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The Employer Handbook Blog
Only an FMLA nerd would like this post
Hey there, dateless and lonely.
Are you a wait-in-line-after-a-SHRM-event-so-you-can-ask-the-speaker-your-random-FMLA-question-“for a friend”-fanboy/fangirl?
Then, step right up and head on over to Thompson’s HR Compliance Expert for the latest edition of “Opposing Counsel,” where employee-rights attorney, Donna Ballman, and I spike your HR-compliance dork punch with a splash of FMLA. Actually, it’s a double shot of Louis the XIII situations in which HR has to make a tough call about whether an employee is FMLA-eligible.
Medical Marijuana is coming to PA. What do employers need to know?
Pennsylvania is about to become the second Commonwealth in the United States to legalize medical marijuana. (23 states — la di da, states — plus DC currently allow it)
Does this mean that employees with migraines can puff vape pens and eat Cheetos in your break rooms at work? Actually, I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.
Here’s a novel defense to a discrimination claim. (Replace “novel” with “damn near frivolous”).
Let’s say that one of your employees forms a corporation. The sole purpose of the corporation is to accept direct payment of wages for the employee. In other words, this arrangement does not affect the employee’s duties or your control over the employee at work. Indeed, maybe you provide the employee with business cards with both your company name and the employee’s name.
Just suppose…
The most essential elements of an employee handbook acknowledgment
Right around the time that email subscribers to this blog — you can become one too, you know — receive today’s post, I’ll be sitting on an “Ask the Expert” legal panel at the Lehigh Valley Chapter of SHRM saying lawyerly stuff like…
“It depends.” and “I’ll get back to you on that.” and “Are you serious? Or just asking for a friend.“
One of the questions I know that we’ll get is about employee handbook acknowledgments. Specifically, what should they look like?
The last word is often key to ADA accommodations
That’s why I kick so much butt with Americans with Disabilities Act accommodations. As a lawyer, I always have to have the last word. LOL!
(Or say stuff like, “It depends.”)
Permanent light duty is not an ADA accommodation. Unless you make it one.
The Americans with Disabilities Act requires employers to provide a reasonable accommodation to an individual with a disability, if doing so will allow that person to perform the essential functions of the job.
Temporary light duty? Yep, that’s a reasonable accommodation.
But, what about permanent light duty?
Can an employer rescind a job offer based on the results of a genetic test?
A received a number of emails following yesterday’s blog post, “Can you refuse to hire a person whom you fear may have a future disability?” Most were nice. Although, I didn’t appreciate one reader’s virtual flaming bag of virtual dog poop left in my inbox. That person can go to virtual hell. Or actual hell.
But, one of the more substantive emails was worthy of setting the table for today’s post:
Can you refuse to hire a person whom you fear may have a future disability?
Over the next few days. you may read a bunch of headlines about yesterday’s Eighth Circuit decision in Morris v. BNSF Railway (opinion here), touting the court’s holding that obesity, by itself, is a not a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Specifically, the court concluded that “for obesity, even morbid obesity, to be considered a physical impairment, it must result from an underlying physiological disorder or condition.” The Eighth Circuit’s conclusions aligns with prior decisions from the Sixth Circuit (opinion here) and the Second Circuit (opinion here).
But, that’s not what caught my attention.
Vague policies + poor HR communication = FMLA disaster
A few years ago, I blogged here about the importance of communicating with employees on FMLA to stay abreast of their status and eventual return-to-work.
But, even before employees go on FMLA, both clear communication and workplace policies becomes paramount. Consider this recent example involving a pregnant salesperson.