The facts in Sharpe-Miller v. Walmart read less like a judicial opinion and more like an HR nightmare.

An assistant store manager allegedly told a gay employee, "Good—if homosexuals got any more rights, then we might as well legalize pedophilia and bestiality."

Coworkers regularly called him "f****ft," "butt pirate," and "Jerry the fairy." They mocked his walk, joked that he was "afraid to break a nail," made limp-wrist gestures whenever he passed, and one even called him a "pedophile."

Then someone drew a picture on the breakroom whiteboard with "F***T" scrawled across the figure's forehead.

When the employee reported it, his supervisor's response was to erase the drawing and say, "Boys will be boys."

The district court nevertheless dismissed his hostile work environment claim on summary judgment.

Earlier this week, the 10th Circuit reversed.

The opinion is worth reading because it corrects several common misconceptions about hostile work environment law. Most importantly, the court rejected the notion that harassment must amount to a "steady barrage" of discriminatory comments before it becomes actionable. That phrase has appeared in prior cases, but, as the 10th Circuit explained, it is descriptive—not a legal requirement. The governing standard remains the Supreme Court's familiar rule: harassment is unlawful if it is severe or pervasive enough to alter the terms and conditions of employment.

Those two words matter, and mean exactly what they say.

An employee doesn't need to endure daily abuse if a handful of incidents are sufficiently severe. Comparing homosexuality to pedophilia. Calling a gay employee a pedophile. Writing a slur across a drawing in a workplace breakroom. A reasonable jury could conclude that conduct crosses the line even if it wasn't constant.

The opinion also corrects several evidentiary mistakes that employers and lawyers sometimes make.

The district court dismissed comments about the employee's "cat walk," swaying hips, and being "afraid to break a nail" as unrelated to sexual orientation. The 10th Circuit disagreed. A jury could reasonably view those comments as mocking stereotypes associated with gay men, especially when considered alongside the explicit anti-gay slurs.

The court also explained that anonymous comments can still matter, remarks directed at others can still shape the workplace environment, and discriminatory slurs are not hearsay when they're offered simply to prove they were spoken rather than for the truth of what they assert.

Perhaps the most significant part of the opinion addresses an issue the 10th Circuit had never squarely decided before. The court held that discrete employment actions—such as a demotion or termination—can also be considered as part of a hostile work environment claim when they contribute to the overall pattern of discriminatory harassment. Those acts don't disappear from the analysis simply because they might also support separate discrimination claims.

For employers, the practical lessons are straightforward.

First, train your supervisors. More employment cases are lost because of a supervisor's offhand comment than because of a complicated legal issue.

Second, never respond to workplace harassment with "boys will be boys." That phrase doesn't end investigations. It creates lawsuits.

Third, don't assume hostile work environment claims require relentless, daily harassment. Sometimes a few extraordinarily offensive incidents are enough.

And if those incidents are ignored or condoned by management, don't be surprised when a jury—not a judge—gets to decide what happens next.

Another day, another sanctions opinion involving a lawyer who filed AI-generated legal work product riddled with hallucinated cases.

This time, it's the 11th Circuit.

The court's opinion reads like something that should be satire but unfortunately isn't. Counsel submitted an opening brief citing at least eight nonexistent cases. After opposing counsel pointed out the problem, he tried to fix it by withdrawing the bad citations. Except the eight cases he "withdrew" weren't the same eight fake cases from his opening brief.

Worse still?

The replacement list consisted of eight more hallucinated cases.

You almost couldn't script it better.

The 11th Circuit responded exactly as it should have. It reminded lawyers that competence requires "legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation." It emphasized that AI is no substitute for actual intelligence. And it referred the attorney for disciplinary proceedings.

Good.

But here's what bothers me about the inevitable reaction to opinions like this.

People will say, "See? AI is dangerous."

No. That's the wrong lesson.

AI didn't file the brief.

The lawyer did.

AI is an extraordinary tool. But it never replaces my judgment. Nor should it.

I would never file a brief without manually checking every citation and every quotation. I don't care whether those citations came from ChatGPT, Lexis, Westlaw, a first-year associate, or my own memory.

Verification is the job.

In fact, this isn't really an AI problem at all. It's the same professional obligation lawyers have always had.

When Lexis or Westlaw gives me a case, I Shepardize it before relying on it. I confirm that the quotation actually says what I claim it says. I make sure the proposition I'm citing is still good law.

That's not because I distrust Lexis or Westlaw. It's because I'm the one signing the brief. AI deserves exactly the same treatment.

The lawyers getting sanctioned aren't victims of unreliable technology. They're victims of their own willingness to skip the last—and most important—step in the process. They accepted the first answer a machine gave them without exercising independent professional judgment.

That's not innovation. That's laziness.

Every time another sanctions opinion like this gets published, it reinforces the false narrative that AI is incompatible with competent lawyering.

The opposite is true.

Lawyers who learn how to use AI responsibly will have a significant advantage over those who don't. They'll work more efficiently, spot more issues, and deliver better value to clients.

But only if they remember one simple rule: AI can draft your brief. It cannot sign your name.

And that's why the responsibility—for every citation, every quotation, every argument, and every word filed with a court—will always belong to the lawyer, not the software.

Apple's newly filed trade secret lawsuit against OpenAI contains an allegation that should make every employer's ears perk up.

According to the complaint, multiple departing Apple employees allegedly emailed Apple's confidential information to their personal email accounts on their way out the door. Apple also claims that some former employees later used Apple's confidential and trade secret information to help OpenAI develop competing hardware.

Whether Apple ultimately proves those allegations is for the courts to decide.

But the behavior it describes is one of the oldest—and most obvious—red flags in the employee-theft playbook.

When someone suddenly starts forwarding company files to Gmail the week before resigning, odds are they're not creating a personal scrapbook.

The good news is that employees who steal information often leave breadcrumbs. The key is knowing what to look for.

I love to travel. It's not just about the places you see or the things you do. It's also about the people you meet.
Workplace Investigations: Five Key Takeaways, Part One, Part Two, and Part Three — via Employment Law Worldview

Time to Talk about "The Rizz" — via Robin Schooling

The End of Independent Federal Agencies Will Change Your Business — via Harvard Business Review

Last week, The New York Times published a deeply reported investigation alleging that Donald Trump personally intervened with FIFA President Gianni Infantino to have U.S. striker Folarin "Flo" Balogon’s red card suspended so he could play in the United States' World Cup Round of 16 match against Belgium.

Whether you're a soccer fan or not almost doesn’t matter.

The allegation is what matters.

The President of the United States allegedly used the weight of his office to influence what should have been an independent disciplinary decision. And according to the report, it worked.

That's not just a sports story. It's also a workplace investigation story.

One of the quickest ways to undermine an internal investigation is for someone with power to signal what outcome they want before the facts have been gathered.

It doesn't have to be as dramatic as a president calling the head of FIFA.

It can be the CEO who tells HR, "I know she's lying."

Or the founder who says, "He's too valuable to lose."

Or the executive who reminds everyone that the accused employee "has always been loyal to this company."

Once that happens, the investigation isn't really about finding the truth anymore. It’s about justifying a preferred outcome.

Employees notice.
Witnesses notice.
And if the matter ends up in litigation, juries notice too.

I've defended countless employment cases over the years. One theme appears over and over again: plaintiffs don't just attack the employer's decision. They also attack the integrity of the process that produced it.

They ask who made the decision.
Who influenced the decision.
Whether HR was actually independent.
Whether investigators interviewed the right witnesses.
Whether evidence that favored the employee was ignored.
Whether similarly situated employees were treated differently because someone important wanted a particular result.

Those questions matter because courts and juries understand something every workplace leader should understand: A fair process is often just as important as the ultimate decision.

When investigations appear predetermined, employers create problems that extend far beyond the individual case.

They lose credibility with employees.

They discourage people from reporting misconduct because they believe the outcome is already decided.

Managers stop trusting HR.

And in litigation, what might have been a defensible termination suddenly looks like retaliation, discrimination, favoritism, or pretext.

The legal issue often isn't that someone with authority participated in the decision. Senior leaders are supposed to make important decisions.

The problem is when that authority becomes improper influence.

HR and investigators need enough independence to follow the evidence wherever it leads—even if the facts point in an uncomfortable direction or involve a high-performing executive, a rainmaker, or someone the CEO likes.

Good investigations don't ask, "What outcome does leadership want?" They ask, "What actually happened?"

That’s the only question that protects the integrity of the process.

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