The top 10 wage and hour mistakes businesses keep making
No law causes employers more compliance headaches than the Fair Labor Standards Act. On its face it’s simple—pay employees no less than a...
Does the attorney-client privilege protect harassment investigations conducted by a lawyer?
By Jon Hyman
An employee complaints to HR that her supervisor has been sexually harassing her. The allegations aren’t pretty, and, if the investigation...
What does a valid jury waiver look like?
By Jon Hyman
Earlier this year, the Senate took up the Forced Arbitration Injustice Repeal Act . It would, among other things, prohibit employers from ...
WIRTW #554 (the “triumph” edition)
By Jon Hyman
How do we raise our girls to become confident women? It’s a question I think about a lot as a dad to an almost teenage girl. đ♀️ We enco...
Defining (and defending) my role as an attorney: more on the employment of registered sex offenders
By Jon Hyman
On Tuesday, I posted something that I did not imagine would be all that controversial, You just found out you hired a sex offender. Now w...
In harassment cases, the context of profanities matters (but only sometimes)
By Jon Hyman
“ Why is everyone suddenly using the C-word ,” asks Stan Carey in The Guardian ? He blames Game of Thrones (video very NSFW—you’ve bee...
You just found out you hired a sex offender. Now what?
By Jon Hyman
A reader sent me the following question. I worked for a grocery store. Can a child molester be employed by the grocery store? I reporte...
The 11th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the đŠy supervisor
By Jon Hyman
From the legaladvice subreddit : So background, I have IBS and sometimes have to go the bathroom multiple times per work day. My superv...
WIRTW #553 (the “669” edition)
By Jon Hyman
Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba (China’s answer to Amazon), claims that he has cracked the formula to a happy and productive workforce. ...
Abortion discrimination = pregnancy discrimination
By Jon Hyman
Thanks to, among other states , Alabama, Georgia, and Ohio (sorry about that last one), the debate over abortion is raging. Suppose you ar...
No, the feds should not ban noncompetes because of #MeToo
By Jon Hyman
A recent op-ed in the USAToday argues that the federal government should outlaw noncompete agreements because they trap workers in abusiv...
Ohio lawmakers seek to expand the protections of the Ohio Whistleblower Act
By Jon Hyman
Laws protecting whistle-blowers from retaliation have a long and storied history in the annals of American law. Indeed, according to The...
Crasslighting — Oops, #NotYou is NEVER a defense to #MeToo
By Jon Hyman
Gaslighting — the manipulation of someone by psychological means to question their own sanity. It’s a term you’ve likely heard of. But,...
WIRTW #552 (the “comment of the week” edition)
By Jon Hyman
Big thanks to Kristi Birkeland for the comment of the week , in response to yesterday's 12th blogiversary post . If I ever I get ...
Happy 12th Anniversary to the Ohio Employer Law Blog
By Jon Hyman
Twelve years ago today I launched the Ohio Employer Law Blog. On May 9, 2007, I published, The Song Remains the Same — Has Burlington No...
Workplace civility shouldn’t be something we have to legislate
By Jon Hyman
Workplace harassment isn’t illegal unless it is harassment because of some protected characteristic (sex, race, age, religion, national or...
Lessons from Game of Thrones on an employee’s duty of loyalty #spoileralert
By Jon Hyman
If you haven’t yet watched this week’s episode of Game of Thrones , consider yourself warned. There are spoilers below. Turn back now if y...
Your employees do not understand their (lack of) free speech rights
By Jon Hyman
Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech…. So reads the 1st Amendment of the Constitution. Take note that it does...
WIRTW #551 (the “he went for the head” edition)
By Jon Hyman
#DontSpoilTheEndGame Really! DON’T SPOIL ENDGAME. A Friendswood, Texas, Domino’s employee learned this lesson the hard way. He was cited...
A cautionary tale on why we background check employees
By Jon Hyman
A cautionary tale on why employers should conduct thorough background checks on employers. In late 2013, Kristl Thompson, Ashley Raby, ...
Handshakes, children’s poems, and the loss of responsibility
By Jon Hyman
Handshakes could be BANNED under new workplace rules to avoid expensive sexual harassment claims So reads a headline in The Sun . No...
Should you pay if your business is attacked by ransomware?
By Jon Hyman
Cleveland Hopkins Airport flight information boards have been out of service since last Monday ( story here ). Yesterday, after paying con...
I REALLY thought people knew better not to advertise jobs “for whites”
By Jon Hyman
Cynet Systems, an IT and engineering staffing company, had a viral mess on its hands over the weekend, after it posted a job that asked fo...
WIRTW #550 (the #NoSpoilers edition)
By Jon Hyman
What are your plans this weekend? I'll be avoiding the internet until 10:30 Sunday night. We have a 6:40 Saturday showing of Avengers:...
Supreme Court signs off on death by a thousand cuts
By Jon Hyman
Lingchi was a form of torture and execution used in China from roughly 900 BC until China banned in 1905. It translates variously as the sl...
This disability discrimination lawsuit was no party
By Jon Hyman
Party City has agreed with the EEOC to pay $155,000 to settle an ADA lawsuit the agency filed on behalf of a rejected job applicant on the ...
Supreme Court grants review in three cases to decide, once and for all, whether Title VII protects LGBTQ employees from discrimination
By Jon Hyman
Yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear appeals in three cases, to decide whether Title VII's prohibition against "sex discrimi...
Does Title VII protect heterosexuals from discrimination?
By Jon Hyman
So meet, ROBERTa! Shopping in the women’s department for a swimsuit at the BR Target. For all of you people that say you don’t care what ba...
WIRTW #549 (the #RespectIsComing edition)
By Jon Hyman
You might have heard that a little show called Game of Thrones premiered it's final season last Sunday. In its honor, Sesame Street prep...
How to fire an employee
By Jon Hyman
The Wall Street Journal recently asked this simple question: What's the Best Way to Fire Someone? I have some thoughts.
Bathroom conversations aren't private conversations
By Jon Hyman
Michael Woods, a mortgage banker at Quicken Loans, was having a bad day at work. A customer Woods had helped four years ago had been trying ...
That's how the ball bounces: 6th Circuit says that the ADA does not require a new supervisor as a reasonable accommodation
By Jon Hyman
Cindy Tinsley was so stressed. How stressed was she? She was so stressed that even something as simple as her co-workers at Caterpillar ...
Maybe you should rethink telling your employee you're firing him becaus of his heart problems
By Jon Hyman
Jonathan Baum worked as a scheduler for Metro Restoration Services. In late 2014, he began have cardiac problems. Over the course of the nex...
WIRTW #548 (the “working for the weekend” edition)
By Jon Hyman
I thought I'd update everyone on the summer goings-on of Northeast Ohio's favorite age-15-and-under cover band, Fake ID . They h...
The three things you need to know from the EEOC's 2018 charge data
By Jon Hyman
Yesterday, the EEOC released its charge statistics for 2018 . There are three big things you need to know.
When workplace training goes very, very wrong
By Jon Hyman
A few months ago I participated in active-shooter training. I presented harassment training for a local manufacturer, and, at its conclusion...
To help end sexual harassment, men MUST be better in reporting it when they witness it
By Jon Hyman
"Dad, something bad happened at recess today!" It's a refrain I sometimes hear at the dinner table. "Donovan, what h...
The 10th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the exorcising employer
By Jon Hyman
Is it too early to declare a winner for 2019's contest? According to the complaint Jason Fields fired against the Hampton Inn at wh...
WIRTW #547 (the “new music Friday” edition)
By Jon Hyman
Jenny Lewis just released the first great album of 2019. On The Line has witty and funny, yet touching and sad, lyrics, and beautiful m...
I fart in your general direction: flatulence as harassment?
By Jon Hyman
An Australian court has rejected an employee's claim that his supervisor unlawfully harassed him by farting on him. David Hingst sou...
The 9th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the fertile firing
By Jon Hyman
MoMA PS1, a Queens, New York, art museum, has agreed to settle a pregnancy discrimination claim brought by Nikki Columbus, hired by the m...
Happy New Regulation Tuesday! DOL proposes updates to the definitions of "regular rate" and "joint employer".
By Jon Hyman
Over the past week, the Department of Labor's announced proposals for significant (and much needed) regulatory updates to the definit...
What I learned on my Spring Break
By Jon Hyman
I just returned from eight days in Italy. It was a whirlwind Spring Break tour of Rome and Florence. We covered a lot of ground — per my App...
WIRTW #546 (the “Arrivederci” edition)
By Jon Hyman
Today is good bye … but only for two weeks. My kids' school gives them that much time off for Spring Break each year. So we are headed t...
Share or Retweet if you care about paid parental leave
By Jon Hyman
Earlier this week, Republican Senators Joni Ernst and Mike Lee introduced the Child Rearing and Development Leave Empowerment Act (the CRADL...
The 8th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the lascivious leader
By Jon Hyman
I can't do any better of job than the EEOC did in describing the parade of horribles the one supervisor wrought at Sys-Con, a Montgom...
The FLSA's salary test just doesn't matter
By Jon Hyman
By now you've likely heard that the Department of Labor announced its intent to increase the qualifying salary threshold for its white ...
What a lawful "civility" policy looks like under the NLRB's Boeing test
By Jon Hyman
Consider and compare the following workplace civility policies: Commitment to My Co-Workers I will accept responsibility for establishin...
WIRTW #545 (the “International Women's Day” edition) #IWD2019
By Jon Hyman
Happy International Women's Day! I didn't always consider myself a feminist. But I'm proud to call myself one ever since May 2...
As seen on Reddit: Salary discussion bans are a BIG legal no-no
By Jon Hyman
AriesAviator posted the following question in the LegalAdvice subreddit : Boss just threatened to fire me and another co-worker because...
Emotional outbursts as ADA-protected disabilities
By Jon Hyman
The term hysteria comes from the Greek word hysterika , meaning Uterus. In ancient Greece it was believed that a wandering and discontented...
The 7th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the disability debaser
By Jon Hyman
The 7th nominee for the Worst Employer of 2019 is an employer that (allegedly) permitted a nearly year-long campaign to malign and harass ...
Harassment need not be "hellish" to be actionable
By Jon Hyman
Gates v. Board of Education of the City of Chicago (7th Cir. 2/20/19) asks a question that we see time and again in harassment cases—how b...
WIRTW #544 (the “it's a shame” edition)
By Jon Hyman
I love how my kid's school embraces their individuality and creativity. Back in the fall, my wife and I had a quick conversation with o...
The legalities of employee mass walkouts vs. the practicalities of avoiding them in the first place
By Jon Hyman
Three central Ohio Sonic restaurants are without employees after their entire staffs walked off the job in protest against new management an...
A đŠ disability discrimination case
By Jon Hyman
A call center employee, suffering from Crohn's Disease, asks his manager for some flexibility in the company's break schedules or ot...
What a morning at the BMV teaches about cybersecurity
By Jon Hyman
I spent way too much of my Saturday morning at the local Bureau of Motor Vehicles (aka the Walmart of government agencies). "Why,"...
You're never too small to have an HR department
By Jon Hyman
43 percent of American employees work for companies with 50 or fewer employees. I raise this statistic because it is almost a guarantee that...
WIRTW #543 (the “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the office” edition)
By Jon Hyman
What was your worst day at work? Does it top the day that Cleveland criminal defense attorney Aaron Brockler had this past Tuesday? I'...
If you want to stop workplace harassment, start by educating our children
By Jon Hyman
How soon is too soon to start talking about harassment? If we're talking about your workplace, the correct answer is that it's nev...
The 6th nominee for the “worst employer of 2019” is … the diverse discriminator
By Jon Hyman
How many different ways can one employer discriminate? How about eight. The EEOC recently settled a national origin and disability disc...