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Employment Law

Prepare to show applicant understood terms of initial arbitration agreement

04/30/2018
Do you routinely include an arbitration agreement in your employment applications? It’s a good idea to keep copies of both, in case the employee later claims she didn’t understand what she was signing because of language barriers.

Document details of work, degree of control to prove worker is an independent contractor

04/30/2018
Facts matter. Documenting those facts can make it much easier to defeat a challenge from either the worker or a state or federal government agency.

Minor annoyance doesn’t warrant lawsuit

04/30/2018
Few courts want to mediate petty disputes. Judges have more important matters to attend to. Just ask the judge who issued a caustic ruling in this recent case.

Government bosses can be liable under FMLA

04/30/2018
Company supervisors who make family leave decisions and manage FMLA administration can be held personally liable for violations. Until now, it was unclear in California whether that liability extended to supervisors who administer the FMLA at public agencies. It is now clear it does.

S.F. firefighters’ age bias suit goes down in flames

04/30/2018
The decade-long age discrimination litigation saga of 15 San Francisco firefighters has come to an end.

Document all efforts to find ADA accommodations

04/26/2018
If an employee tells you he has a new medical condition that qualifies as an ADA disability, document all discussions you have about possible accommodations.

Worker taking high road can still quit & sue

04/26/2018
Typically, workers sue after being fired or otherwise subjected to an adverse employment action such as a demotion. But sometimes, aggrieved employees can quit and still sue, alleging that their working conditions were so severe that they had no choice but to leave.

Now more than ever, rein in sex harassment

04/26/2018
#MeToo spawned the multimillion-dollar #TimesUp fund that pays lawyers to help working-class women press sexual harassment claims in court. For employers, that means you can’t afford to ignore a single sexual harassment complaint.

Don’t let employee’s whistleblower status dissuade you from legitimate discipline

04/25/2018
To win a retaliation case, the worker would have to prove that the discipline was motivated by a desire to punish him or her for making the report. That’s unlikely to succeed if 1) the discipline began before the safety problem was reported or 2) it is clear that any other worker would have been disciplined for the same rule violation.

Women much more likely to perceive pay bias

04/24/2018
Nearly a third of women (32%) do not think they are making the same pay as men in their organization who have similar experience and qualifications, compared to 12% of men.