Month: June 2010

Supreme Court Rules Public Employee’s Text Messages Not Private

Today, the U.S. Supreme Court held that a public employer did not violate an employee’s constitutional privacy rights by searching his personal (and often sexually explicit) text messages that were sent and received on his employer-issued pager. The Backstory The City of Ontario, California, issued pagers that could send and receive text messages to Ontario […]

Employees Must Be Paid for Donning, Doffing Required Protective Gear

Continuing the recently established practice of issuing broadly applicable “Administrator Interpretations” in lieu of wage and hour opinion letters, U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Deputy Administrator Nancy Leppink has released the second Administrator Interpretation of 2010. The interpretation, issued June 16, clarifies the definition of “clothes” under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), addressing some […]

Are Your Performance Appraisals Setting You Up for a Lawsuit?

Yesterday’s Advisor offered 10 Rules for Appraisals that will make them stand up in court. (Go here for the 10 Rules.) Today, we feature a checklist to help you review your appraisal system, and we talk about the real first step of any appraisal, a well-written job description. An effective, legally sound performance appraisal is: […]

Government Issues Health Care Reform Regulations on ‘Grandfathered’ Plans

On June 14, the U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, and Treasury issued new regulations addressing grandfathered plans under health care reform and how such plans can keep their grandfathered status. Although the new health care reform legislation (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Affordability […]

Wage/Hour Litigation = Easy Money for Lawyers

Wage-and-hour rules have been around for nearly three-quarters of a century—ever since FDR’s New Deal—so it’s hard to picture them triggering the next wave of employment litigation, but attorney Marc Jacuzzi, Esq. thinks otherwise.

Defense Failed Because of Performance Appraisal?

In court, an inadequate or inaccurate performance evaluation can be used against you with devastating results. Many’s the company that has fired for poor performance and then found out—too late—that its appraisal documents didn’t support the defense. We often don’t think of appraisals as legal challenges, but they often figure prominently in lawsuits. Juries tend […]

Don’t Get Tangled Up in Duct Tape: Lessons for Employers

By Ida Martin and Brian Smeenk The City of Mississauga was recently embarrassed by a video of two of its employees duct-taped together. They were squirming around on a table, taped by their hands, torsos, and feet. This was apparently a routine employee hazing. It was leaked to the media by an employee who had […]

Toronto’s G20 Summit — Lessons for Employers about High-Security

By Patrick Gannon The G20 Summit of world leaders will be in Toronto June 26-27. The summit is expected to draw considerable attention and thousands of protesters from around the world. Like the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics, there will be intensive security measures and lots of potential disruptions. As the summit will be held at […]

Your Trainers Making Any of These Mistakes?

Yesterday’s Advisor explored courts’ new attitude toward training. In today’s issue, Attorney Philippe Weiss tells what he thinks will go wrong in your training sessions, and we get a look at an extraordinary 10-minute training program. Weiss is director of Seyfarth Shaw at Work, a legal compliance training company associated with the Seyfarth Shaw law […]