CAN WORKERS BE FIRED FOR IRRESISTIBLE ATTRACTION
By Jeffrey S. Kravitz, Esquire
Several of my partners write on California Employment Law and one of them struck a nerve. As featured in a recent California Employment Law blog post, the Iowa courts have held that an employer may fire a worker for being, for want of a better expression, "irresistibly hot." Where does that leave Tom Brady, Jim Palmer or maybe even Eli Manning? Does every football player have to look like Dick Butkus?
For that matter, I have a now-retired partner who tried a case against a former opera singer of Italian extraction, who was....you know! My partner among other things had lost a leg in childhood and was never going to be compared to Brad Pitt. Out of frustration, he asked the jury in voir dire, "Are you going to hold it against my client because I am short, bald and ugly?" The jury loved him.
