California Supreme Court OK’s $3.8 Million Award to Employee with Panic Attacks
After many years working for San Francisco-based McKesson Corporation, Charlene Roby began suffering from sudden panic attacks.
Tag: White Paper
“Sugar Coating” Reason for Termination Will Leave Sour Aftertaste, Lawyer Says
Managers are often tempted to “sugar coat” the reasons an employee is terminated for poor performance, particularly when hard economic times support the contention. But, according to attorney Allen M. Kato, counsel at the San Francisco office of law firm Fenwick & West, LLP, this could turn very sour if the employee is inclined to […]
Suspending Employees Without Pay During Investigations Can Be Risky
You have strong reason to suspect that an employee has engaged in serious misconduct, such as theft or sexual harassment. But you don’t want to fire the employee based solely on suspicion. So instead, you place the employee on unpaid leave until you’re able to complete your internal investigation.
Terminated Employee Was Not a Whistleblower, Court Says
Is every employee who makes a formal complaint considered a “whistleblower”? The federal District Court says no. Mark Shulthies, a long time Amtrak employee working in California, sent an email to his supervisor complaining that the company’s decision to reorganize certain aspects of its service between the Bay Area and Bakersfield posed a “danger to […]
You Must Be Diligent About Accommodating Disabilities—Every Single Day
A California court recently ruled that an employer’s failure to accommodate an employee’s disability on one single day, even though the employee had been appropriately accommodated for months before that, can still result in employer liability. The employer dropped the ball, the court said, by failing to notify all managers of the employee’s accommodation needs. […]
The Cost of Blowing Off a Baseless Bias Claim? $390,000
How should you respond to a discrimination complaint that appears to be completely unfounded? As GoDaddy, Inc. recently learned, even if the employee’s complaint appears to be baseless, you still must treat the complaint as serious and take all the same precautions you would with other bias complaints. If you don’t, you could be liable […]
Can We Layoff Employees With the Most Seniority?
This economy has hit our small retail Insurance Agency hard, we laid off an employee May ’08, another at the end of ’08, cut wages—by 15%—last May (’09) and have done many other things to cut our expenses. Unfortunately we need to lay off three more employees next week … two of the three we […]
Employer Liable for Commuter’s Car Accident, Court Rules
If an employee injures third parties while working, his or her employer can be held liable for those injuries. Normally, an employee’s regular commute to and from work is not considered to be “working” time, so employers aren’t responsible for accidents that happen then. A California court, however, recently held that an employee who is […]
Alternative Workweeks vs. Reduced-Hour Workweeks; What’s the Difference?
There are two types of four-day workweeks in California: alternative workweeks and reduced-hour workweeks. Alternative Workweeks When there is no reduction in the overall number of hours the employee works in a week (or in the employee’s workload), this is called an “alternative workweek schedule.” An example of an alternative workweek would be employees working […]
Employee’s MySpace is Not Your Space, Says Federal Jury
If you’ve thought about firing employees for things they post to social media websites, a recent decision by a federal jury sends a clear message that you should think again.