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Employment Law

OK to use deductions to collect from employees?

05/11/2010
Q. If an employee owes us money, can we collect it through deductions from his wages?

Can subcontractor’s employee sue prime contractor for work site negligence after injury?

05/11/2010
Q. Our company was a general contractor on a construction job. A subcontractor performed the electrical work. One of the subcontractor’s workers was injured while leaving the construction site. The subcontractor has denied compensability of the workers’ compensation claim, saying that the accident wasn’t within the course and scope of employment. The worker is now threatening to sue us for negligence. Can he do that?

Beware the cat’s paw: How innocent decisions create liability

05/11/2010

It comes as a bolt out of the blue: The Florida Commission on Human Relations notifies you that there’s “reasonable cause” to believe retaliation was the reason a female employee lost out on a promotion to a male co-worker. But it was a clean promotion process! How did this happen? As it turns out, this is the “cat’s paw” doctrine at work.

BofA, Merrill face sex bias lawsuit following merger

05/11/2010

Bank of America took control of a lot of toxic assets when it purchased brokerage house Merrill Lynch in 2008. Part of the poison was apparently a litigious workforce that couldn’t wait to meet its new co-workers. Two Florida women are part of a sex discrimination lawsuit claiming that the combined companies treat their female financial advisors like “second-class citizens.”

Former USF football coach sues university over firing

05/11/2010
Former University of South Florida football coach Jim Leavitt has sued the university and its foundation, claiming his contract was improperly terminated. Leavitt lost his job last January after allegedly grabbing a football player by the throat and hitting him.

After decade in court, at least the lawyers can claim victory

05/11/2010
Faced with what you consider a meritless employee lawsuit, it’s often tempting to fight it out in court as a matter of principle. But at some point, it’s better to cut your losses and settle. The only parties that benefit from 10-year legal battles are lawyers, as the following case shows.

Caught on tape: Bias evidence against 2 firms

05/11/2010
Nationwide staffing company Administaff has agreed to settle an EEOC religious discrimination lawsuit stemming from an ugly series of incidents that occurred at one of Florida-based cable-TV company Conn-X’s facilities. The allegations created a perfect storm of co-employer liability: video technology plus employee thuggery added up to evidence that practically begged for an out-of-court settlement.

Firing after delivery can still be pregnancy discrimination

05/11/2010
Here’s an employer argument that didn’t work: It couldn’t have been pregnancy discrimination when we fired her because she wasn’t pregnant anymore.

Prescription alone doesn’t rate FMLA leave

05/11/2010
Some employees think getting a prescription is enough to claim FMLA leave. Fortunately, that is not true. Otherwise, every employee would be entitled to time off just because they took a prescription drug.

Court: Despite their complexity, FLSA regulations still govern ‘dual assignment’ OT

05/11/2010

Some firefighters have additional law enforcement duties. Those employees are sometimes called “dual assignment” employees under the FLSA and must be paid overtime based on which duties they perform most of the time. That means that once firefighters begin spending the majority of their time on law enforcement duties, they’re eligible for overtime pay after working 86 hours in a two-week period. Firefighters must work more than 106 hours to receive overtime pay.