American Bar Association’s Business Law Today Business Regulation & Regulated Industries - November 2022
We often look to the federal judiciary as the gold standard of American jurisprudence. State courts frequently find federal opinions persuasive. Confirmation hearings for federal judges are televised. Indeed, the federal judiciary is even enshrined in Article III of the U.S. Constitution. And while we can expect that opinions issued by federal judges interpreting statutes and laws may differ somewhat across the nation’s districts and circuits, lawyers, businesses, and the public at large have come to expect—and rely upon—a degree of consistency in the federal judiciary’s decisions. However, when it comes to the rapidly evolving cannabis industry, the federal judiciary has been anything but consistent.
For example, federal courts have ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) prohibits cannabis employers from discriminating against employees.[1] Additionally, federal agencies will hold cannabis employers accountable for discrimination in the workplace.[2] Instead of addressing the legality of the workplace in the first place, or the legality of plaintiffs’ own conduct by working in the state-legal-but-federally-prohibited marijuana industry, the federal courts squarely focus on the factors that a plaintiff must necessarily allege in order to set forth a case for retaliation under Title VII and wholly ignore the fact that cannabis is and...
Former Democratic Party lawmaker An Min-suk was elected as the progressive camp’s candidate for the June Gyeonggi Province superintendent of education election. Candidate An said, “I will become a...