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Employment Law

Your detailed records: Keys to legal victory

12/02/2011

You never know which employee will file a discrimination lawsuit. These surprise lawsuits often allege that the employer disciplined ­others outside the employee’s protected class less severely for the same transgression. Protect your organization by providing detailed reasons for any discipline at the time it occurs.

New Year, new laws covering veteran hiring, whistle-blowing

12/02/2011
Employers will ring in some new laws with the New Year, and those laws will bring challenges and opportunities.

Goodyear faces lawsuit over woman’s health-related firing

12/02/2011
Akron-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber faces charges of disability discrimination at a plant in North Carolina after it terminated a woman because she suffers from a menstrual bleeding disorder, menorrhagia.

Legality of new union poster faces hearing; ruling by Jan. 31

12/02/2011
A court hearing is scheduled for Dec. 19 on two business-backed lawsuits challenging the legality of the NLRB’s new requirement that U.S. employers display a new workplace poster describing employees’ union rights.

Columbus offers one-time waiver for late WC premium penalties

12/02/2011
Employers that miss a workers’ compensation premium payment may apply for a one-time waiver of penalties under Gov. John Kasich’s “Common Sense Initiative.”

On to trial for worker advocate’s retaliation claim

12/02/2011
Employees and their lawyers are getting more creative with their lawsuits. Not content to rely on federal anti-discrimination laws, they add claims under state law, too. That increases their chances of making a claim stick.

After years of litigation, court orders cops’ promotion

12/02/2011
Federal courts don’t like being turned into proxies for HR departments, but they will act when necessary. That’s how the 6th Circuit recently came to order the immediate promotion of police officers in a discrimination case that has been in the courts for more than a decade and still isn’t finished.

Only truly outrageous conduct can add up to intentional infliction of emotional distress

12/02/2011
Ohio law allows individuals to sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress, including cases that arise from work-related incidents. Fortunately for ­employers, uncaring or insensitive incidents don’t qualify. The circumstances must be truly outrageous.

Beware refusing to rehire new mom; it could be sex discrimination under Ohio law

12/02/2011

Employees who need time off for childbirth but who aren’t eligible for FMLA leave aren’t entitled to additional protection under Ohio law. You can terminate the employee if your leave policies don’t provide another way to take time off. But if the former employee is ready to return after childbirth, beware rejecting her if she tries to reapply for an open position.

Leave shameful history in the past: Warn bosses against any reference to nooses

12/02/2011
Objects can become powerful symbols. That’s certainly true of nooses, which black Americans see as infamous reminders of a past in which lynchings were relatively common, especially in the South. That’s why you must instruct supervisors and managers: Any reference to hanging, ropes or nooses is absolutely forbidden in the workplace.