideration by the House Ethics Committee. The Congressional Ethics Committee consists of members of Congress. The Office of Congressional Ethics has a rich tradition of investigating and impartially referring meritorious matters to the House Ethics Committee for official action. But the House Ethics Committee is notorious for being the place where all complaints against members of Congress go to die. Some members of Congress thinks the Office of Congressional Ethics is too zealous in its pursuit of members of Congress and, specifically, object to the consideration of anonymous complaints and the pursuit of frivolous matters, requiring members of Congress to expend enormous sums defending themselves.
Yesterday, the U.S House GOP caucus preliminarily voted to significantly restrain the Office of Congressional Ethics — to clip its wings. Today, the same caucus abandoned that decision and left things as they are for now, and for a bipartisan decision on the fate of the Office to be made by the House Ethics Committee.
You may read the story of all of this by Dierdre Shesgreen of Gannett News and the Cincinnati Enquirer here.
It was hard to believe when the client told us her story. In 2015, the University of Cincinnati told 19-year-old Casey Helmicki, a pre-med student, that men and women were not allowed to group together in physics lab. She had even gone up the chain of command at UC to complain, to her professor, to her department chairman, and to the Title IX office, all to no avail.
We filed suit under Title IX, which prohibits sex-based discrimination in university programs,and achieved a relatively quick settlement for our client.
Today’s Cincinnati Enquirer covers the settlement today. You may read about that here.
One of Cincinnati’s most distinguished citizens — an accomplished inventor and scientist — passed yesterday with worldwide acclaim.
Dr. Henry Heimlich moved into the annals of history and medicine upon his death, and his significant accomplishments (which extend well beyond the Heimlich Maneuver) will endure for perpetuity.
But I knew him as a client and friend, and I can personally say it was an honor to have known him and worked with him.
He shared with me stories of his many accomplishments and how he conceived of his many life-saving inventions. It was remarkable how his mind worked, but one of the remarkable features as how simple and logic-based his thinking was. Some of the answers he conceived were right before our eyes, but only he saw them clearly.
That we all could think creatively, and simply, and so reasonably would be an asset to humanity.
RIP, Dr. Heimlich. Rest in peace.
Read more here.
Chris Finney is part of a distinguished panel of speakers who will present this Thursday and Friday, December 15th and 16th, 2016 at the Millennium Hotel: “Local Government Law from Start to Finish.”
The program is aimed at educating local government officials, county, municipal and township attorneys, as well as attorneys who litigate against government entities in Ohio and federal law addressing these entities.
Topics include (i) Public employment issues, (ii) Public records, (iii) open meetings, (iv) police misconduct, (v) public bidding, (vi) code enforcement aimed at blighted properties and nuisance properties, (v) billboard law, (vi) economic development finance, (vii) taxpayer actions and fee shifting, and (viii) government attorney ethics.
Mr. Finney will join Cincinnati Law Department attorney Terrance Nestor on Friday at 2:30 PM in presenting on Taxpayer Actions and Fee Shifting.
The class runs both Thursday and Friday from 9 AM until 4:30 PM and features numerous attorneys from Cincinnati’s Law Department as well as other municipal attorneys.
You may sign up for or learn more about the program here.
Today’s Journal-News features the settlement that resulted from this law firm’s suit under the Americans with Disabilities Act on behalf of an in-patient psychiatric facility seeking to locate into West Chester Township.
For more than six months following the client’s application for zoning approval, the Township stonewalled Dr. Mohammed Aziz from locating his facility into a former nursing home property, despite the clear language of the Americans with Disabilities Act requiring parity in the treatment of psychiatric patients with those with purely physical ailments. It is simply illegal to treat the facilities differently.
The reason for the law is obvious: Just as occurred in West Chester Township, psychiatric providers and patients nationwide routinely suffer repeated invidious discrimination as compared to other health care providers. In West Chester Township the township administration and some of the Trustees worked the citizenry into a frenzy with assorted falsehoods and canards. Then they imposed a moratorium on zoning approvals, targeting the new facility and preventing a zoning certificate from being issued to allow it to open.
Judge Timothy Black quickly addressed these issues once Finney Law Firm attorneys brought suit.
“Nothing is more satisfying, as an attorney, than to stand an over-reaching bureaucrat or elected official before a Federal judge and force him to explain his behavior,” said Chris Finney. “We are pleased that the law worked as intended in this instance.”
You may read the story here.
This is one more example of how we “make a difference” for our clients: Deep knowledge of the law, commitment to its proficient practice, and tenacity in pursuit of our clients’ objectives.