Employers routinely offer departing employees separation
agreements, whether as part of a reduction in force or in
connection with an individual termination. These separation
agreements typically include enhanced monetary benefits in exchange
for a broad release of claims and promises not to sue.
Such agreements are the very definition of a win-win
proposition: the employee receives additional monies or other
consideration to which she was not otherwise entitled, and the
employer receives the assurance that it will not become entangled
in litigation.
This seemingly uncontroversial arrangement is under attack in
the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's federal
lawsuit against CVS Pharmacy Inc. that was filed on Feb. 7, 2014.
In that lawsuit, the EEOC alleges that a separation agreement
tendered by CVS to departing employees was "overly broad,
misleading and unenforceable," and supposedly "interfered
with employees' rights to file charges with the U.S.
