WIRTW #175 (the so long and thanks for the memories edition)
Last night, we said a tearful good bye to an employment lawyer’s best friend, the regional manager of Dunder Mifflin’s Scranton office and t...
Archive: April 2011
Nuisance value
By Jon Hyman
$22,000 doesn’t buy you a whole lot in litigation land. It’s not enough to take a case through trial, or even to trial. Depending on the cas...
Ohio federal court recognizes sexual orientation as a protected class for public employees
By Jon Hyman
After Cuyahoga County fired Shari Hutchinson, she sued, claiming that her employer terminated her because she is a lesbian, in violation of ...
Are your employees recording you?
By Jon Hyman
ABCNews asks if your employees are secretly recording workplace events to gather evidence for future discrimination and other lawsuits: L...
Considerations for a pet-friendly workplace
By Jon Hyman
At BNET, Laurie Tarkan answers the question of why you should take your dog to work : Improved staff morale and worker productivity. Pe...
WIRTW #174 (the Good Friday edition)
By Jon Hyman
Ricky Gervais is a hero to all of us who live in the world of employment law or human resources. He created David Brent, the most inappropri...
ADA: Court addresses touchy issue of drug use vs. drug addiction
By Jon Hyman
An employer is never prohibited from terminating an employee for on-the-job drug-related misconduct. Employers must tread carefully, however...
Survey of wage and hour settlement highlights risk to employers
By Jon Hyman
Most companies cannot afford the risk of a big judgment in a wage and hour class action. Indeed, the real risk in defending these cases is t...
Don’t toss off common sense during workplace investigations
By Jon Hyman
When a parent caught high school teacher Tom Elsass watching a group of teenage girls from the school parking lot with his fly down and his ...
Employers need to beware retaliation landmines
By Jon Hyman
In Baker v. Windsor Republic Doors (6th Cir. 3/8/11) , the plaintiff claimed that his employer retaliated against him in violation of the A...
WIRTW #173 (the bird brain edition)
By Jon Hyman
We know spring is in the air in the southwestern suburbs of Cleveland because the robins are out in full flight. One of these robins must ha...
Coming soon to your bookshelf: HR and Social Media
By Jon Hyman
It’s no coincidence that Facebook’s founder was Time ’s 2010 Person of the Year. 2011 has become the breakout year for social media, as it c...
Has the ADA swallowed the FMLA for employee medical leaves?
By Jon Hyman
It’s likely that by now you know that the recently amended ADA is expansive enough to cover most medical conditions . If most medical condit...
Does GINA cover sexual orientation discrimination?
By Jon Hyman
Michael Haberman has a very interesting post at his HR Observations blog discussing whether the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act c...
FMLA coverage vs. eligibility: Employer notice and recordkeeping requirements
By Jon Hyman
Last week, we discussed the difference between employer coverage and employee eligibility in the calculus of determining when you must prov...
WIRTW #172 (the juxtaposition edition)
By Jon Hyman
These two stories came through my feed reader this week, and I thought that together they tell an interesting story: Why Is It So Hard to ...
When does 50 not equal 50?
By Jon Hyman
Most people think of “50” as the magic number for the FMLA. “Oh, we have 50 employees, so we now have to comply with the FMLA,” is a popula...
How far can a Cat’s Paw reach?
By Jon Hyman
Last month—in Staub v. Proctor Hosp. —the Supreme Court held that employers are liable for the discriminatory animus of managers and supervi...
What does Chicken Little teach us about social media policies?
By Jon Hyman
Last week, I had the pleasure of presenting a three-hour seminar on social media and employment law at the Labor & Employment Advances ...
Don’t give lip service to your harassment policy
By Jon Hyman
It’s one thing to have a harassment policy. In fact, you’d be hard-pressed in 2011 to find many businesses that don’t. It’s entirely another...
WIRTW #171 (the actual retail price without going over edition)
By Jon Hyman
Congratulations to Kristen ten Brink ( @onthe10brink on Twitter), who submitted the winning bid to Medical Costs Price Is Right: The act...