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A black employee who claimed that her boss, also black, called her the n-word eight times, had her day in court recently, as she put her race discrimination claims to a federal jury.

The defense argued that the use of the n-word here was culturally acceptable because both the “victim” and the “harasser” black. But, during closing argument, the plaintiff’s attorney told jurors, “When you use the word [the n-word] to an African-American, no matter how many alternative definitions that you may try to substitute with the [n-word], that is no different than calling a Hispanic by the worst possible word you can call a Hispanic, calling a homosexual male the worst possible word that you can call a homosexual male.”

The jury agreed with the plaintiff. Larry Neumeister at The Huffington Post reports here, that the jury awarded the plaintiff $30,000 in punitive damages and $250,000 in compensatory damages.

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It takes two to make a thing go right.

It takes two to make it out of sight, palatable enough for bipartisan support.

It took some doing, but the State of New Jersey finally has itself a workplace social media privacy law, becoming the 12th state to restrict company access to prospective and current employee social media.

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Amanda Bynes on the Red Carpet (cropped2)
Imagine, if you will, that two years ago you hired Amanda Bynes to be your Social Media Manager. Things are going pretty smoothly, until your customers begin complaining that company’s Twitter feed has gone from informative and witty to curious and more-or-less bizarre.

After reviewing the tweets for yourself, you wonder whether you picked the wrong week to quit sniffing glue Ms. Bynes is fit to perform the job of Social Media Manager. One tool in your arsenal is a fitness-for-duty evaluation with a medical provider.

But if you send Ms. Bynes for this test, she fails, and you end up firing her, does that mean that you have violated the Americans with Disabilities Act?

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In that handbook of yours should be a page — maybe a few lines — on an employee’s responsibility to notify you if they are going to miss work. Who to call, when to call, that kind of stuff.

A recent case from the Sixth Circuit (this one) reaffirms that employees need not relax these rules — even when the employee is seeking leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

In White v. Dana Light Axle Manuf., the employer had a simple rule: when you’re going to be out, call it in. The plaintiff, who needed FMLA leave for a hernia surgery, assumed that because he had previously met with the employer in person to discuss his upcoming hernia surgery, he didn’t need to later call in his absences.

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That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post.”

Today, I’m speaking at the EEOC EXCEL Conference in Denver, CO. It’s an incredible honor, given that this is the first year that the conference has not only catered to public sector employers, but also those in the private sector.

(Well, at least, that’s what someone at yesterday’s networking reception, so I’m going with it).

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theysaid.jpgMonday is Labor Day, the day I plan to break the Guinness World Record for twerking and eating BLTs — they call it BLTwerking a tribute to the American Worker.

If you give your employees the day off on Labor Day, a national holiday, do you have to pay them?

My buds Jon Hyman and Mike Haberman have your answers here and here.

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On Friday, a federal court in Georgia dismissed all of the remaining discrimination counts against Paula Deen and her brother, Bubba, after the parties reported to the court that the two sides had settled.

The settlement terms are undisclosed.

In a statement emailed to The Associated Press, Ms. Deen’s publicist wrote:

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There are 11 states with social media workplace privacy laws making it illegal for an employer to require that an employee or applicant fork over a social media login and password.

But, if a company in the other 39 states assumes that it has the green light to engage in these shenanigans, then chiggity check yo self before you wreck yo self, according to this recent NJ federal court decision.

The legal risks of accessing an employee’s Facebook account

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