Recently, a federal circuit court faced the question of what happens when dealing with an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) for a husband who listed his four adult children from a previous marriage as sole beneficiaries. The husband died and his surviving spouse sought to collect the IRA funds instead of his four children.

The court ruled that the surviving spouse was not entitled to the IRA even though some of the funds may have originated from a pension plan in which the wife would have been protected. The court reasoned that once the husband terminated his participation in the pension plan, where wives are protected, and transferred the proceeds to an independent IRA prior to his current marriage, his widow’s interest was cut off in the IRA as compared to a named beneficiary.

The lesson from this case is that it is important to update benefit plans such as pension and IRA beneficiaries to make sure that the surviving spouse is correctly named and that children may or may not share in the benefit upon death. The time to take care of this is now to ensure beneficiary forms are changed to mirror what you really want done with those funds.

A husband had accrued 116 sick days and 42 vacation days at the time of divorce. The question was whether those days marital property or not. The husband had no present right to be paid for his sick and vacation days absent retirement or termination of his employment, which had not occurred.

The court said that if the husband were to use the sick or vacation days awarded to him prior to retirement or termination of his employment he would never collect cash for those days. Thus, it would be hard to come up with a value for something that he might use himself for vacation or sickness in the future.

The Illinois Supreme Court held that even though the husband had accumulated those days during his marriage any future value of those benefits was indeterminate and speculative. Those types of benefits are different from things such as pension plans or deferred compensation that have an actual monetary value. On the other hand, if he had actually retired and cashed those days out during the divorce proceeding they would be marital property, subject to division by the court.

Mr. Martin was employed under an employment contract with a school district, which was renewable annually. After receiving a poor job review, he was placed on notice that he was allowed a month and a half to “demonstrate significant progress” in improving his performance.

Meanwhile, at home living with him was his daughter – a student and member of the Army Reserve – and her infant daughter. Ten days after getting placed on the job improvement plan, Mr. Martin requested 12 weeks of FMLA leave to care for his granddaughter because his daughter’s unit had been called to active duty for deployment overseas.

He took the leave as scheduled and the district notified him that it would not renew his contract. He sued alleging interference with his FMLA rights and retaliation for taking leave.

FMLA permits leave to care for a son or daughter, or a child of a person standing in loco parentis, literally meaning in Latin, “in the place of a parent” for such a child. The federal court found Mr. Martin stood in loco parentis as to his granddaughter.

Thus, the close time period between his FMLA leave and his job firing was more than sufficient to establish a case of FMLA discrimination.

From 1990 to 2009, the percentage of sexual harassment claims filed by men has doubled from 8% to 16% of all claims filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

Women still file the overwhelming majority of sexual harassment claims with the EEOC. “It’s certainly possible that there’s more sexual harassment of men going on, but it could just be that more men are coming forward and complaining about it” said one EEOC staff lawyer.

While some cases allege harassment by female supervisors or co-workers, most charges involve men harassing other men. Sometimes it’s unwelcome romantic advances. Other times, men are picked on because of their sexual orientation, perceived as being gay or not considered masculine enough for the work setting. “If you don’t fit the masculine stereotype or are viewed as effeminate, you get picked on in a sexual way to demean you” said an employment consultant.

Our employment law firm still sees most cases involving women but likewise has more cases involving men than we did just a few years ago.

What if you worked in a very vulgar work setting? In a case decided by the 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals a woman sued because she worked on a sales floor of a transportation and shipping company in Alabama with 6 crude male co-workers. There were no large barriers between the work cubicles so Ms. Reeves could daily hear the language of her male co-workers as they shouted gender-specific vulgarities aimed at women. The company’s defense was that old standby that “that’s just the way things are” but the woman was able to show disparate treatment under the law. The employer’s problem was that she had to endure pervasive daily references that were gender specific. It was not a stray or occasional swear word but a steady daily drum beat directed at females by the male sales force. The company ignored her complaints and lost the case because of the hostile work environment it allow to exist in the workplace.

A female employee at a Midwest hotel was hired to fill the front desk position, but her short hair and loose fitting men’s clothing made many customers mistake her for a male. An Iowa hotel felt she was not a “good fit” for the front desk because she did not look “female” enough. The Supreme Court has held that sex stereotyping can violate Title VII when it influences employment decisions. The 8th Circuit Court of Appeals held that the standard of looking “pretty” and like a “Midwestern girl” was gender based because they were terms that by their nature only applied to women. Therefore the hotel was liable for money damages.