Do you have to treat transgendered job applicants differently? Which box, if any, do you check on the application—male or female? And what special laws must you know about?

When does insensitive teasing turn into an illegal hostile work environment that violates Title VII of the federal Civil Rights Act? One court said that while individual incidents may be viewed as singular events, courts will view all incidents “as a whole” when deciding if they add up to unlawful harassment ...

If your organization leases temporary employees from an agency, what should you do if one of them complains she’s being harassed? Who should do the investigation—your organization or the temp agency? A new ruling says that even though temps aren’t your employees, you’d better take quick action to investigate the situation and stop the conduct—and the agency should do the same.

Every school has a class clown. So, it seems, does every workplace. Sometimes, those jokesters cleverly craft their double entendres so they can be taken either way … sexual or not sexual. But a new court ruling says enough of those coy games ...

Does your company have a written progressive disciplinary policy? Do you and your supervisors follow it step by step--like a recipe? A new court ruling says that if you don’t, you could whipping up a recipe for disaster and liability under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) ...

Memories fade and employees come and go. That’s why it’s crucial to retain certain records for future reference. Among the records you should keep forever are past organizational charts that show who had supervisory authority over other employees ...

Basing hiring decisions on the prejudices of your customer base is a sure way to land in court. Hiring managers can’t try to push off their bias onto a third party using excuses like “Our customers feel more comfortable dealing with [male or younger or white] employees.” That just won’t fly in court...

Are your managers giving you only half the story when recommending a termination? Watch out! As a new court ruling says, this kind of “willful ignorance” on your part is no defense to discriminatory conduct ...

Can a boss hire or promote people simply because he has a religious obligation to “help his own?” Can managers incorporate their religious beliefs when making employment decisions?

Does your company have a written progressive disciplinary process? If so, do your managers and supervisors always follow it fairly and consistently? One slip-up, as a new case shows, can smash your company in court ...

When was the last time you read your company’s reporting procedures? And where did you get it in the first place? Please don’t tell me you copied it from your previous employer’s handbook or, worse yet, pulled a “one-size-fits-all” policy off the Internet without customizing it. A new court ruling shows why you should take it out, dust it off and look it over closely...

If you thought only employees could put you on legal notice that harassment is occurring in your workplace, maybe it’s time you looked up … into the sky. A new court ruling says that “helicopter parents”—super-involved moms and dads who hover over their kids’ lives—can officially flip your notice switch, requiring you to take prompt effective action to stop the harassing conduct. If not, you’ll see them both in court ...

“Do that one more time and you’re through!” Have supervisors in your organization (or even you) uttered this phrase before? A new court ruling shows that if your firing threats are simply empty promises, be prepared to pay up in court ... even if you responded promptly and lawfully to the initial complaint.

Many companies have horribly confusing organizational charts—or no org charts at all. A new court ruling issues a stern warning to employers: If you want to avoid harassment liability, you’d better get your straight-edged ruler out and connect employees to their supervisors by name.

Ever have employees tell you they need time off for religious reasons? Or, that they won’t perform a certain task because it’s against their religion? Their managers may be tempted to yell “Clam up and get back to work,” but that’s an expensive reply, as two new court rulings show.

Overtime and harassment are big deals, but a less headline-grabbing risk—retaliation—may be an even bigger danger. And a new court ruling shows that employees who reach out to the police to report inter-office harassment can also earn legal protection from being fired or any other form of retaliation.

Does your organization have a policy requiring employees to retire (or step down to a lesser position) once they hit a certain unbecoming age? Does that sound like your strategic succession plan—push your working geezers and geezeretts out the door so younger workers can climb the ladder? If so, a groundbreaking $27.5 million EEOC settlement last week shows that you better retire those policies … not the people...

You’ve probably heard about this week’s big $11.6 million sexual harassment verdict against former basketball star and New York Knicks coach Isiah Thomas. The bad news: Your employees heard about it, too … and it planted a seed in their minds ...

Does your company allow employees to play music while they work? Do you ever pay attention to the words? The EEOC says maybe it’s time you plug in. Some companies that don’t monitor their employees’ choices in music just might be singing the “EEOC blues,” as the following case shows...

Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. That’s certainly true with the, um, “unique” religious discrimination case that comes to us this month from America’s heartland. The case hammers home a clear lesson: It’s never appropriate for company leaders to force employees to adhere to certain religious practice ...

Does your organization have a blanket policy of refusing to hire any applicant with a criminal record? If so, make sure you can explain exactly why. A recent Pennsylvania court ruling shows that across-the-board “no ex-cons” policies can quickly run into legal trouble unless you can prove the restriction for a specific position was “job-related and consistent with business necessity”...

Question: Think you’ve got a dysfunctional workplace? Take a stroll through the recent 6th Circuit ruling in Parker v. General Extrusions. The case describes a workplace in which Nancy Parker, one of the few female employees on the machine-shop floor, was repeatedly taunted, called names and physically harassed. The response from managers and HR ranged from mild rebukes to outright humor.

It used to be that you could keep your religious beliefs about sexual orientation to yourself. Not anymore. As a new court ruling shows, if you’re the defendant in a sexual-orientation discrimination lawsuit, a court may want to get inside your head in order to help prove WHY you are discriminating...

The right timing is an important thing in most contact sports … including layoffs. And suspicious timing is always a red flag to employees and to the courts, as new lawsuit against Boeing shows. If your organization suddenly changes its employee-scoring rules (to the employee’s detriment) prior to a layoff, it will undoubtedly raise eyebrows that something fishy is going on. The courts call it “pretext” for discrimination … your employees will call it something worse ...

When an employee says “No” to the sexual images posted in co-workers’ workstations and to their sexually laced comments, your company better listen … and act. It can’t become caught up in a debate over “how much” porn is acceptable. As a new lawsuit shows, even if an employee initially tolerates a sexually charged workplace, she can drop the lawsuit hammer at any time.