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Employment Law

Employees get benefit of doubt on religious accommodation

11/01/2007

Employees are entitled to reasonable accommodation of their “sincerely held” religious beliefs. Employers face an uphill battle if they want to deny such requests because they doubt the sincerity of their employees’ beliefs. That’s because there’s very little employers can do to get such cases tossed out before they go to trial. End result? Lots of lost time—and lots of attorneys’ fees …

Occasional crudeness doesn’t add up to sexual harassment

11/01/2007

Everybody knows the workplace is supposed to be free of all forms of harassment. Everybody also realizes that’s the platonic ideal. The good news is that, with vigilance, you’ll protect your organization from sexual-harassment lawsuits because any harassment that surfaces won’t be pervasive and severe …

You can force an eligible employee to take FMLA leave

11/01/2007

FMLA provides up to 12 weeks’ unpaid leave to eligible employees for their own or a relative’s serious health condition. Employers can run FMLA leave concurrent with other paid leave if they choose, which has the effect of running out the clock. But what if the employee has a serious health condition and doesn’t want to use up her FMLA time just yet? Can you force her to take FMLA leave? You can, as the following case shows …

Asking applicants about prior lawsuits is asking for trouble

11/01/2007

It may be natural to want to know whether an applicant has sued former employers. After all, if past performance predicts future behavior, you probably don’t want to end up with a serial litigator on your payroll. But asking about prior lawsuits may be hazardous: You can’t refuse to hire someone just because they sued for discrimination in the past …

Don’t blow off legal papers unless you’re prepared to personally pay back wages

11/01/2007

Does your organization have a process in place for handling legal paperwork? If not, you risk a default judgment that could cost big bucks. If your organization is served with a lawsuit and fails to respond, a court may refuse to let it enter a late defense. And if the organization can’t participate, the court will accept as true everything the employee who is suing says in the complaint …

Reporting suspected harassment doesn’t always equal ‘Protected activity’

11/01/2007

Sometimes employees who are in trouble for poor performance try to protect themselves by reporting incidents that don’t come close to being sexual harassment. They figure that their employer won’t fire or otherwise punish them for fear of a retaliation lawsuit. But you can take heart: It’s not protected activity just because someone reports an incident. If—when viewed objectively—the conduct being reported seems far from harassment, reporting it isn’t protected, and the employee can’t charge retaliation …

Animal control officer dogged by prescription revelation

11/01/2007

A Port St. Lucie animal control officer is suing the city after her supervisor wrote a public memo revealing the officer’s use of a prescription drug. The supervisor found legal anti-anxiety pills in the officer’s purse while searching her work truck for a receipt related to a wayward-dog case …

Cocoa faces second discrimination trial for lunchroom noose

11/01/2007

A retired Cocoa water worker, who lost a federal discrimination suit against the city nine months ago, filed again—this time in Brevard County’s 18th Judicial Circuit Court. The lawsuits center on three incidents in which the worker, who is black, says he was subjected to racist comments and taunted by a hangman’s noose …

Janitors sue over union rights

11/01/2007

Janitors working in Miami’s Bayside Mall joined with workers from five states to fight the coercive anti-union tactics of General Growth Properties (GGP) and two of its cleaning contractors. The National Labor Relations Board has sought a rare 10(j) injunction—a federal court order reserved for cases of egregious violations of workers’ civil rights—against the companies …

Tech Data Corp. makes ‘Best Places to Work for GLBT’ list

11/01/2007

Tech Data Corporation, a global IT products provider based in Clearwater, made the list of “2007 Best Places to Work for GLBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) Equality,” a ranking of employers’ policies toward GLBT employees …