WIRTW #767: the 'cerveja' edition

When part of your business involves providing legal representation to craft breweries, even vacation means finding a beer garden where you can sit, relax, and sample the local brews.

Saúde to Letaria, a craft brewery tucked inside Óbidos, Portugal—a 12th-century walled town that feels straight out of a fairytale. The beer was excellent, and the quiet beer garden offered the perfect escape from the bustle of a crowded summer weekend in this popular tourist hub.

If you ever find yourself there, don't skip the ginja, a sour cherry liqueur served in chocolate cups and sold all over town. It's as fun as it is delicious.

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Breaking down the proper way to handle an extended medical leave of absence

I spend a lot of time calling out employers who mishandle workplace issues. Today, I'm highlighting one that got it right.

Leanna Coffman was a Nexstar Media employee who suffered serious pregnancy-related complications and took 12 weeks of FMLA leave after giving birth. When her FMLA leave expired, Nexstar continued to provide support—giving her months of additional time off and approving her short-term disability benefits.

But when she still couldn't return to work six months after going out on leave, and also couldn't provide a clear return date, Nexstar made the difficult decision to terminate her.

So she sued for discrimination and FMLA retaliation. She lost on all counts. Why? Because Nexstar handled this situation correctly. They followed the law, communicated clearly, documented their decisions, and gave Coffman much more than the law required.

The Feds say that proselytizing at work is okay, but it shouldn't be

"The power of Christ compels you!" … could soon be coming to a workplace near you.

The Trump administration has issued new guidance allowing federal employees to display religious items at their desks, pray in groups off the clock, and even try to convert their coworkers.

You read that right. Government employees can now "attempt to persuade others of the correctness of their own religious views" and "encourage their coworkers to participate in religious expressions of faith, such as prayer, to the same extent that they would be permitted to encourage coworkers participate in other personal activities," so long as it's not "harassing in nature."

The 6 hard truths of litigation

I pay my mortgage and my kids' school tuition thanks to how long lawsuits take and how expensive they are.

Still, we need to have a frank conversation about exactly that: how long lawsuits take, and how much they cost.

Xerox just ended a 13-year legal saga with a $9.1 million settlement to a class of 5,700 call center employees. The lawsuit challenged the company's Achievement-Based Compensation plan, which paid employees by task and offered bonuses to meet minimum wage thresholds—but didn't cover time spent logging in, waiting between calls, or doing other required non-task work.

Think about that. Years of disruption. Thousands of work hours lost to discovery, motions, depositions, hearings, and appeals. Millions in legal fees. All to land on a settlement that isn't remotely material to a $7 billion company.

WIRTW #766: the 'empathy' edition

Forty years ago this week, the world came together. On July 13, 1985, Live Aid united millions across borders—not out of politics, but out of compassion. No cynicism. No culture wars. Just humanity responding to suffering.

Can you imagine that happening today?

In a time when empathy is mocked as weakness and "America First" is used to justify indifference, we need to remember what real leadership—and real decency—looks like.

Over at my Substack, I share what Live Aid teaches us about the power of compassion—and why rediscovering it may be our best hope against rising authoritarianism.

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Strollers and stouts can coexist: making the case for family-friendly breweries

There's a growing trend in craft beer: no kids allowed.

Forest City Brewery, for example, recently banned guests under 16. They cite too many safety issues involving unsupervised toddlers and distracted parents.

They're not alone. Breweries across the country are shifting to adults-only policies… or at least adults-only hours.

I get it. Staff shouldn't have to dodge strollers or play babysitter. And if someone really pulled out a travel potty in the middle of a taproom (as one brewery reported)? Yikes! That's not just inappropriate; it's gross.

When your top talent drops the leg on your trade secrets…

Carma HoldCo—the company behind the Real American Beer concept—is laying the legal smackdown on two of its former execs, Chad Bronstein and Nicole Cosby.

Real American Beer is the light lager co-founded by wrestling legend Hulk Hogan. It's got a red-white-and-blue brand identity, a distribution deal with Walmart, and is being billed as the "official beer of WWE." It's a high-profile brand with big backing and even bigger stakes.

Carma alleges Bronstein and Cosby developed branding and business plans for the beer while still on the payroll, then body-slammed their confidentiality obligations by launching the same beer under their own company, RAHM (d/b/a Real American Beer), after getting the boot.

Being a workplace star doesn't excuse bad behavior. In fact, it demands more accountability, not less.

Teenage football phenom Lamine Yamal made headlines for all the wrong reasons this weekend. At his 18th birthday party, he allegedly hired people with dwarfism as entertainment, prompting widespread public backlash and legal complaints from disability rights organizations. The accusation: dehumanizing behavior that treats the disabled as props for amusement is discriminatory and undermines basic dignity.

Let's pivot from the pitch to the workplace.

Too often, high performers or rainmakers are given a pass. Their results insulate them. They cross lines, bullying coworkers, making inappropriate jokes, creating uncomfortable or even hostile environments. Leadership and HR look the other way because "they're too valuable to lose."

WIRTW #765: the 'It's a Bird… It's a Plane…' edition

Superman is an undocumented immigrant who punches Nazis. And if that makes him "woke," then maybe we need more woke heroes.

MAGAworld is melting down over James Gunn's Superman reboot because Gunn says that its a story about "immigrants and basic human kindness." Kellyanne Conway called it a woke lecture. Jesse Watters said his cape should say “MS13.”

Let's be clear: Superman has always been political.

• Created by two Jewish kids in 1938.
• A refugee from a dying planet.
• The Champion of the oppressed.
• A symbol of anti-fascism, decency, and justice.

If you think Superman is too political or too woke, you're not only misunderstanding him. You're also siding with the fascists he was created to punch.

I just wrote a full Substack piece digging into Superman's immigrant roots, his Jewish allegory, and why calling him "superwoke" completely misses the point. 

🧵 Read the full post here.
📬 And if you're not already subscribed to my Authoritarian Alarm Substack, what are you waiting for? Subscribe here.

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Apple takes a bite of the NLRB in 5th Circuit ruling

In the workplace, not all questions are coercive and not all policy enforcements are discriminatory.
Case in point: Apple v. NLRB, in which the 5th Circuit just handed the tech giant a full reversal, rejecting findings by the Board that the company violated the NLRA by:

1. Coercively interrogating an employee about union activity; and

2. Removing union flyers from a breakroom table.

Let's unpack why Apple won, and what it means for employers navigating union-organizing campaigns.

Yes, you can be fired for what you say outside of work… especially when it's hateful.

In Darlingh v. Maddaleni, the Seventh Circuit just upheld the firing of a school counselor who gave a profanity-laced anti-trans tirade at a public rally. She promised "not a single" student under her watch would "ever, ever transition," and made sure to identify herself as a Milwaukee Public Schools employee while doing it. 

She sued, claiming the school district violated her First Amendment rights by terminating her. The 7th Circuit disagreed.

The 7th nominee for The Worst Employer of 2025 is … The Sadistic Chef

A jury just awarded $3.15 million to 22-year-old Andrew DeBellis—a sous chef who, over a brutal 2.5-month stretch, was punched, slapped, kicked, and emotionally destroyed inside the kitchen of fine-dining restaurant Margotto Hawaii.

Not by a rogue coworker.
Not in a moment of heat.
But daily.
By his executive chef—and with full knowledge of the owner.

The details are appalling. 

Title VII requires harm; not just hate

This week, America First Legal, a right-wing conservative organization founded by Stephen Miller, fired off a letter to the EEOC accusing the Los Angeles Dodgers and Guggenheim Partners of violating Title VII because of their publicly commitment to workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion.

But there's the legal twist: AFL didn't name a single person who was denied a job, demoted, fired, or otherwise harmed. Nor did it claim any injury to itself. 

The "Restoring Biological Truth to the Workplace Act" isn't about truth, it's about protecting bigotry

It's called the Restoring Biological Truth to the Workplace Act.

But let's be honest: it's just a license to discriminate.

Senator Jim Banks' recently introduced bill isn't about truth. It's about control. And cruelty. It would allow employees to misgender their transgender colleagues with impunity and prohibit employers from enforcing any workplace policies that require respect for a person's gender identity.

You want to avoid a labor union in your business? Then don't do this.

Two pediatricians at Cleveland's University Hospitals used an internal physician directory to contact colleagues about forming a union. In response, they say that UH disciplined them for trying to unionize. They've filed unfair labor practice charges with the NLRB.

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects employees' rights to engage in concerted activity—including organizing a union and discussing it with co-workers. That protection applies whether you're a warehouse worker or a pediatric subspecialist.

WIRTW #764: the 'substack' edition

Introducing Authoritarian Alarm: 

A New Home for a Critical Conversation

For the past 18+ years, I've written about the intersection of law, policy, and the American workplace. But more and more, the news I feel compelled to cover—and the commentary I'm driven to write—has expanded far beyond employment law and HR drama.

Because the truth is, something much bigger is happening in this country.

America today barely resembles the nation it claims to be. In our institutions, our politics, and even our public discourse, we're beginning to mirror the authoritarianism we've spent the last 249 years claiming to oppose. We're becoming what the Founding Fathers created this country to resist.

So I've launched something new: Authoritarian Alarm—a Substack newsletter dedicated to tracking America’s quickening slide into authoritarianism. My first post is now available: We've become everything we've fought against for 249 years.

If you've valued my perspective on these issues before, I hope you'll join me there. Subscribe, share, and help me sound the alarm.

Because silence is complicity.
And democracy doesn't defend itself.

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👉 Subscribe now for free to Authoritarian Alarm: https://jonhyman.substack.com

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.

Without HR, you're not running a business. You're running a liability factory.

"I want to be the first company without HR."

That's the viral line from Jennifer Sey, who founded XX-XY Athletics in March 2024. She thinks Human Resources is just the "social-justice police." According to her, they are nothing more than a department of hall monitors: "They produce nothing. They monitor our words. They tell us what we can and cannot say. They inhibit creativity. It's bad for business."

Let's clear this up:
HR is not the problem.
HR is not your censor.
HR is not some DEI-driven thought police force trying to ruin your fun.

PIPs are performance improvement plans, not employee termination plans

The point of a performance improvement plan isn't to fire someone, it's to help them improve. It's right there is the name. But too often, PIPs aren't about performance or improvement.

For example, in Murphy v. Caterpillar Inc., the 7th Circuit just reversed summary judgment on the employee's age discrimination claim, and the court's reasoning serves as a stern warning to any employer using PIPs as a shortcut to termination.

Here's what Caterpillar got wrong about the PIP it delivered to Brian Murphy, a 58-year-old engineer:

I want my records back, records back, records back

When you destroy the evidence that could justify a termination, don’t be surprised when a court refuses to take your side. That's the message from the 6th Circuit's recent decision in Kean v. Brinker International, Inc., where a 59-year-old general manager of a Chili's, owned and operated by Brinker International, was fired despite running one of the most successful stores in his market.

Brinker claimed he was let go for not "living the Chili's way"—an amorphous explanation about bad "culture." Instead, Kean claimed age discrimination, supported by his stellar performance records and his post-firing replacement by someone 26 years his junior.

Brinker, however, could not support any its reasons for Kean's termination because it had destroyed all of the documents related to the termination.

WIRTW #763: the 'shiny and new' edition

Our new website is live!

I am excited to share that Wickens Herzer Panza has officially launched a completely redesigned website.

Our goal was simple: make it faster and easier to find our insights, resources, and people—while showcasing our depth and agility.

Our new site features a clean, modern design, along with refreshed and expanded content:

• Attorney Bios – Experience, focus areas, fun facts, and direct contact details.

• Practice Area & Industry Pages – Plain-language overviews of how we solve problems for businesses like yours.

• News & Alerts – Timely articles, case analyses, and thought leadership geared toward business owners and entrepreneurs.

• Firm Insights – Events, community involvement, and the culture that drives our client service.

Our refreshed branding—Big Firm Ability; Small Firm Agility—features prominently on the new home page. This isn't marketing rhetoric; it's who we are:

• Big Firm Ability – Seasoned lawyers, multi-disciplinary teams, and the bench strength to handle sophisticated transactions, complex litigation, and strategic planning.

• Small Firm Agility – Direct access to decision-makers, responsive service, and customized solutions delivered at the pace a business demands.

Massive shoutout to PaperStreet Web Design for knocking our new website out of the park!

Check out the new WickensLaw.com and let me know what you think. If you've got questions about how we can help you or your business, just grab my contact info right from the site.

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Here's what I read this week that you should read, too.