Your plant's first shift starts at 6:00 a.m. But you tell everyone to be at the door by 5:45, ready to work.

Most mornings, the supervisor unlocks the building on time. About once a week, he doesn't. The time clock is inside. So employees stand in the parking lot for fifteen minutes, unpaid.

Do you owe them for that time?

According to the 2nd Circuit, quite possibly.

In Santos v. Lidl US, a grocery clerk alleged that Lidl required her to report fifteen minutes before her 5:00 a.m. shift. But managers weren't always there to unlock the store. She couldn't clock in until someone let her in. About once a week, she lost fifteen minutes of pay, sometimes at overtime rates.

The district court dismissed her claim under the Portal-to-Portal Act, which generally excludes preliminary activities from compensable working time.

The 2nd Circuit reversed because there's a difference between "waiting to be engaged" and being "engaged to wait."

If an employee voluntarily shows up early, that waiting generally isn't compensable. But if you require an employee to report ready to work, and something beyond their control prevents work from starting, that waiting time is compensable.

Lidl argued that Supreme Court precedent foreclosed that conclusion and that the rule applied only to on-call workers, like firefighters. The court rejected both arguments.

It also refused to dismiss fifteen minutes a week as de minimis. Small doesn't automatically mean insignificant, particularly when the time is recurring and trackable.

Judge Sullivan dissented, reasoning that the waiting wasn't integral to Santos's job and that she could have arrived at her scheduled start time.

This wasn't a final judgment. Santos still must prove her allegations. But her FLSA collective action and New York wage claims are back in play.

So what should employers do?

If you don't need employees there fifteen minutes early, don't require it.

You don't get to control when employees show up, keep them waiting, and then pretend their time doesn't count just because the door is locked. 

"I didn't know women just dress like whores now?"

That was one of the punchlines from Shane Gillis's Saturday Night Live monologue this past weekend. The studio audience groaned. Gillis just kept on going.

Now imagine your regional sales manager saying it in Monday's staff meeting. Same words. Same smirk. Very different exposure.

Gillis isn't your employee, and nobody's filing a lawsuit over a monologue. But it's the premise that's the problem. A woman's clothes are never an invitation for men to judge her body. The men doing the judging are the ones in the wrong.

That attitude doesn't stay on a stage. And a stage that big gives it license to walk into your workplace and sit down in the break room.

Defenders will say it's just a joke. That's how this stuff survives. A joke sets the rules of the room faster than any handbook. Everyone hears what's acceptable, and then tests whether anyone will push back.

The woman who hears it learns two things in about four seconds. What he thinks of her. And that nobody is going to say anything.

One joke usually isn't actionable harassment. Title VII and state law require conduct that's severe or pervasive. But it's never really one joke. It's the first one.

And when the claim finally lands on your desk, the question won't be who told the joke. It will be what you did when you found out.

That's where employer liability lives. Not in the punchline. In the silence after it.

Dan Levy called the joke out on Instagram and argued that men, in particular, need to speak up and speak out against misogyny. That goes double at work.

Supervisors don't get to laugh along, and they don't get to stay quiet. Say something in the moment. Report it afterward. And make sure your training says out loud that "it was just a joke" isn't a defense. It's an admission that someone said it.

The SNL studio audience groaned. In your workplace, someone needs to do way more than that.

"So sensitive."

That was a television network owner's reply after a pastor told him, in writing, to stop sending a meme the pastor called racist. It's also a terrible defense to a harassment claim.

Bishop George Bloomer (Black) hosted a show on the Word Network, owned by Kevin Adell (White). Adell showed Bloomer a meme of the network's preachers, drawn as tiny figures, surrounding Adell dressed as a pimp. Bloomer texted back that it was "not funny" and compared it to putting a black face on a white man.

Adell kept going. He sent Bloomer's face from the meme and called him "Tattoo." He sent a photo of himself with a white man whose face was scribbled over in black marker.

Bloomer finally wrote that he was asking "for the last time." Adell answered: "OK!!!!" "Got it." "So sensitive." "WTF."

Bloomer later quit and sued for race discrimination and harassment. The court has already held that Adell's taunting after Bloomer objection is direct evidence of racial animus. A federal court jury is currently hearing the evidence, and it will have the final say as to whether that direct evidence supports a verdict in Bloomer's favor.

Adell's defense at trial is essentially friendship. His lawyer says the two men teased each other for years. Adell testified that Bloomer ribbed him about his clothes and his Jewish heritage, and "I didn't take offense to it." His lawyer's summary: "They both crossed the line."

Notice that framing, and what it asks the jury to ignore.

Harassment has to be unwelcome, and the test is what the plaintiff found unwelcome, not what the defendant can tolerate. Adell's thick skin doesn't set Bloomer's limit. And Bloomer told him where it was, in writing.

Banter may explain showing him the meme. It doesn't explain the texts after he was asked to 'stop.'

Every workplace has a version of this. "That's just how we joke around here." Maybe. But a history of joking doesn't turn an objection into a punchline.

Jokes are "just jokes" until they aren't. Before someone objects, a bad joke is a bad joke. After, it's evidence of intent.

If someone tells you to stop, stop. Especially if you own the place. Adell told Bloomer he "got it." He didn't. And now a jury will decide whether he pays, and how much.

Somewhere, George Orwell is shaking his head.

This week, a Florida school board voted to remove a graphic-novel adaptation of 1984 from a school library.

Yes, 1984. The dystopian novel about censorship, government control, and the manipulation of information.

And yes, during Banned Books Week.

You can't make this stuff up.

To be fair, the Duval County School Board didn't ban Orwell's original novel. The district's roughly 200 copies remain available. The board removed its sole copy of Fido Nesti's illustrated adaptation because of concerns about its sexual imagery.

That distinction matters. But so does the irony.

Orwell gave us "Big Brother," "thoughtcrime," and "doublethink" to describe a world in which authorities control information and decide which ideas people are permitted to encounter.

Eighty-seven years after the fictional events of 1984, a Florida school board is debating which version of 1984 its students should be permitted to read.

I understand that schools have a responsibility to consider age-appropriate materials. Parents should have a voice in their children's education. And reasonable people can disagree about where to draw those lines.

But there's also a difference between protecting children from inappropriate content and deciding that the best response to uncomfortable ideas or images is to make them disappear.

Orwell understood that distinction. That's part of what makes this story so remarkable.

Perhaps the most important lesson of 1984 isn't what happens when a government controls what people can read.

It's why we should remain skeptical whenever anyone decides that less access to information is the answer.

---

Here's what I read this week that you should read, too. 

Maybe Don't Ask ChatGPT How to Make Emails Disappear During Litigation Eric Meyer's Employer Handbook Blog  

Beyond the Prompt: The AI Sandwich and Other Practice Tips for Litigators Privacy & Data Security Insights

McDonald's sued for alleged antitrust violations by using AI tool to determine pricing for franchises The Guardian

Sirius XM beats allegations of AI-fueled racial bias HR Dive

Authenticity Is Still Key — and Lawyers Can Start by Listening Real Lawyers Have Blogs

Your Workforce Isn’t Fighting AI. It’s Drawing the Blueprint for It. Harvard Business Review

The Customer Isn't Always Right. Sometimes Great Managers Tell Them to Leave Improve Your HR by the Evil HR Lady, Suzanne Lucas

EEOC Set To Revoke Guidance On Workers' Criminal History Law360

Stop Treating FMLA Certifications as If They are a Hard Cap on Leave! Jeff Nowak's FMLA Insights

Can DEI Survive Under Another Name? The Chief Organizer Blog 

US bars Microsoft, Adobe, and major IT firms from green card program for skilled foreign workers TechCrunch

I can’t fire a terrible employee Ask a Manager 

174 Layoffs Expected Next Month Due to Baltimore Guinness Open Gate Brewery Closure Brewbound  

Consider this workplace hypothetical.

Bob manages Department A. He can hire, fire, discipline, and promote employees in Department A.

Jane works in Department B. Bob isn't in Jane's chain of command. He doesn't supervise her, evaluate her, control her pay, recommend discipline, or otherwise have any meaningful say over her employment.

Bob sexually harasses Jane.

Is the company automatically on the hook because Bob is a supervisor? No.

Under Title VII, the question isn't whether Bob supervises someone. It's whether Bob is a supervisor over Jane.

That's an important distinction because the answer determines the standard for employer liability.

In Vance v. Ball State University, the Supreme Court drew a relatively bright line. An employee is a "supervisor" for Title VII harassment purposes only when the employer has empowered that person to take a tangible employment action against the victim — hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, significantly reassigning, or otherwise materially changing the victim's employment status.

So, back to Bob and Jane.

Bob may be a supervisor organizationally. He may have direct reports. He may even have "Vice President" printed on his business card.

But if he has no such authority over Jane, Title VII generally treats him as Jane's coworker, not her supervisor.

The 6th Circuit made this point crystal clear in EEOC v. AutoZone, Inc. There, the alleged harasser was a store manager who could direct employees' work, initiate discipline, make recommendations, and even hire some hourly employees. Yet he could not take tangible employment actions against the employees he actually harassed.

That wasn't enough. As the court put it, the fact that the manager could hire other employees didn't matter. He "could not and did not hire the employees he harassed, and that's what matters under Vance."

A brand-new California case reaches essentially the same conclusion under that state's harassment law.

In Doe v. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., decided just this week, the alleged harasser was a senior employee whom the plaintiff considered influential. She argued that strict employer liability should apply because he supervised other employees. The court rejected that argument: when someone supervises other people but has no supervisory authority over the plaintiff, "as to the plaintiff, the harasser is a coworker." 

The court was explicit that strict liability did not apply where the alleged harasser wasn't the plaintiff's supervisor and merely supervised other employees.  

This distinction matters because it dramatically changes the liability rules.

If Bob were Jane's supervisor, and his harassment resulted in a tangible employment action against her, the employer would be vicariously liable. If there were no tangible employment action, the employer could avoid liability only through the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense.

But because Bob isn't Jane's supervisor, the coworker-harassment negligence standard applies instead. Jane must show that the employer knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to take prompt and appropriate corrective action. Vance expressly preserves that negligence framework for harassers who don't qualify as the victim's supervisors.

There is one important caution.

Org charts aren't everything. An employer can't necessarily avoid supervisor liability by reserving the final signature on hiring, firing, or discipline to somebody higher up. In Kramer v. Wasatch County Sheriff's Office, the 10th Circuit recognized that someone may qualify as a supervisor when the employer has effectively delegated significant employment authority to that person - for example, when evaluations or recommendations actually drive promotion, discipline, reassignment, or termination decisions. 

But mere influence isn't enough. AutoZone rejected the idea that the ability to persuade a decisionmaker automatically transforms someone into the victim's supervisor.

In these cases, the right question isn't, "Is the harasser a manager?" It's, "What authority did the harasser have over this employee?"

Who could hire Jane? Who could fire her? Who controlled her promotions, discipline, pay, significant assignments, and benefits? Whose recommendations were effectively rubber-stamped?

Those facts determine whether Title VII treats the harassment as supervisor harassment, triggering vicarious liability rules, or coworker harassment, governed by a negligence standard.

That doesn't mean employers get a pass when a manager harasses someone outside their reporting line. If the employer knew or should have known about the harassment and failed to respond appropriately, liability can still follow.

But when the issue is vicarious liability, titles alone don't decide the case. Bob's business card may say "manager." The more important question is whether, under Title VII, he was Jane's manager.

"4x per month for 1 day" is a lawsuit written in shorthand. Manchester City, one phishing email, and 114 reasons to train your employees "Can I bring my dog to work?" Emotional support animals and the ADA WIRTW #812 (the 'shiny and new' edition) Some things should be left unseen