Luxury retailer Neiman Marcus was recently sued by Brian Burns after his secretary, Carol Young, stole Burns’ personal checks and forged them to pay off her Neiman Marcus credit account.
Between 1995 and 2006, Young personally presented more than $100,000 in checks bearing Burns’ name to her personal shopper at the San Francisco Neiman Marcus store. The personal shopper never asked whether or not Young had Burns’ permission to use his checks to pay down her credit balance, and never contacted Burns.
Technology can make the business of doing business a lot easier. But, failing to stay on top of how your employees are using technology can cause big problems too. Order a CD recording of our cutting edge audio conference: PDAs, BlackBerries and iPhones: How to Manage Their Use to Avoid Employment Law Problems and Other Headaches to find out what you should doing to protect your business.
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Burns claimed that the personal shopper who accepted his checks from Young was negligent in failing to verify that he’d authorized payment, and that Neiman Marcus—as her employer—was responsible for her negligence.
But the California appeals court dismissed Burns’ case. It ruled that a merchant does not have a duty to independently look into whether a customer is authorized to present a third-party check. However, if Neiman’s personal shopper had had a legal duty to ask about the checks, Neiman Marcus could have been on the hook for all the checks that were accepted.
We’ll give you the full story on this case, and tell you what both Burns and Neiman Marcus did wrong, in an upcoming issue of the California Employer Advisor.
Do You Know Everywhere Your Company’s Information is Kept?
Technology has dramatically changed the way many individuals—and many employers—do business. In particular, technologies such as personal digital assistants (PDAs), BlackBerries, and iPhones have freed employees to work from virtually any location, at any time, and in virtually any setting in the world.
But new technology doesn’t free you from existing employment law requirements.
Order the CD recording of our May 6 audio conference and listen as our California employment law expert discusses the benefits and the potential pitfalls of PDAs for your business. We will help you understand what policies and practices you need to protect your company and gain the benefit of today’s technology.
You’ll learn:
- What affect your employees’ use of PDAs have on wage and hour issues
- What to do about use of personally-owned PDAs vs company-provided PDAs
- How to determine, control, and record ‘hours worked’
- Strategies to protect confidential information
- Best practices and policy changes you need in place now
- What work rules and changes are necessary to reduce work disruption concerns