Print This PageEmail This Page

Workplace Law

Workplace Law Publications

New in Print from the Workplace Law Program faculty at Denver Law

Dean Martin Katz critiques the Supreme Court’s rejection, in Gross v. FBL Financial Services, of the idea that different employment discrimination statutes using identical language impose identical requirements. That identical requirements standard, Dean Katz argues, guided the Court’s statutory interpretation for many years and made sense, for legal efficiency and as a guide to Congress’ intent. The rejection in Gross might indicate the Court’s reaction to congressional redefinition of discrimination, and it unwisely does away with the burden-shifting mechanism in ADEA cases where the plaintiff seeks to prove but-for causation. The correct course is for Congress to clearly state its intent that a unified standard should be applied. Gross Disunity, 114 PENN. ST. L. REV. 857

Rachel Arnow-Richman, Director of the Workplace Law Program, argues that current organization of market work, embodied in the 4/40 work week, does not serve the interests of caregivers and results from employers’ failure to recognize and implement accommodations benefiting caregivers that might also be cost-effective, benefiting employers as well. A statutory “right to request” would protect workers seeking accommodation from retaliation by requiring employers to consider such requests in good faith. Such a law, she writes, may inspire beneficial changes to work structure not achieved absent legal intervention. Incenting Flexibility: The Relationship Between Public Law and Voluntary Action in Enhancing Work/Family Balance, 42 Conn. L. Rev. 1081

A forty-year consensus among employee advocates and worklaw scholars proposes an end to employment at will in favor of a rule requiring just cause for termination. Professor Arnow-Richman argues this change in the law would be outdated and unwise in current times, and would grant too many workers too little protection. In today’s economy, termination law should seek to provide assistance to the great numbers of workers facing inevitable job loss for economic reasons. A “pay-or-play” system of employment termination, requiring employers to provide advance notice of termination or offer wages and benefits for the duration of the notice period, facilitates job transition by granting workers a window of income security during which they can comfortably search for the next opportunity. Just Notice: Re-Reforming Employment at Will, 58 UCLA L. Rev.

Nantiya Ruan identifies and finds troubling a trend in collective litigation brought by low-wage workers: As wage theft claims involving numerous plaintiffs precipitously rise, employers attem
to avoid liability by using “Rule 68” offers. They “pick off” named plaintiffs and avoid compensating all workers to whom they have failed to pay correct wages. Though federal case law denies applying Rule 68 in class actions, courts routinely permit the offers in collective action. Professor Ruan argues that in workplace cases this subverts judicial oversight of aggregate litigation and makes legal remedies unavailable for underrepresented groups. Facilitating Wage Theft: How Courts Use Procedural Rules to Undermine Substantive Rights of Low-Wage Workers. 63 Vand. L. Rev. 727 (2010).

In many Title VII religious discrimination cases, Roberto Corrada writes, there is good reason to integrate disparate treatment and accommodation cases. Where cases straddle the two frameworks, it is unwise and unnecessary to force each case into one or the other. To merge the two frameworks in a meaningful way would result in fewer negative consequences for plaintiffs in individual cases and would enhance uniformity and coherence of Title VII religion case doctrine. Professor Corrada’s analysis of the legislative history and EEOC regulations of the 1964 statute and the 1972 accommodation amendments supports this view. Toward an Integrated Disparate Treatment and Accommodation Framework for Title VII Religion Cases. 77 U. Cin. Law R. 1411 (2009)

Nantiya Ruan

Lawyering Process Professor and Director, Workplace Law Program

Writing Adviser, DU Bar Success Program

Rachel Arnow-Richman

Professor

Christine Cimini

Associate Professor

Roberto Corrada

Sturm College of Law Chair in Modern Learning and Professor

  • 2012 Update for Employment Discrimination Law: Cases and Materials on Equality in the Workplace, co-authored with Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros, Michael Selmi and Melissa Hart, American Casebook Series, Thomson West (August 2012).
  • 2012 Update for Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace, co-authored with enneth Dau-Schmidt, Martin Malin, Christopher Cameron-Ruiz and Catherine Fisk, Thomson West (August 2012).
  • Ricci’s Dicta: Signaling A New Standard for Affirmative Action Under Title VII?, forthcoming WAKE FOREST L. REV. 2011.
  • Synecdochic Perils and Opportunities for Latina/os in the Academy, 14 Harvard Latino Law Review 257 (2011).
  • Administrative Law: A Casebook, co-authored with Bernard Schwartz & Jay Brown, (7th ed. 2010, Aspen Law & Business).
  • Employment Discrimination Law: Cases And Materials On Equality In The Workplace, co-authored with Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros, Michael Selmi & Melissa Hart, (8th edition, Thomson-Reuters, 2010).
  • Teachers Manual for Labor Law in the Contemporary Workplace, co-authored with Kenneth G. Dau-Schmidt, Martin H. Malin, Christopher David Ruiz Cameron, and Catherine L. Fisk, Thomson-West Publishing 2009.
  • Working Group on Chapter 4 of the Proposed Restatement of Employment Law: The Tort of Wrongful Discipline in Violation of Public Policy, co-authored with Joseph R. Grodin, Paul M. Secunda, Richard A. Bales, Catherine L. Fisk, and Pauline T. Kim, 13 EMP. RTS. & EMPLY. POL’Y J. 159 (2009).
  • 2009 Casebook Supplement for EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS ON EQUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE, co-authored with Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros, and Michael Selmi, August, 2009.
  • United States Labor and Employment Law, co-authored with Alvin Goldman, VOLUME 5 (590 pp.) in INTERNATIONAL ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LABOUR AND EMPLOYMENT LAW (Roger Blanpain, ed.)(Kluwer International: 2009).
  • Toward an Integrated Disparate Treatment and Accommodation Framework for Title VII Religion Cases, 77 University of Cincinnati Law Review 1411 (2009).
  • 2008 Casebook Supplement for EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS ON EQUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE, co-authored with Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros, and Michael Selmi, (July, 2008).
  • 2006 Casebook Supplement for EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION LAW: CASES AND MATERIALS ON EQUALITY IN THE WORKPLACE, co-authored with Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros, and Michael Selmi, (July, 2006).
  • ADMINISTRATIVE LAW: A CASEBOOK (and Teacher’s Manual), co-authored with Bernard Schwartz & Jay Brown, 6th ed. 2006, Aspen Law & Business.
  • Introduction: Toward an Ethic of Teaching: Class, Race, and a Pedagogy of Community Engagement, Villanova Law Review, 50 VILLANOVA LAW REVIEW 837 (2005).
  • Toward an Ethic of Teaching: Class, Race and the Promise of Community Engagement, 50 Vill. L. Rev. 837 Villanova Law Review 2005.
  • Employment Discrimination Law: Cases And Materials on Equality in the Workplace, (Robert Belton, Dianne Avery, Maria Ontiveros & Roberto Corrada (7th edition, West Publishing: 2004).
  • Update, Fall 2004, Administrative Law: A Casebook, (Bernard Schwartz & Roberto Corrada, 5th ed.). (2004).
  • Osmotic Borders: Thinking Locally, Thinking Globally About the Causes and Effects of Labor Migration, 13 BERKELEY LA RAZA LAW JOURNAL 311 (2003).
  • The Supreme Court and Title VII's Religion Provision, Liberty Magazine (Seventh Day Adventists' Magazine) January/February 2003.
  • Comment on The Ethics of Comparison: A Statistician Wrestles with the Orthodoxy of a Control Group, by John P. Holcomb, Jr., in Ethics of Inquiry: Issues in the Scholarship Of Teaching And Learning, (Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching: 2002).
  • Using Technology to Support Active Learning in a Labor Law Classroom, in WAYFARER: CHARTING ADVANCES IN SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES COMPUTING, (CD-Rom, University of Illinois Press: 2002).
  • Proceedings of the 2000 Annual Meeting of the Association of American Law Schools Section on Law and Religion: Religion in the Workplace, 4 Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal 89 (2000).
  • Familiar Connections: A Personal Re/View of Latino/a Identity, Gender, and Class Issues in the Context of the Labor Dispute Between Sprint and La Conexion Familiar, 53 U. Miami L. Rev. 1065 University of Miami Law Review July, 1999.
  • The Arbitral Imperative iIn Labor and Employment Law, 47 Cath. U. L. Rev. 919 Catholic University Law Review Spring 1998 Taft-Hartley Symposium: The First Fifty Years.
  • A Simulation of Union Organizing in a Labor Law Class, 46 J. Legal Educ. 445 Journal of Legal Education September, 1996 Development.
  • Claiming Private Law for the Left: Exploring Gilmer's Impact and Legacy, 73 Denv. U. L. Rev. 1051 Denver University Law Review 1996 Labor/Employment Law.
  • Religious Accommodation and the National Labor Relations Act, 17 Berkeley J. Emp. & Lab. L. 185 Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 1996.
  • Justifying A Search for s Unifying Theory of Unconstitutional Conditions, 72 Denv. U. L. Rev. 1011 Denver University Law Review 1995 Symposium.
  • Of Heterosexism, National Security, and Federal Preemption: Addressing the Legal Obstacles to a Free Debate About Military Recruitment at Our Nation's Law Schools, 29 Hous. L. Rev. 301 Houston Law Review Summer, 1992.
  • Director, Office of Workers' Compensation Programs v. Perini North River Associates: Judicial Dilution of the Longshoremen's and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act's `Status' Requirement, 33 Catholic University Law Review 245 (1983), reprinted in 1984 National Insurance Law Review 163 (Spring 1984).

José R. (Beto) Juárez, Jr.

Professor

Martin J. Katz

Dean

Nicole Porter

Visiting Professor

Raja Raghunath

Assistant Professor

Laura Rovner

Ronald V. Yegge Clinical Director and Associate Professor

Law School Clinical Program

Catherine E. Smith

Assoc Dean of Institutional Diversity and Inclusiveness, Associate Professor

Sheldon Smith

Adjunct Professor

Robert Truhlar

Adjunct Professor