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Firing

Equal enforcement keeps juries from wondering about bias

06/06/2008
Employees who lose their jobs after committing some infraction often look for reasons to sue. Don’t give them an excuse to drag you into court! The best way to immunize your organization from lawsuits: Equitably and fairly enforce your work rules …

Miami judge packs heat to ward off bailiff

06/06/2008
Miami County Municipal Court Judge Mel Kemmer decided to take matters into his own hands after a bailiff who threatened him was allowed to return to work. …

6th Circuit rules: Association discrimination now illegal in Ohio

06/06/2008
Employers, beware! Retaliation against a third party who is associated with an employee who engaged in protected activity now can be the basis of a lawsuit in Ohio …

Same manager who hired should do the firing

06/04/2008
Discrimination cases are all about motives. That’s especially true when an employee loses his job and alleges that the real reason for his discharge was racism or some other form of bias. One simple way to deflect discrimination charges is to make sure that the same person who made the termination decision also had a direct hand in either the original hiring decision or subsequent promotions …

Make sure handbook spells out maternity leave terms

06/04/2008

Is your employee handbook clear on exactly what constitutes maternity leave and how long it lasts? If you plan to permit just the 12 weeks allowed for pregnancy and childbirth under the FMLA, spell that out. Don’t refer to maternity leave separately and then provide a different week or month count …

Good-Faith Process—But Not Absolutely Correct Conclusion—Is Enough to Fire Harasser

06/04/2008
When it comes to sexual harassment complaints, you won’t land in legal hot water if you conduct a thorough and fair investigation—even if you reach the wrong conclusion. What matters is that you take the charge seriously, investigate and come to a reasonable conclusion based on the findings …

Violence on the job? OK to base punishment on job classification and severity of offense

06/04/2008
While a zero-tolerance policy for fighting on the job is a good idea, it may not always be necessary. Instead, you can draw a distinction between violent transgressions and mere arguments that escalate into pushing or shoving. You also may want the discretion to punish workers in some categories more harshly than others …

Whether paper or electronic, make sure job applications are legal

06/04/2008
The days of the paper job application may be fading away, but whatever takes the place of paper applications better measure up the same way. Specifically, employers have to understand that online applications can hold more legal land mines than hard copy applications ever did …

You fired worker on FMLA leave? Better have a good reason

06/03/2008
Employers can’t manipulate the FMLA to terminate employees for taking FMLA leave by trumping up charges. As the following case shows, courts grow very suspicious when employers come up with reasons to fire employees who are on FMLA leave. And they often send such cases to trial, leaving employers at the mercy of juries …

Tell supervisors: No stereotyping based on national origin

06/03/2008
It’s important to remind all supervisors to judge employees on their individual merits—and not to indulge stereotypes. As the following case shows, using stereotypes in any critique of job performance may be enough evidence of national origin discrimination to merit a possible jury trial …