Courts in conservative states have issued rulings saying they follow Title VII, and those states will likely yield to the federal law, said Jillian Weiss, an attorney with Outten & Golden who works with the firm's LGBTQ Workplace Rights Practice Group.
State courts aren’t bound by the high court’s ruling that interpreted Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. But they’ll be persuaded by the decision and its reasoning that bias “because of sex” includes orientation or identity discrimination, especially if their state law was modeled on Title VII or includes similar language, legal observers said.
The Supreme Court’s ruling also could fuel action in Congress and spur some state legislatures to expand their anti-discrimination laws, observers said.
The scope of state workplace bias laws could have a significant impact on LGBT workers despite Title VII covering the entire country. That federal law doesn’t apply to companies with less than 15 employees, meaning millions of workers at very small businesses must rely on state-level protections.
Workers might also choose to sue under state law instead of Title VII due to statute of limitations issues, the state law having more generous remedies, or a desire to keep their case in state rather than federal court.
Read more: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/daily-labor-report/high-court-ruling-on-lgbt-workers-set-to-reverberate-in-states
