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Employment Law

Leave disciplinary wiggle room in handbook

12/09/2010

Here’s a tip if you are revising your employee handbook: When it comes to discipline, make sure you give yourself some flexibility to deal with unusual circumstances. For example, if you want to use progressive discipline, be sure to account for the rare situations that may warrant immediate suspension or discharge.

GINA’s effect on wellness programs

12/09/2010
To help you better understand your obligations under the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act of 2008 (GINA), we’ve assembled these resources:

Must we give FMLA leave for grandchild’s birth?

12/09/2010
Q. One of our employees has a 16-year-old daughter who lives with her and is going to have a baby. The grandmother-to-be wants 12 weeks of FMLA leave to care for the daughter and bond with the grandchild. Is FMLA leave available for her? She says she will be co-parenting the infant. Is she basically in loco parentis to the baby and, therefore, eligible?

Of separation & slimebags: ‘Common slang’ & severance agreements

12/07/2010
I’ve seldom, if ever, negotiated a separation or settled an employment dispute for an employer without insisting that the signed agreement include a nondisparagement clause. The reality, however, is that a clause in a contract is only as good as one’s ability to enforce it after it has been breached. That’s not as easy as it once was.

Supreme Court will hear Walmart case — nation’s biggest-ever wage bias class action

12/07/2010
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal in the pay discrimination lawsuit everyone is watching. Walmart is asking the High Court to overturn a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in April that allowed a class-action suit alleging widespread discrimination against women to proceed. At stake: potentially $1 billion or more—and the future of high-stakes class-action cases.

Proselytizing Mount Vernon teacher drops defamation suit

12/06/2010
A teacher fired for teaching his Christian beliefs, keeping a Bible on his desk and using a laboratory tool to burn crosses onto students’ arms has dropped his defamation suit against the Mount Vernon school district.

After career ups and downs, Ironton officer is still fired

12/06/2010

Beth Rist’s story with the city of Ironton goes back years. She was the Ironton Police Department’s first female officer when she was hired in 1996. In 2001, she sued the department, alleging sexual harassment. She won that lawsuit. But Rist’s string of success appeared to stop at that point …

Cable firm’s clear signal: Best to settle bias suit

12/06/2010

After initially refusing to settle a sex discrimination case alleging the company would not hire female technicians, Parma-based Digital Cable and Communications seems to finally get the picture. Several women sued the cable company, claiming they lost out on jobs to less-qualified male applicants. Facing litigation, the company elected to settle.

Employee can be AWOL even if he phones in

12/06/2010

Many public employees assume rules against being absent without leave protect them from termination as long as they call in. But the Ohio Civil Service Act makes it clear: “[U]nexcused failure to appear for duty as scheduled” may be considered job abandonment if it lasts for 10 days. Calling in doesn’t matter.

It takes just a handful of workers to make a class action

12/06/2010
It’s every employer’s nightmare: A disgruntled former employee files a lawsuit alleging you didn’t pay overtime. Then he asks to turn it into a class action, representing other employees. Now a claim worth a few hundred dollars has turned into a major lawsuit.