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Minnesota

Instead of firing after FMLA and disability leave, consider reasonable accommodations

03/15/2013

Do you automatically terminate employees who aren’t ready to return to work after using up all available FMLA and short-term disability leave? If so, you may be asking for an ADA refusal-to-accommodate lawsuit. The better approach: Determine if reasonable accommodations might help the employee return to work despite lingering problems.

Whistle-blower isn’t doing her job? Feel free to discipline

03/15/2013
Here’s an important reminder when management gets nervous about terminating a so-called whistle-blower. Solid, legitimate reasons for discipline take precedence over protections to which whistle-blowers are entitled.

Clairvoyance not required to ID need for FMLA

03/15/2013

Under the FMLA regulations, if an employee is incapacitated, someone else can notify the employer, whose FMLA obligations are then triggered. But that doesn’t mean that a co-worker merely telling a supervisor that the employee is “sick” works as notification. Employers are entitled to better notice than that.

Don’t try to guess reasonable accommodations

03/15/2013
Employers have no obligation to try to anticipate if a disabled employee needs reasonable accommodations. It’s up to employees to ask for accommodations help.

We’re starting a wellness program: Any caveats?

02/20/2013
Q. In an effort to encourage our employees to make healthy lifestyle choices, we plan to offer an employee wellness program starting this summer. Is there anything we need to be careful about?

Must we accommodate a bike courier who can no longer ride a bike?

02/20/2013
Q. We run a courier service delivering time-sensitive documents around the Twin Cities by bicycle. Recently, an employee broke her leg while skiing. Now she is unable to perform her job as bicycle courier. Do we have to put her in a different job while her leg is in a cast?

Romance policies that work–even with ‘irresistible’ employees

02/20/2013
Workplace romance has long been the bane of the HR profession. A December 2012 Iowa Supreme Court decision in Nelson v. Knight has further roiled the workplace romance waters by holding that an employer could terminate an employee for being “irresistible.”

Ameriprise faces claims it cheated its own employees

02/20/2013
Participants in Ameriprise’s 401(k) plan are suing the investment firm, claiming it operated the retirement program for its own benefit, not its employees and retirees.

U of M gay bias lawsuit turns on cellphone, text records

02/20/2013
Ongoing employment discrimination litigation between the University of Minnesota and a former golf coach is now focused on a cellphone. Former women’s associate golf instructor Kathryn Brenny sued the university, claiming that golf director John Harris stripped her of her duties once he discovered she is a lesbian.

Yes, you can fire for working off the clock

02/20/2013

Some employees refuse to follow rules prohibiting off-the-clock work. Some—insisting they can’t complete their work any other way—may clock out and then return to work. That puts employers at risk for wage-and-hour lawsuits. You don’t have to put up with it.