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Employment Law

Retaliation: Don’t sweat link between complaint and firing, if you would have fired anyway

06/02/2010

You may be worrying too much about firing an employee right after she files a discrimination complaint! If you can easily show that you would have fired her regardless of her complaint, a court is unlikely to connect her complaint with your decision. And in Texas, timing alone isn’t enough to prove the firing was retaliation.

Beat discrimination lawsuits by nailing down specific rationale for employment decisions

06/02/2010
In age discrimination cases, employees only have to show they were replaced by someone younger, or otherwise discharged because of age. You will have a much easier time showing that you had a legitimate reason unrelated to age for terminating the employee if you can cite specific business reasons to back up each part of your decision-making process.

TSU must play defense against suit by former basketball coach

06/02/2010
Surina Dixon, former women’s basketball coach at Texas Southern University, has filed a gender discrimination and retaliation lawsuit against the school, alleging that it violated Title VII by paying her half of what it paid the coach of the men’s team.

El Paso settles police official’s bias lawsuit

06/02/2010
In September 2008, El Paso Police Department Assistant Chief of Staff Diana Kirk filed a lawsuit charging the city with discrimination and retaliation. Now the El Paso City Council has voted to settle the suit, which alleged bias against Hispanic and female members of the police department.

Beware! Even small penalty can be retaliation

06/02/2010

Employees who complain about discrimination are protected from retaliation—and even a small financial penalty against an employee may be enough to trigger a lawsuit. Remember: The test for retaliation is whether a hypothetical reasonable employee would be dissuaded from complaining in the first place if he or she knew the consequences.

Know the one key limit on at-will employment

06/02/2010

Because Texas is an “at-will” state, employers are generally free to fire employees for any reason or no reason. Of course, firing employees under circumstances that would be illegal under any specific employment law won’t fly. But other than that, there is only one other discharge reason that puts employees outside at-will employment: Employers can’t fire employees for refusing to perform an illegal act.

Fresh start good for everyone

06/01/2010
Have you faced a situation where you weren’t sure whether an employee had been unfairly treated by a supervisor? When doubts arise, it’s sometimes best to offer the employee a fresh start. But if the old problems resurface and you end up terminating the employee, chances are a court will view the employee as the problem.

Unsubstantiated rumors don’t add up to liability

06/01/2010
Public employers aren’t necessarily liable if they fail to respond to vague rumors about employee misconduct, as the following case shows.

Employment law by the numbers: Know which laws you can ignore

06/01/2010

Employers must stay abreast of an alphabet soup of federal laws—ADA, ADEA, FMLA and so forth—each with its own requirements. To comply, you first must know which laws apply to your business, based on the number of people you employ. Here’s how to tell which laws affect your workplace … and which ones you can safely ignore.

As economy rebounds, unions feed off ‘I want my slice!’ gripes

06/01/2010
During the past few years of deep recession, employees mostly understood your organization’s need to freeze wages, stop 401(k) matches and, in some cases, trim payrolls. But the improving economy and resulting positive headlines are causing more employees to wonder when this good news will trickle down to their own paychecks. And unions are using this unease as a way to organize new members.