NOTE: On January 15, this post was updated and one correction made (see "Nipped in the bud" and "Jury clobbers Catholic diocese," below). 

Happy New Year, everyone! While I've been out for the holidays, the courts and government agencies have stayed busy with employment law matters. Here are the developments that I thought were especially noteworthy:

WAGE ...

I hope everyone had a happy holiday season. Now that we are into the nasty, brutish and short days of January (and especially for our friends suffering through Winter Storm Hercules), I will try to warm things up with a couple of weird-but-instructive sexual harassment cases.

The weather outside is frightful, but the fire's so delightful!

Our first case involves a type of harassment ...