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Firing

U.S. citizenship status irrelevant to Title VII claims

07/01/2008
While Title VII of the Civil Rights Act protects employees from discrimination based on national origin, it does not separately protect employees from discrimination based on their citizenship status. What counts is alleged discrimination based on the country of origin, not whether someone is a citizen of the United States or some other country …

Review all reprimands so they don’t become ‘Adverse actions’

07/01/2008
Even something as routine as a reprimand may end up being the basis for a lawsuit. That’s why someone in the HR department should be in charge of making sure that all disciplinary actions, including reprimands, are applied fairly and evenhandedly …

Employees robbed, fired … and now fired up to sue

07/01/2008
Four former employees of Ace Cash Express have filed a lawsuit against the company, claiming they were fired for being robbed.  Ace fired all of them for failing to follow a company directive to trigger an alarm if possible during a robbery …

Employer didn’t check records before letting him check a pulse

07/01/2008
A man worked as a paramedic on the Front Range for 17 months before American Medical Response (AMR) discovered he was not a certified paramedic. AMR discovered the forgery when Teel requested a transfer from the Denver area to the Longmont Fire Department …

Terminations: 6 steps to ensure firing won’t backfire

07/01/2008
In most states, workers are employed on an “at will” basis, meaning they can leave the company at any time. Conversely, employers typically retain the right to terminate workers at any time for any legal, nondiscriminatory reason. Courts continue to chip away at the at-will doctrine, providing less flexibility to employers. This has led to an increase in wrongful discharge lawsuits …

HR Specialist Editors Bring You the Best from SHRM Chicago

06/24/2008
For a week each year, the Society for Human Resource Management’s Annual Conference becomes the center of the HR world. HR Specialist editors have joined 13,000 of our peers in Chicago this week for four days of professional development covering HR’s hottest topics and presented by the profession’s  leading experts. Here’s some of the best from the world’s biggest HR conference.

Writing reviews: Steer clear of two common errors

06/17/2008
Login Email Address Password I forgot my password To continue reading this page, become an HR Specialist Premium Plus member today! Your subscription includes: Ask the Attorney: Answers to your HR legal questions Compliance Guidance: Access to 7,000 HR news articles, updated daily, sorted by state State-by-State: Summaries of HR laws in all 50 states […]

Don’t let tardiness influence FMLA leave

06/17/2008
Ann Weichman, an account underwriter at Chubb, was a pain to supervise because she was so frequently late for work. Then, a few days after Weichman took FMLA leave, she was late for nonmedical reasons. The company had had enough and fired her. She sued for retaliation and interference with her FMLA rights …

Time off for church TV?

06/17/2008
Grocery store cashier Kimberly Bloom asked for Sundays off work for religious reasons. Although the store had a voluntary shift-swap system so employees could trade days with co-workers, Bloom told her boss that religious convictions prohibited her from working Sundays—or from asking co-workers to work for her …

You don’t have to ask for FMLA certification for every absence

06/12/2008
Balancing business needs against employees’ legitimate FMLA rights is one of the hardest parts of managing absenteeism. Now there’s one less thing to worry about. A new case makes it clear that you don’t have to request an FMLA certification every time an employee calls in sick …