Morrison & Foerster Defeats Black Lawyer’s Job Bias Appeal (2)

Morrison & Foerster LLP doesn’t have to face a Black temporary attorney’s claims of unequal treatment and harassment while working on the AT&T-Sprint merger, the D.C. Circuit ruled Friday.

An employee alleging they were treated less favorably than a similar worker outside their protected class doesn’t need to assert at the pleading stage that they and the other worker were “nearly identical,” a unanimous panel said A lower court was wrong to hold Junius J. Joyner III to that standard when it dismissed his 42 U.S.C. §1981 claim against the firm, but that claim still failed under the correct, more ...