Morelli Ratner PC works with a wide variety of cases, but our primary focus is on:
When there are large numbers of claims associated with a single product, they may be part of a mass tort. It basically means that an act of negligence on the part of an individual or company resulted in injuring many people. Many factors are considered when deciding if a claim should be part of a mass tort.
From the American Constitution Society blog, a short video interview with Wal-Mart gender discrimination case lead plaintiff Betty Dukes.
In the interview, Dukes speaks to the day in court that she will not receive as part of the now-defunct class action, thanks to the Supreme Court decision decertifying the class.
“I feel that my rights have been violated and I want to address [that] openly and honestly in a court of law.”
Watch the interview here:
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Last month, Morelli Ratner PC won what is believed to be the largest verdict ever for a victim of sexual harassment - $95 million. The verdict has resounded far and wide and sent an important message to employers that they have an affirmative duty to prevent the sexual harassment and assault of employees in the workplace. Here’s a roundup of some of the voluminous media coverage of the case, including national wire services, legal media, local and national newspapers, local TV, blogs, and international media:
Today in the Times, Binyamin Appelbaum and Sheryl Gay Stolberg report on the politics of sexual harassment and supervisor-subordinate sexual relationships at the International Monetary Fund. In light of the accusations of rape against recently-resigned IMF managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, other women who have crossed paths with Strauss-Kahn in recent years have begun speaking out about their experiences with him. While DSK faces new accusations of an earlier attempted rape against a young French journalist, his arrest and indictment this week has also prompted a re-examination of his relationship with a subordinate at the IMF several...
In this week’s cover story in New York magazine, Wesley Yang describes the “bamboo ceiling” for Asian-Americans in corporate America. It might be understood, writes Yang, as “an invisible barrier that maintains a pyramidal racial structure throughout corporate America, with lots of Asians at junior levels, quite a few in middle management, and virtually none in the higher reaches of leadership.”
Yang notes that Asian-Americans as a group are rising to the top of undergraduate academic achievement, without seeing commensurate gains in the business world. While Asian-Americans are statistically overrepresented...
Morelli Ratner is preparing to go to trial in federal court in the Southern District of Illinois, in a particularly egregious case involving sexual harassment, assault and battery, retaliation, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligence. Last week, in Alford v. Aaron Rents Inc., the federal judge on the case denied the defense’s motion for summary judgment, ruling that the case presents triable issues of fact, to be decided on by a jury.
The case represents a nightmare scenario for any employee. The employee in this case was repeatedly harassed and led to believe that her continued employment required submitting to the unwanted sexual advances of her superior. She was also sexually assaulted on...
Attorney General Eric Holder’s announcement, late last month, that the Obama administration would no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act in federal court, marked an important turning point for equal rights. Holder’s letter addresses the question of marriage equality, but the reasoning (and the ramifications) of the letter extend clearly into employment discrimination law as well. Holder’s announcement has encouraged many lawyers, activists, and policy-makers to think more concertedly about the eventual outlawing – at the federal level – of employment discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. (It is already illegal in some states and municipalities around the country, including New York City...
Morales v. American Apparel sounds like a 19th-century novel dramatizing the power businesses and employers hold over workers: An 18-year old female worker was allegedly forced into unwanted sexual activity for months, in order to keep her job. She suffered a nervous breakdown but kept coming back because she had financial obligations and couldn’t find other work. She may not be able to sue for damages, however, because the company in question requires all employees to sign away their rights to a jury trial in their at-will employment contract. Arbitration tends to favor employers over employees. You might think that subjecting a worker to effective sex slavery would obviate such an agreement, by crossing...
It was the best of times (for corporations). And the worst of times (for workers and the unemployed). While U.S. corporations are back to making pre-recession-level gargantuan profits, the same companies have yet to evince much interest in helping put America back to work. The recession is over for CEOs and bankers, while a disturbingly high number of workers are still out looking for work.
As if the situation wasn’t dire enough for laid-off workers and folks who are struggling as they attempt to enter the workforce for the first time (teenagers and those who have recently attended high school and college), there’s mounting evidence that employers are discriminating against those who are currently unemployed.
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“By order of this Court, New Haven, a city in which African-Americans and Hispanics account for nearly 60 percent of the population, must today be served – as it was in the days of undisguised discrimination – by a fire department in which members of racial and ethnic minorities are rarely seen in command positions. In arriving at this order, the Court barely acknowledges the pathmarking decision in Griggs v. Duke Power Co., 401 U.S. 424 (1971), which explained the centrality of the disparate-impact concept to effective enforcement of Title VII. The Court’s order and opinion, I anticipate, will not have staying power.”
-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, dissenting opinion, Ricci v. DeStefano (...
Last month, I wrote about Thompson v. North American Stainless, a case in which a female employee filed a gender discrimination complaint with the EEOC. Three weeks after her employer learned of her complaint, the employer fired her fiancé, purportedly without cause. Retaliating against an employee who files a discrimination complaint is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but reprisals against such an employee’s close associates have been a gray area. The Supreme Court took the case to decide whether the employer’s punitive actions against the future spouse constituted illegal retaliation, and if...
