Louisville Legal Blog

As a business owner, you know that discriminating against an applicant or employee because of their religion is illegal. So is subjecting a person (or allowing them to be subjected) to harassment in the workplace because of their religious beliefs -- or lack thereof.

However, what obligation do you have to accommodate employees' religious beliefs and practices as an employer? For example, what if an employee asks to take a day off that is a religious holiday for them but a business day for your company? What if an employee's faith requires them to wear a particular item of clothing, like a hijab, or not to shave their beard?

Employers can be held liable for discrimination against people whom they never even hired. Discrimination against job applicants in protected classes is as illegal as discrimination against employees.

Sometimes, employment applications ask for information that businesses could use to "weed out" people they don't want. A business may not intentionally be discriminating against people based on their age, race, disability or other protected characteristic. However, regardless of their intention, employment application questions can be a liability hazard.

The number of divorced people in Kentucky is a little higher than the national average, but still pretty low -- 3.8 people per thousand. However, if you're preparing to get married and you or your spouse own a business, a prenuptial agreement can help ensure that the two of you don't go have to go through the expensive, lengthy process of determining how that business will be divided if you do eventually divorce.

Businesses -- including ones that have been in a family for generations -- can suffer and even die in divorces. They may end up being sold to an outside buyer. A spouse who's not really interested in the business and knows nothing about it can end up as part owner under Kentucky's equitable distribution laws. Former spouses who despise each other may have to be business partners long after they're no longer married.

Some people might not think that a phrase that's common in another language could be trademarked by a company -- let alone an American one. However, with the success of The Lion King 25 years ago, Disney trademarked the phrase "Hakuna Matata." It means "no worries" in Swahili. It's also, of course, the title of one of the songs from the hit movie and Broadway show. A new live-action version of The Lion King will be in movie theaters this summer.

However, tens of thousands of people have signed a petition calling on Disney to drop the trademark. The petition accuses the entertainment behemoth of cultural appropriation. It calls Disney's trademarking of the phrase "an assault on the Swahili people and Africa as a whole." It's portrayed as an example of what one business newspaper in Kenya has called the "pilferage of African culture over the years, through the use of intellectual property rights."