Court rules for worker over retaliation

Labor & Employment

The Supreme Court has ruled that workers who cooperate with internal investigations of retaliation by their employers are sheltered by federal laws prohibiting job discrimination.


In an opinion Monday, the justices held that a longtime school system employee in Tennessee can pursue a civil rights lawsuit over her firing.

The court voted unanimously to reverse the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling that the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act does not apply to employees who merely cooperate with an internal probe rather than complain on their own or take part in a formal investigation.

Vicky Crawford was fired in 2003 after more than 30 years as an employee of the school system for Nashville, Tenn., and Davidson County.

She did not file a complaint about harassment by a school official. But she said she had been subject to unwanted sexual advances when she was interviewed by investigators for the school system who were looking into other employees' allegations against the director of employee relations.

Crawford was fired months later. The official was not disciplined.

She filed a federal lawsuit, but it was dismissed by a federal judge and upheld on appeal.

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Grounds for Divorce in Ohio - Sylkatis Law, LLC

A divorce in Ohio is filed when there is typically “fault” by one of the parties and party not at “fault” seeks to end the marriage. A court in Ohio may grant a divorce for the following reasons:
• Willful absence of the adverse party for one year
• Adultery
• Extreme cruelty
• Fraudulent contract
• Any gross neglect of duty
• Habitual drunkenness
• Imprisonment in a correctional institution at the time of filing the complaint
• Procurement of a divorce outside this state by the other party

Additionally, there are two “no-fault” basis for which a court may grant a divorce:
• When the parties have, without interruption for one year, lived separate and apart without cohabitation
• Incompatibility, unless denied by either party

However, whether or not the the court grants the divorce for “fault” or not, in Ohio the party not at “fault” will not get a bigger slice of the marital property.

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