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The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has released new guidelines interpreting and expanding on last year’s Supreme Court rulings on automatic employer liability for sexual harassment by supervisors. The new guidelines are a helpful benchmark for measuring whether your anti-harassment policies and practices make the grade.
Even if you’ve correctly classified an employee as exempt from overtime, you can jeopardize the person’s status by improperly docking their pay or otherwise treating the worker as an hourly employee. And mistakes can be costly, requiring you to pay past and future overtime. But there is a little-known special provision in federal law that […]
After selling and delivering bottled water for more than three years, Peter Ramirez quit his job and sued his employer, Yosemite Water Company, for back overtime. His lawsuit, which went all the way to the California Supreme Court, highlights how difficult it can be to determine whether or not outside sales personnel qualify as exempt […]
When a federal appeals court ruled recently that software giant Microsoft Corp. will have to pay retroactive employee benefits, including stock options, to temporary employees hired through staffing agencies, it sent a shudder through the growing number of employers who use temps in addition to regular workers. Since the court’s ruling, employees and lawmakers have […]
Although most employers are well aware that sexual harassment is a serious issue, supervisors sometimes don’t take other types of workplace harassment as seriously – even though the risks can be just as great. In one recent case, for example, United Airlines found itself on the hook for nearly $3 million in damages after a […]
An Orange County jury has ordered Hyundai Electronics America Inc. to pay nearly $10 million to an executive recruiter who claimed his rights were violated. Technical Resources owner Jeffrey Abraham claimed that Hyundai told him not to refer black or female candidates to the company’s Oregon semiconductor plant because Korean managers there didn’t want to […]
A mediator charged with dividing up a $10 million settlement among 120 female sales representatives for drug maker Astra USA Inc. has come up with the novel approach of placing a dollar value on different types of sexual harassment. Fondling or requests for sex by high-level managers drew $250,000; frequent touching by low-level supervisors was […]
The federal Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal has reconsidered two opinions it issued last year. In one case, the court had ruled that the anti-retaliation provisions of the federal wage and hour laws don’t protect workers who are fired for griping about overtime violations directly to their employers rather than to the government. The court […]
The U.S. Supreme Court has made it harder for employees to win punitive damages under federal anti-discrimination laws. The case involved a suit by a female attorney who claimed she was denied a promotion because of her sex. The court agreed with the employee that punitive damages are available when an employer acts with “reckless […]
Can workers who swear to be totally disabled on an application for Social Security benefits turn around and sue you under the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA), contending they’re qualified to work despite their disability claim? Two recent court decisions – one from the United States Supreme Court and the other involving a Northern California […]