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Employment Law

Could gambling addiction become an ADA-protected ‘disability’?

03/26/2010
Just in time for March Madness … the new draft of a prominent American Psychiatric Association (APA) manual recommends expanding the category of “mental disabilities” to include new disorders, including binge eating and pathological gambling.

No beards, turbans in Lexus’ ‘Pursuit of Perfection’

03/26/2010
Little Falls, N.J.-based Tri-County Lexus faces a religious discrimination lawsuit after it refused to accommodate a job applicant’s request to continue wearing a beard and turban, as required by his Sikh religion.

Employee out on military leave: Must we pay him?

03/24/2010

Q. We have an employee who will soon go on temporary military duty and be gone for several weeks. Do we have to pay him at all during his absence, or does he receive military pay?

Hiring? The legal risk of falling for great interview skills

03/23/2010

Does your selection process rely heavily on how applicants handle themselves during job interviews? If so, be aware that courts are often suspicious of such inherently subjective decision-making. That’s why it’s best to document how objective qualifications counted for more than the fleeting impression of an interview. (For another perspective on hiring, see “The top 15 oddball interview questions” below.)

Feds publish guidance on new child-labor penalties

03/23/2010

A little-noticed provision buried in last year’s Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) raised the stakes for employer child-labor violations. It increased the maximum penalty to $50,000 for each child-labor violation that causes serious injury or death of an employee under age 18.

Catch fishy FMLA requests with the 3 R’s

03/22/2010

Employees have learned to play the FMLA game quite well in the 17 years since the law was passed. In this new case, an “attendance-challenged” employee was denied extra vacation leave for her wedding. So she submitted an FMLA leave request for those same dates. Hmmmm … smell fishy?

How should we calculate FMLA leave entitlement for employee whose schedule varies?

03/19/2010
Q. One of our employees works different hours each week—sometimes 30 hours a week, sometimes 40. She will be going on FMLA leave soon. We’re not sure how to determine how many hours of leave she would be entitled to take under the FMLA. Are all employees permitted to take 480 hours of leave?

Can we use a tip credit to make sure our employees make at least the minimum wage?

03/19/2010
Q. It has been our practice to pay our waiters and waitresses less than the minimum wage because we include their tips in their hourly wage. Is this legal?

When time sheets are late, can we hold off on paying OT until the next paycheck?

03/19/2010
Q. Several of our employees repeatedly turn in their time sheets late. Can we institute a policy stating that if a time sheet is turned in late, any overtime on that week’s time sheet will not be paid until the next pay period?

Legislature considers new rules for armored car drivers’ breaks

03/19/2010
State Sen. Mark Wyland, a Republican who represents San Diego County, recently introduced a bill that would exempt armored car companies from having to comply with California’s laws requiring rest and meal breaks for some employees.