EMPLOyER'S PRACTICAL LEGAL GUIDE Plain Language About ...

xiiEmployer’s Practical Legal Guideactivity, would the employer have retaliated? So-called mixedmotivearguments—that protected status or activity was just one ofseveral possible reasons for the retaliation—will no longer suffice.This ruling should make it easier for employers to defeat retaliationclaims, and may result in fewer claims being filed. Universityof Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, No. 12-484, 2013■ The Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act(DOMA) unconstitutional, a decision that set in motion a sweepingrewrite of federal rules affecting benefits administration andpayroll operations. The court’s decision overturned Section 3 ofDOMA—which since 1996 has defined marriage under federallaw as the union of a man and a woman—saying it violated theconstitutional right to equal protection under the law. UnitedStates v. Windsor, No. 12–307, 2013The Windsor ruling means that, in states where same-sex marriageis legal, all federal laws that provide benefits to married couplesmust now provide them to same-sex couples, too. Among themore than 1,000 laws affected are the tax code, the FMLA, ERISAand other laws related to employee health and retirement benefits.As these cases show, the employment law landscape is constantlychanging. Employers win some and lose some, and therules are different every day. The purpose of this special report isto help you stay on top of all those changes.Throughout the report, you’ll find tips to help develop companypolicy, write employee handbooks and administer disputeresolution. With the Practical Legal Guide in hand, you can train keypersonnel, ask the right questions of your attorney and establishsound procedures for handling employee requests and disputes.Test Your ComplianceEvery organization, from the smallest mom-and-pop operation tothe largest multinational conglomerate, must be aware of currentdevelopments in employment law to understand which personnelpolicies and practices are appropriate and which could plungethem into legal hot water. They must also know when to imple-(Continued on page xiv)