Rojgar Job News

My colleague, Gary Starr, returns this morning with a post on a recent case that has implications for employers nationwide. You wouldn’t think that fingerprinting would be brought into the world of religious accommodations. After all, the importance of background checks cannot be denied, particularly when the prospective employee is going to work with children or the elderly. Vulnerable populations need assurance that those with whom they will be dealing have their best interests at heart. Background checks, however, can raise strange issues for employers when the person asked to authorize a background check indicates that he/she has a religious objection to fingerprinting. In a recent federal case (download here), a bus driver, who was required to submit to a background check to retain her position, refused to undergo a fingerprint background check. She explained that it was her sincere religious belief that fingerprinting is the “mark of the devil” and that fingerpri...

On “Survivor”, one of my favorite broadcast TV shows (or, as my YouTube/Netflix watching teens might say — “what’s that?”) the notion of “immunity” plays a central role in the outcome of an episode. And in a decision released last week by the Connecticut Supreme Court, whether or not to grant immunity again plays a pivotal role for religious employers. In its unanimous decision, the court refused to grant outright immunity to a religious institution from an employment discrimination claim.  The case, Trinity Christian School v. CHRO , can be downloaded here. For religious institutions, the case serves as reminder that while the employment discrimination laws may be more limited in their impact (more on that in a second), seeking “immunity” from such claims is a step too far for the courts. In doing so, it’s helpful to note that the U.S. Supreme Court decided earlier this decade that the “ministerial exception...

One of the quirks of discrimination law in Connecticut concerns sexual orientation.  Back in 1991, the General Assembly passed a wide-ranging bill that added sexual orientation as one of the protected classes that employers could not base decisions on. Sort of. Rather than add sexual orientation to the key employment law statute that bars discrimination in employment, it created it’s own separate law.  While there may have been reasons for such a distinction nearly 30 years ago, it still a bit strange that we still do it this way. Notably, civil unions are still covered here even though same-sex marriages are now legal. So on to the next law in our Employment Law Checklist Project (#emplawchecklist).  You can find this one at Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 46a-81c (and related statutes.)  It states, in its relevant part: It shall be a discriminatory practice in violation of this section: (1) For an employer, by himself or his agent, except in the case of a bona fide occ...