Litigators often counsel witnesses to answer, “I don’t recall,” rather than guess or speculate the response to a question at a deposition. But, sometimes, that approach can backfire. Continue reading
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits employers from discriminating against qualified individuals because of a disability. A qualified individual can perform the job’s essential functions with or without a reasonable accommodation. Often, an individual with a disability will approach a supervisor or HR, identify their limitations, and ask for help. It’s a modest burden.
Then, it’s the employer’s job to continue a good faith, interactive process to determine whether a reasonable accommodation exists to help the employee without creating undue hardship on the business. When done right, it’s a win-win. But, when the employer impedes the process, it often results in a lawsuit. Continue reading
I love to litigate employment disputes. And restrictive covenant cases are at or near the top of my list. They are fast-paced, usually well-lawyered on both sides, and lucrative. The primary goal of the dispute is to obtain a preliminary injunction — quickly — to stop someone from working. That means obtaining, organizing, and presenting an entire lawsuit worth of evidence in just months or weeks. Continue reading
Last week, while many of you were in your offices with the doors closed, pretending to work before the holiday break, the Senate and House passed an omnibus spending package incorporating two separate pieces of legislation to protect pregnant workers and new moms. Continue reading
Under a federal law called the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act, businesses with 100 or more employees must provide affected workers with 60 days’ notice before a big layoff. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. But, for this blog post, the details aren’t so important.
What does matter today is that New Jersey has its own mini-WARN Act called the Millville Dallas Airmotive Plan Job Loss Notification Act. And it looks like a long-overdue employee-friendly update is about to happen . . . much sooner than many employers thought.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor announced that it had released New Resources for Workers Impacted by Cancer. Continue reading
Sometimes, when deciding whether to blog about a recent federal court decision, I skip the “Factual Background” section and go right to the “Discussion.” That’s where I usually find the most concise, “meat-and-bones” explanation of what the case is about. Continue reading
I like to tell people who will listen to me, which frequently isn’t even my kids, that I can go into most workplaces and sleuth out at least one wage-and-hour violation. Continue reading
On Friday’s edition of The Employer Handbook Zoom Office Happy Hour — catch the replay here if you missed it — we talked about 2022 changes in the law that could impact 2023 updates to your employee handbook. One talked briefly about how the pendulum at the National Labor Relations Board is swinging back toward employee rights.
What I failed to mention was that, with that shift, the Board is taking an aggressive position on how employers — union or not — may have to make employees whole for violations of the National Labor Relations Act (the “Act”). Continue reading
I don’t know about you, but the COVID-19 pandemic has warped my sense of timing. Still, it seems like a lot happened in 2022 that warrants some discussion about how employers should revise their employee handbooks for 2023.
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