In Fry v. Napoleon Community Schools, 580 U.S. ____ (2017), the United States Supreme Court held that administrative exhaustion “is not necessary when the gravamen of the plaintiff’s suit is something other than the denial of the [Individuals With Disabilities Education Act’s (“IDEA”)] core guarantee—what the Act calls a ‘free and appropriate public education.’” The […]
On February 13, 2017, a federal appellate court stayed all briefing in an appeal from an Ohio federal district court order directing an Ohio school district to permit a transgender student, who is biologically male but professes a female gender identity, access to a bathroom consistent with her gender identity. As we reported in our […]
On February 10, 2017, President Donald J. Trump’s Administration dropped the federal government’s challenge to a nationwide injunction prohibiting the United States Department of Education (“Department”) from enforcing its interpretation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (“Title IX”) regarding bathroom access for transgender students. As reported in our August 21, 2016 blog, […]
The case of Hilbert v. Ohio Dept. of Transp., 2017-Ohio-488, presents the simple question of whether an employer unlawfully interferes with an employee’s Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) leave by terminating his employment before he can exercise his rights under the FMLA leave. The obvious answer to this question should, hopefully, be an emphatic, “Yes!” […]
In the case of State ex rel. Mun. Constr. Equip. Operators’ Labor Council v. Ohio State Emp. Relations Bd., 2017-Ohio-448, an Ohio appellate court upheld an order from the State Employment Relations Board (“SERB”) directing its representation section to proceed with a mail-ballot election to select new union representation for a bargaining unit after the […]
In the case of Anderson v. Warren Local School Dist. Bd. of Edn., 2017-Ohio-436, an Ohio appellate court found that a school district was entitled to governmental immunity for surface water runoff from a maintenance building. In doing so, the appellate court clarified the definition of “sewer system” for purposes of governmental immunity – or […]