Resignations

Overwork not enough reason to quit, collect unemployment

08/25/2010

Employees these days are working harder and longer than ever. And that can be stressful. Some employees may believe they can escape the pressure by quitting because of stress and applying for unemployment compensation benefits. That usually won’t work.

Is an employee who resigned (instead of being fired) eligible for unemployment benefits?

08/12/2010

Q. We recently decided to conclude a long-time worker’s employment with our company. We gave the employee the option of resigning instead of being fired. She chose to resign and is now trying to collect unemployment benefits. Is she still eligible even though she resigned?

Just quitting isn’t ‘constructive discharge’

07/13/2010

Some employees have heard through the legal grapevine that if the going gets tough at work, they can just get going. They believe they can up and quit—and then turn around and sue, claiming that they had no choice but to leave because they were suffering retaliation for taking some protected action. This is an example of “constructive discharge.” But conditions have to be pretty onerous before the tactic works.

Fired right after two weeks’ notice: Must we pay?

07/02/2010

Q. A resigning employee gave us two weeks’ notice, but we decided to terminate the employee right away instead. Are we obligated to pay the person for those two weeks he gave notice for?

New tool when employees defect to competition: bonus forfeiture

06/14/2010

Employers looking to discourage their employees from going to work for a competitor, take note! As a general matter, courts aren’t in favor of noncompete agreements. Nevertheless, Illinois employers may now have a new weapon to keep employees from taking your secrets when they leave.

State wrongful discharge suit fails without actual firing

05/17/2010

Under many federal employment laws, employees don’t have to be fired to sue for wrongful termination. Instead, they can claim constructive discharge, alleging they had no choice but to quit. But that argument won’t fly for employees who try to sue their Illinois employers for common-law wrongful termination.

Don’t marginalize harassing behavior–you could trigger constructive discharge suit

04/28/2010

If you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to remind everyone in HR to avoid playing down or dismissing the impact of supervisor harassment on employees. It may be tempting to tell a complaining employee that she’s making a mountain out of a molehill. But understand that telling an employee she should get over it and return to work may prompt her to quit—and then sue you.

When former employees poach more of your all-stars, fight back in court

04/19/2010

There’s hope for employers victimized by competitors who attempt to poach corporate all-stars. If some other organization tries to unethically steal your best employees, you may have a remedy—even if you haven’t made employees sign noncompete agreements (which aren’t usually enforceable in California anyway).

‘Hey, I thought Mike was going to retire last year’

04/16/2010

Be cautious about asking employees about their retirement plans. Employees who are fired soon after disclosing their retirement thoughts have brought successful age bias claims in court.

Include an extension clause in your noncompete agreements

04/15/2010

In the wake of a recent Illinois court decision in Citadel Investment Group, LLC v. Teza Technologies LLC, employers should rethink their noncompete agreements. Without fine tuning, these contracts may not work as well as they could.