A weighty lawsuit: Hooters sued for asking waitress to shed a few pounds

Last September I asked whether “fat” was the new protected class. A lawsuit filed earlier this week in Michigan seeks to answer this question in the affirmative. Cassandra Smith—5’8” and 132.5 pounds—claims that Hooters put her on a 30-day “weight probation” as a condition of keeping her employment. That probation followed a performance evaluation counseling her about the fit of her uniform and advising her to join a gym to fit better into the required uniform. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog has the details, along with a copy of the lawsuit.

Unlike Michigan, Ohio’s statute does not include “weight” as a protected class. Nevertheless, decisions based on an employee’s can be discriminatory under the right circumstances. Morbid obesity can be a protected disability if it manifests in or is the result of a physiological condition. Weight could also be categorized as gender discrimination on the basis of sexual stereotyping.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Do you know? Discovery of social networks in employment disputes

I’ve long preached that employees should not enjoy an expectation of privacy in information they voluntarily place on the Internet, including social networks like Facebook. What they make available for the others to see should be fair game for employers to use in making employment decisions. According to one federal court in Indiana, it is also fair game for employers to use this information in defending against discrimination lawsuits. Because there are so few cases discussing this developing issues of the discoverability of social networking information, this case is helpful in defining the scope of these issues.

EEOC v. Simply Storage Management (S.D. Ind. 5/11/10) concerns two employees’ sexual harassment claims, and in particular their claims of depression, stress, and other psychiatric disorders stemming from the harassment. In discovery, Simply Storage sought the following information from the claimants’ social networking pages on Facebook and MySpace:

• All photographs or videos posted by the claimants or anyone on their behalf on Facebook or MySpace.

• Electronic copies of the claimants’ complete profiles on Facebook and MySpace (including all updates, changes, or modifications to their profiles) and all status updates, messages, wall comments, causes joined, groups joined, activity streams, blog entries, details, blurbs, comments, and applications (including, but not limited to, “How well do you know me” and the “Naughty Application”).

The EEOC objected to the discovery on the grounds that the requests were not relevant, improperly infringed on the claimants’ privacy, and would harass and embarrass the claimants. Simply Storage claimed that discovery of these matters was proper because the claimants put their emotional health at issue beyond that typically encountered with “garden variety emotional distress claims.”

The court agreed with the employer and ordered the discovery. In doing so, it made four key observations about the discovery of social networking in discrimination cases.

1. Social networking content is not shielded from discovery merely because it is “locked” or protected as “private”.

2. However, all social networking content is not necessarily relevant or discoverable in all cases; the information must still be relevant to a claim or defense in the case. The court used the following example to illustrate this difference: “If a claimant sent a message to a friend saying she always looks forward to going to work, the person to whom she sent the message and the substance of the message are what should be considered to determine whether the message is relevant…. But the mere fact that the claimant has made a communication is not relevant because it is not probative of a claim or defense in this litigation.”

3. Allegations of depression, stress disorders, and similar injuries will manifest themselves in some social networking content. An examination of that content might reveal whether and when onset occurred, the degree of distress, and other stressors that could have produced the alleged emotional distress.

4. Because discovery is meant to be liberal, the producing party should err in favor of production if there is any doubt over the arguable relevance of social networking information.

The court also specifically addressed the employees’ privacy concerns:

The court agrees with the EEOC that broad discovery of the claimants’ SNS could reveal private information that may embarrass them. Other courts have observed, however, that this is the inevitable result of alleging these sorts of injuries. Further, the court finds that this concern is outweighed by the fact that the production here would be of information that the claimants have already shared with at least one other person through private messages or a larger number of people through postings. As one judge observed, “Facebook is not used as a means by which account holders carry on monologues with themselves.”

In other words, if it is fit to share with your Facebook friends, it is fit to be disclosed in discovery (as long as it’s relevant). As these issues become more prevalent in litigation, these guideposts will become more fleshed out. In the meantime, consider including requests for social networking information in all employment disputes.

[Hat tip: Fitzpatrick on Employment Law]

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

6 tips for handling electronic information in litigation

Zubulake v. UBS Warburg LLC is considered the standard-bearer of lawyers’ and their clients’ responsibilities to preserve electronic information for litigation. A litigant or potential litigant has a duty to preserve relevant or discoverable information in pending or reasonably anticipated litigation. The Spring 2010 edition of the ABA’s Employment and Labor Relations Law Newsletter has an article entitled, Nuts and Bolts of Ethics in Employment Litigation [ABA membership required to view]. The article discuss what steps a business should take to ensure that all possible information is preserved as early as possible. Here’s six good suggestions for your consideration in defending against your next employment claim.

1. Is there an existing preservation/destruction policy, and how regularly are documents and electronic information destroyed?

2. Do you need to tell IT to stop destroying certain information"?

3. How is data stored? How can you retrieve the information? How would it be preserved? How much would it cost to restore documents?

4. Is any cloud computing used?

5. Do any employees have access to destroy or alter evidence?

6. Provide detailed instructions to all key employees via a preservation letter, instructing them about their obligation to preserve documents, what kind of documents should be preserved, how they should be preserved, and who should be contacted to handle questions.

A good takeaway for business in handling electronic data in litigation or in anticipation of litigation – these are complex issues that need a trained eye. The earlier counsel is engaged, the earlier preservation measures can be put in place to guard against the inadvertent destruction of evidence and the catastrophic sanctions that can flow from it.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

WIRTW #128

Another week, and another compilation of the best of the labor & employment blawgosphere that I didn’t write.

• Is Bad Taste the New Taste? Social Media is Changing Our Sense of What's Acceptable—and What's Not – from Case Western Reserve University’s Think magazine

• From the CBIA HR Conference: What Happens On Facebook May Not Stay on Facebook – from Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog

• Employee Fired When Her Sex Blog Is Discovered by Her Boss – from Molly DiBianca at the Delaware Employment Law Blog

• Small Business Summit - Leveraging Social Media to Build New Relationships – from The ChamberPost

Discrimination

• Employees Harassed by Third-Parties: Male Prisoners Harassing Female Correctional Employees – from Fitzpatrick on Employment Law

• Hearings on Bill in Response to Gross v. FBL – from Iowa Employer Law Blog

• Employers must be prepared for GINA claims – from Jennifer Hays at the Warren & Hays Employment Law Blog

• Family Responsibility Discrimination – from Stephanie Thomas’s The Proactive Employer

• Meeting your ADA requirements starts with a simple chat – from Stephen Meyer’s HR Cafe

• Inability to get along with co-workers can be sufficient basis for adverse employment action – from Employment Law Matters

• Workplace bullying law passes NY state senate – from PointOfLaw Forum

• “Blood Typing” in the Workplace? Some GINA Issues to Consider – from Prima Facie Law Blog

• Man Wins Pregnancy Discrimination Suit (Seriously.) – from Deliberations

Wage & Hour

• Proactive Measures Employers Should Take to Protect Themselves Against the DOL – from CPEhr

• When Interns Make Sense – from WSJ.com: Small Business

• Adverse References to FMLA Leave Usage Sufficient to Defeat Employer's Claim that it Terminated Employee for Performance Deficiencies, Not Exercise of FMLA Rights – from The FMLA Blog

• Employees Paid on a Piece Rate Basis are Entitled to Overtime – from Overtime Advisor

• Conditional Certification Defeated: A Rare Occurrence! – from Wage & Hour - Development & Highlights

HR

• Save the Workplace: Fire Bad Supervisors and Managers – from The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips

• Old Criminal Records Can Haunt You – from Jason Morris at the employeescreenIQ Blog

• Tell “At-Will” Employees They Are “At-Will” – from Minnesota Labor & Employment Law Blog

• CNN’s Campbell Brown Departs With Class – from Bob Sutton

• How to spot a liar, and why doing so might be harder if he’s the boss – from Mike Maslanka’s Work Matters

• “Concerted Activity”: Why NonUnion HR Needs to Know About It – from Mike Haberman’s HR Observations

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Quarter-billion dollar verdict in sex discrimination suit highlights risks of family responsibility discrimination

In October 2009, Working Mother magazine named Novartis Pharmaceuticals one of its 100 best companies for working families, lauding its flexible work schedules, job-sharing, telecommuting, and customizable child-care offerings. According to a federal jury in Manhattan, all was not what it seemed at Novartis. That jury found that Novartis had discriminated against women over pay and promotions. The cost to Novartis: $3.3 million in compensatory damages to the 12 name plaintiffs, and another $250 million in punitive damages to a class of 5,600 female sales reps and entry-level managers. The allegation that perhaps led the jury to award more than a quarter-billion dollars was this gem from a Novartis manager explaining his preference against hiring young women: “First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes flex time and a baby carriage.” That statement has not only cost Novartis a whopping 2.6% of its annual revenue, but also its reputation as a great workplace for working moms.

One of the very first posts I wrote on this blog (almost three years ago to the day) discussed a $2.1 million verdict handed down by a Cuyahoga County jury against Kohl’s. In that case, the plaintiff claimed discrimination because of her parenting role for her two young children. Witnesses testified at trial that as she was being passed over for promotion after promotion, managers asked questions like: “You’re not going to get pregnant again, are you?” and “Did you get your tubes tied?” Following the trial, the Cleveland Plain Dealer quoted one juror’s explanation for the multi-million dollar verdict: “I think she was very poorly treated because she was pregnant, because she wanted to have a family.”

Ashby Jones, writing at the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, quotes Mike Delikat, the chair of Orrick’s employment law practice, who thinks that this verdict is the beginning of a dark age for employers:

“It should clearly cause the employer community to sit up and look at its potential exposure in this area,” said Delikat. “You’re going to see more class-actions filed, and more individual claims of gender and race discrimination. It could be a bonanza.”

Delikat said that the Novartis ruling was a “game changer,” in that it provided a new arrow for plaintiffs lawyers to tuck into their quivers. “How many employers are going to be willing to take a case now that we have a case like this on the books?” he asked. “The case is going to encourage even more defendants to settle—and pay a lot more than they used to.”

While I’m not ready to go as far as Mr. Delikat, there is real danger that lurks for employers in these types of cases. People think that women are entitled to have a career and a family, and juries continue to punish employers that prioritize the former over the latter. If employers have not been paying attention to family responsibility discrimination, they better be now.

For more coverage of this story, I recommend the perspectives of my fellow bloggers: Delaware Employment Law Blog, HR Lawyer’s Blog, Maryland Employment Law Developments, San Antonio Employment Law Blog, UndercoverLawyer, LawMemo Employment Law Blog, and Jottings By An Employer’s Lawyer.

For more on issues and trends in family responsibility discrimination, I recommend a few of my earlier posts:

• Caregiver discrimination, three years later
• EEOC releases “Employer Best Practices for Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities”
• Is the glass ceiling self-imposed?
• Is mommy bias real?
• “Maternal Profiling” listed as buzzword of 2007

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

A textbook example of Facebook firing

I spent the summer between my junior and senior years of high school bussing tables in a nursing home dining room. Not the world’s most glamour job, but it paid $8 an hour, which in 1989 was a lot of money. Needles to say, we had our fair share of difficult people to deal with. One of my co-workers would retaliate by spitting in the resident’s food. Had he been caught by management, there is no doubt he would have been fired.

Flash forward 21 years – social media is the new spitting. Unlike spitting, however, social media is public, and much easier to discover. When a waitress at a Charlotte restaurant was stiffed on a tip from a difficult table, she took her grievance to Facebook, “Thanks for eating at Brixx, you cheap piece of ---- camper.” Two days later, her managers fired her for violating company policies against speaking disparagingly about customers and casting the restaurant in a negative light on social networks.

There are three important lessons to take away from this tale that is becoming all too common.

1. Your employees are on Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and myriad other websites, saying things both good and bad about your business. Your business needs to harness the good and discourage the bad.

2. If an employee makes disparaging comments about your business on the Internet, you are within your rights as an employer to fire that employee.

3. But, you are selling your business short if you don’t have a policy that warns employees of the potential punishments for illegitimate and irresponsible uses of social media, as well as instructs them about legitimate and responsible uses.

For more on putting together an appropriate social media policy, check out my earlier thoughts on 7 must-haves for your policy.

For more on this story, I recommend Philip Miles’s Lawffice Space, The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips, Megan Erickson’s Social Networking Law Blog, and Molly DiBianca at the Delaware Employment Law Blog. And thanks to Joe Lustig for bringing this to my attention.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Do you know? Admissibility of settlement offers

Sometimes, employers are blindsided by a lawsuit. The first you might learn that an ex-employee is suing you is when you are served the complaint and summons. Other times, however, the filing of a lawsuit is preceded by a back-and-forth between attorneys hoping to resolve the dispute outside of court. To what extent can you freely communicate with an ex-employee’s attorney without fear that your words and statements will come back to haunt you in a trial if the negotiations break down? Eid v. Saint-Gobain Abrasives (6th Cir. 5/12/10) [pdf] provides some guidance.

After his termination from Saint-Gobain, Kenneth Eid retained counsel for the purpose of asserting an employment discrimination claim. Prior to filing a claim, Eid’s attorney sent a letter to Saint-Gobain announcing Eid’s intention to pursue a claim but inviting a negotiated resolution. Saint-Gobain’s associate general counsel responded in writing with a discussion of Saint-Gobain’s internal investigation into Eid’s allegations and witnesses interviews. The responses concluded that the “termination was handled in our judgment in an appropriate fashion,” and “[t]here is no basis for the organization to consider a settlement with your client.”

Prior to trial, the court excluded the general counsel’s letter under Evidence Rule 408. Following a defense verdict, Eid appealed that decision.

Evidence Rule 408 prohibits a party from introducing into evidence:

• offers to settle; and
• conduct or statements made in settlement negotiations regarding the claim.

The 6th Circuit found that the trial court properly excluded the letter, despite the refusal to engage in any further settlement negotiations:

A party will often adopt a hardline position at the beginning of negotiations in order to extract greater concessions from an opponent. It would ignore the realities of negotiation to hold that such a position necessarily means that the parties are not engaged in compromise negotiations. Such a rule would also run contrary to the purposes of Rule 408, as it would invite undue caution in settlement negotiations, and would facilitate the admission of communications that contain puffing, posturing, and various irrelevancies.

The 6th Circuit also found that the discussion of the internal investigation was within the protections of Rule 408.

In other words, you can respond to an employee’s pre-suit settlement overtures with a reasonable degree of confidence that a jury will not some day be reading your lawyers comments about the strengths and weaknesses of your case.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

What employers need to know about EEO

On Friday, I had the pleasure of appearing on Newton Software’s podcast, Equal Employment Opportunity & Affirmative Action: What Every Employer Needs to be Aware of and Why. For a half-hour, host Joel Passen and I talked about the proactive steps employers can take to stay ahead of curve on EEO compliance issues. If you missed it, you can catch up either on Joel’s blog, on BlogTalkRadio, or on iTunes. The latter two also allow you to subscribe to Joel’s excellent and informative weekly podcast.

Thanks to Joel for inviting me to appear, and I look forward to taking you up on your invitation to return.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

WIRTW #127

The nomination of Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court was the top legal story of the week. Here’s a snippet of the blogosphere’s commentary on the nomination.

• The Employment Law Decisions of Supreme Court Nominee Elena Kegan – from Michael Fox’s Jottings By An Employer’s Lawyer

• Out-of-context quotes and Kagan (II): Miers, Media Matters, Jon Stewart, and Me – from PointOfLaw Forum

• A “Diverse” Supreme Court? – from Discriminations

• Constitution Requires Ivy Credentials – from The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips

• Kagan and the Magic Number Three – from Settle It Now Negotiation Blog

• It’s Official, It’s Kagan - New SCOTUS Nominee – from Philip Miles’s Lawffice Space

• Dumbing Down the Narrative – from Popehat

• Kagan the Next Supreme? – from Manpower Employment Blawg

As for the rest of the best of the week…

Social Media

• The NLRB and Social Media Policies – from Labor Relations Today

• Using Social Media for Selection – 3 Things Employers Should Consider – from Where Great Workplaces Start

• Facebook Privacy: More Changes & Controversy (Weigh In!) – from Megan Erickson’s Social Networking Law Blog

• 25 Things About Me (and My Visit to Facebook Headquarters) – from Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Discrimination

• Got Milk? Understand the Link Between Federal & State Breastfeeding Laws – from Mindy Chapman’s Case In Point

• Not Just Any Release Will Do: Drafting Valid Releases for a Reduction-in-Force – from New York Labor and Employment Law Report

• Accommodating family status in the workplace: the great prima facie case debate – from Donna Seale’s Human Rights in the Workplace

• Federal Bill Aims to Ban Credit Reports for Employment Screening – from Nick Fishman’s employeescreenIQ Blog

• Third Cir. Rules that Side Effects from Treatment May Be an ADA Impairment – from Maribeth Minella at the Delaware Employment Law Blog

• Washington’s Next Acronym?: POWADA—the Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. Override – from Fitzpatrick on Employment Law

• Title VII Sex Discrimination and Retaliation/Subject Matter Jurisdiction re Attorneys’ Fees – from The Labor and Employment Law Blog

Wage & Hour

• Plaintiff’s Attorney’s Fees Can be Very High – from San Antonio Employment Law Blog

• Increased DOL Enforcement Calls for Proactive Measures – from CPEhr

• DOL Plans To Amend Regulatory FLSA Recordkeeping Requirements – from Hunton Employment & Labor Law Perspectives™

• The Offer Of Judgment: Sometimes The Magic Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t – from Wage & Hour - Development & Highlights

Miscellaneous

• Are They or Aren’t They Confidential? Performance Review Content Now Under Public Scrutiny – from Becky Regan at Compensation Cafe

• Trade Secrets on Copy Machine Hard Drives? – from Trade Secrets Blog

• Big Brother, Big Implications: Creating an Employee Monitoring Policy Without Creating Additional Legal Liability – from Pennsylvania Labor and Employment Blog

• NLRB - The National Union Encouragement Board – from The ChamberPost

• DOL Announces “Plan/Prevent/Protect” Business Compliance Program – from Washington D.C. Employment Law Update

• Unauthorized Access Doesn’t Apply to E-Mail, Judge Rules – from Law.com

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Presenting: The Top 5 Issues Confronting Your HR Practices

Yesterday, KJK's Labor & Employment Group presented our first Breakfast Briefing of the year, The Top 5 Issues Confronting Your HR Practices. We had an ambitious agenda, covering the classification of employees, health care reform, workplace technology, the ADAAA, and hiring. Thanks to everyone who attended and helped make our event successful. For those that could not attend, below are the PowerPoint slides. Keep you eyes on this space for updates on our next Breakfast Briefing later in the year.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Battle of the accommodations

Almost a month ago, I wrote about how businesses should go about opening their doors to employees’ pets. At the time, I flagged potential ADA issues as one possible risk to having a pet-friendly workplace:

If an employee is allergic to animals, pet owners must understand that they may have to leave their animals at home as a reasonable accommodation. Other possible accommodations include creating sufficient separation between the allergic employee and the pet, segregating the pet to a specific part of the facility, or improving ventilation. Ignoring the pleas of an allergic employee, though, will open you up to potential ADA liability.

In response to my post, Stephanie Thomas, who follow each other on Twitter, asked the following question:

I dismissed it as an academic question. Perhaps I was being too hasty. Yesterday, Walter Olson’s Overlawyered brought us a story that illustrates this exact problem. According to an article by Steven Greenhouse in the May 10 New York Times, the city of Indianapolis has gotten itself into trouble with the EEOC for allowing a disabled employee to bring a service dog into work that caused a co-worker to have an asthema attack. From Mr Greenhouse’s story:

On the first day Ms. Kysel took Penny to work, one of her co-workers suffered an asthma attack because she is allergic to dogs. That afternoon Ms. Kysel was stunned when her boss told her that she could no longer take the dog to work, or if she felt she could not report to work without Penny, she could go on indefinite unpaid leave…. Ms. Kysel filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, asserting that her employer had discriminated against her by failing to accommodate her disability.

According to the EEOC (as quoted by Mr. Greenhouse):

When you have two people with disabilities … you don’t treat one as inherently more important than the other. What the employer has to do is work out some sort of balance between the accommodations needed.

In other words, not even the EEOC knows how to handle this perplexing situation. The lesson for employers is two-fold: 1) employment law is the land where bizarre happens; and 2) when in doubt, call your lawyer. We may not know the answer, but we can at least give you the peace of mind that you’re not totally crazy in not knowing what to do.

Do you know? Are your employees getting Unvarnished?

What is Unvarnished? It’s a website (currently in private beta) that you should be very concerned about. TechCrunch describes it as a website where “any user can create an online profile for a professional and submit anonymous reviews. You can claim your profile, but unlike LinkedIn, you have to accept every post, warts and all. And once the profile is up there’s no taking it down.” In other words, it's akin to a virtual bathroom stall wall, where anyone can write anything about anyone else, with a cloak of anonymity and without real fear of repercussion.

TechCrunch also nicely summarizes the dangers businesses face from this type of anonymity:

This could be the place to anonymously settle vendettas: co-worker swipes a promotion, go to Unvarnished, boss dishes out a small bonus, go to Unvarnished, the vice president makes an ambiguous pass at your girlfriend, go to Unvarnished…you get the idea.

Here's CNET's take on the dangers of Unvarnished:

The thing I dislike most about this idea is that it gives someone else all the power to exert his or her will or personal preference on the reputation of another. Just because you don't like your boss doesn't mean you should have the power to affect his or her future employment prospects. After all, it's possible you're the jerk, not your boss. And so what if you can counter a negative review? If it hasn't risen to the level of outright defamation, it's just a matter of opinion, and the presence of that opinion could cost you a job.

Here’s what a particularly scathing review on Unvarnished looks like (again, courtesy of TechCrunch):

Whether Unvarnished catches on remains to be seen. For now, it's still in private beta and not available to the general public. Yet, as employers try to navigate the daily changes of the social media landscape, they need to be aware that sites like Unvarnished exist. Employees are on the Internet, bad mouthing each other and their employers. Better to at least have a policy directing employees to the responsible use of these tools than having them posting, without regulation, from your workplace and about your workplace.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Does the punishment fit the crime in your workplace?

Last week, this happened at a Philadelphia Phillies game:

 

A fan ran onto the field, and was promptly tasered by the police.

“What does this have to do with employment law,” you might be asking yourself? The Philadelphia police department is in he middle of a debate as to whether its use of a Taser was necessary or excessive. While your employees are likely at-will, you will be embroiled in the same debate when you defend a termination in court. While you have the legal right to terminate an employee at any time for any reason, juries will be asking themselves if the punishment fits the crime. If it does not, they will look for another reason for the punishment—such as discrimination.

When you make the difficult decision to terminate an employee, ask yourself: Do the actions really warrant termination? How have we treated other employees under similar circumstances? Is there a lesser punishment we can live with? Or, is the action so bad that termination is necessary? Judges and juries will be asking these questions when they decide your case. It is probably a good idea for you to also ask them of yourself.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

WIRTW #126

Believe it or not, Sunday is the three year anniversary of the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog. Need proof? Here’s a link to my very first post, May 9, 2007: The Song Remains the Same – Has Burlington Northern Really Changed the Landscape of Retaliation Claims? I’ve since written 867 posts, a number that is hard even for me to comprehend. Maybe at the five year milepost I’ll compile my best posts into a book for those that have been with me from the beginning.

In the meantime, here’s post number 868—what I’ve been reading across the blogosphere this week.

Wage & Hour

• Employers Beware of the Misclassified Employee – from Jennifer Hays at the Warren & Hays Employment Law Blog

• President Obama’s Inaugural Year and Future Agenda: The Department of Labor – from Washington Labor & Employment Wire

• Clamping Down on Misclassification – from Human Resource Executive Online

• BNA: AFL-CIO Lawyer Highlights Government Focus on Misclassification of Employees, Independent Contractors – from Labor Relations Today

• PTO Passing the Tipping Point? Majority of Employers Report Pooled Leave Plans – from Ann Bares at Compensation Force

Social Media

• Do You Need to Use Social Media to Provide Legal Advice on It to Employers? No, But... – from Dan Schwartz’s Connecticut Employment Law Blog

• Social Media and the Hiring Process, Benefits and Risks – from the Iowa Employer Law Blog

• The Revolution Continues… Social Media Is Not a Fad – from Jennifer McClure’s Cincy Recruiter’s World

• Managing your Online Identity – from Marcia McCormick at the Workplace Prof Blog

• Panel Discussion on Social Media, Background Checks and Employment Screening – from Nick Fishman at employeescreenIQ Blog

Technology

• Survey says: most teens don't have a data plan, almost all send texts – from Engadget Mobile

• R.I.P. Floppy Disks (1981-2011) – from Inside Opinions: Legal Blogs

Trade Secrets and Competition

• San Jose Business Journal: “Trade Secret Theft By Rogue Employees On the Rise” – from Trade Secrets Blog

• First District upholds contempt sanctions for violation of non-compete agreement – from the FSSP Blog

EEO & Harassment

• The Un-pretty Protected Class? – from Philip Miles’s Lawffice Space

• EEOC Charge Filed for Illegal Firing Under GINA – from Nolo’s Employment Law Blog

• DOL Unveils Federal Disability Law Compliance Website for Employers – from Washington D.C. Employment Law Update

• “But they didn't ask”-The Interactive Process and ADA compliance – from HR Cafe

• Discipline of Employees Who Have Engaged in Protected Activity – from GT LE Blog

• Employees Harassed by Customers: When is the Employer Responsible? – from Fitzpatrick on Employment Law

• 4th Circuit Remands Discrimination Case For Trial – from Laconic Law Blog

• 3rd Court weighs in on what constitutes a hostile work environment – from Work Matters

• Combating “arbitrary discrimination based on appearance” – from Walter Olson’s Overlawyered

• Blown Up Breasts Blown Off by Jury – from The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips

Labor Relations

• A Good Catch: NLRB footnote may signal things to come – from LaborUnionReport.com

• Preparing For Democracy In The Workplace – from Hunton Employment & Labor Law Perspectives™

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Caregiver discrimination, three years later

It’s been nearly three years since the EEOC published its Enforcement Guidance on Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities. According to a recent report published by the Center for WorkLife Law, employers that have not yet paid attention to this issue should start. The Center for WorkLife Law’s Family Responsibility Discrimination 2010 Litigation Update [pdf] paints a grim picture for employers that ignore caregiver issues or have to defend their employment practices in court. Here are the highlights:
Key Case Trends.

1. New Supervisor Syndrome—new supervisors canceling flexible work arrangements, changing shifts, or imposing new productivity requirements, with the intent of pushing family caregivers out.
2. Second Child Bias—mothers report little discrimination until they have their second child, at which point they report preemptive personnel actions based on assumptions about their commitment to their growing families over their jobs.
3. The Elder Care Effect—employers acting preemptively against employees who have to care for aging parents, again because of assumptions about the employee’s work commitment.

Types of Cases Filed

• pregnancy and maternity leave—67%
• elder care—9.6%
• care for sick children—7%
• care for sick spouses—4%
• time off for newborn care by fathers or adoptive parents—3%
• association with a family member who has a disability—2.4%

Number of Cases Filed

• The number of cases filed nationwide has increased from 13 in 1983 to 269 in 2008, with a 400% increase from decade to decade (1989 – 1998 as compared to 1999 – 2008).
• Ohio has the 4th highest number of caregiver discrimination cases filed.
• 88% of the cases are filed by females.

Success Rates

• Overall, employees win 50.4% of the time.
• But, in the Midwest, employees win 48.9% of the time.
• And, in Ohio, employees only win 46% of the time.
• The national average verdict or settlement is $578,316.

The conclusion of the Center for WorkLife Law:

This report is a warning siren for employers. The increase in family responsibilities discrimination cases indicates that employers do not yet understand their legal risks in this area. Blatantly discriminatory comments made by supervisors show a lack of recognition of employers’ obligations to treat caregivers equally, which in turn suggests a lack of direction from management and a lack of training.

Given Ohio high number of filed cases and the risk of a large damage award or settlement, this report is a warning that Ohio’s businesses should take seriously. What can companies do?

1. Ensure coverage of caregiver and family responsibity discrimination in EEO, harassment, and other policies.
2. Train supervisors and managers on how to recognize and avoid this breed of discrimination.

Common sense interview questions

Most businesses know that there are certain topics that simply are off limits during job interviews. Questions about race, sex, age, religion, disability, and marital and family status, for example, are EEO no-nos. Yet, some illegal questions are not all that obvious. “What year did you graduate high school?” might seem like innocuous small talk, but such a question could lead to an illegal inference about a candidate’s age.

Some illegal questions, though, are so obviously illegal that you have to question to sanity of the interviewer. Take, for example, the case of recent NFL draftee Dez Bryant. Mr. Bryant’s and his family’s checkered past notwithstanding, why in his right mind did Miami Dolphins GM Jeff Ireland think it was a good idea to ask Bryant during a pre-draft interview if his mother was a prostitute?

For more on subtle and not-so-subtle EEO interview traps, I recommend the following:

• Avoid hidden interviewing traps
• Common stereotypes to avoid during job interviews

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Do you know? DOL to require “compliance plans”

Now we know what the Department of Labor plans to do with the 250 new investigators it recently hired. They are going to sifting through mandatory employer compliance plans looking for violations. Here’s the details, from Steven Greenhouse in last Thursday’s New York Times (with a tip of the hat to Mark Toth’s Manpower Employment Blawg and Philip Miles’s Lawffice Space):

In a move that will affect most American corporations, the Labor Department plans to require companies to prepare and adopt compliance plans aimed at ensuring they do not violate wage, job safety and equal employment laws.

The effort, aimed in part at reducing the incidence of employers not paying overtime and improperly classifying workers as independent contractors, will require them to document many of their decisions and share that information with their workers and the government….

Deputy Labor Secretary Seth Harris said … many specifics of what companies would be required to do had yet to be worked out. The department’s proposed rules are still being drafted, and businesses will have a chance to respond before any final rules are issued. The process is likely to take more than a year.

I have to say, this one caught me completely off-guard. If businesses are not taking wage and hour compliance seriously, they better starting thinking about it now.

One more thought—this plan will be a boon to all management-side labor and employment lawyers. This story is developing, and bears further monitoring as the DOL works out the specifics. If you want to get a head-start on compliance, let me suggest KJK’s proprietary 200-point HR and employment practices audit.

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Your business is behind the 8-ball if you don’t have an email policy

Here’s some sobering stats on employees’ personal use of corporate email, courtesy of the Ruth Mantell at the Wall Street Journal:

• 71% of full-time employees with a company-assigned email account at least sometimes use it for personal communications.
• 89% of workers say admit to sending email from work to an outside party that contained jokes, gossip, rumors, or disparaging remarks.
• 14% sent messages that contained confidential or proprietary information.
• 9% admitted to sending sexual, romantic, or pornographic text or images.

In other words, you employees are likely using email and other corporate technologies inappropriately. Yet, according to a 2009 survey by the the American Management Association, only 80% of organizations have written email policies, and only 47% of employers train workers about policies, risks, and appropriate use.

Are you one of the 20% of employers that does not have a policy to cover email and its appropriate use? Do you want to trust the common sense of your employees not to spend all day reading personal emails, or, even worse, divulge confidences or sexually harass coworkers?

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

Of course racism is wrong, but at least it gives me job security

It amazes me that people could still think mocking a black co-worker with a life-sized robotic chimpanzee is funny. Yet, as I come across stories like this, I am thankful that such ignorance provides me some degree of job security in my chosen practice area.

Fox 29 in Philadelphia has the details (sorry about the ad before the video plays – I can’t do anything about it):

 

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.

WIRTW #125

This week brought three big stories that I just have not had time to cover. Thankfully, my fellow L&E bloggers are here to pick up the slack.

On Monday, the 9th Circuit permitted a monstrous sex discrimination class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart to proceed. And by monstrous, we’re talking potentially billions of dollars of exposure. For thoughts on this case, I recommend the following: The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips, California Labor and Employment Defense Blog, Class Action Defense Blog, Manpower Employment Blawg, What’s New in Employment Law?, Daily Developments in EEO Law, PointOfLaw Forum, Michael Fox’s Jottings By An Employer’s Lawyer, LawMemo Employment Law Blog, and Workplace Prof Blog.

Also on Monday, the Supreme Court held oral argument in Rent-A-Center v. Jackson, which will decide the issue of whether an arbitrator or a court should decide the threshold issue of the validity of an arbitration agreement. This decision will impact all employers that require employees to sign arbitration agreements. For thoughts on this case, I recommend the following: SCOTUSblog,Philip Miles’s Lawffice Space, How Appealing, and Fitzpatrick on Employment Law.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ruled in Stolt-Nielsen S.A. v.AnimalFeeds Int'l Corp., another non-employment arbitration case that has significant implications for employers. In this case, the Supreme Court held that non-parties to an arbitration agreement cannot be compelled to arbitrate their disputes in a class action. For thoughts on this case, I recommend the following: SCOTUSblog, Fitzpatrick on Employment Law, Washington D.C. Employment Law Update, The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips, Alaska Employment Law, What’s New in Employment Law?, Texas Employment Law Update, LawMemo Employment Law Blog, Workplace Prof Blog, and Michael Fox’s Jottings By An Employer’s Lawyer.

Here’s the best of the rest I read this week:

Family Responsibility Discrimination & Family Leave

• What, That Was a Request for FMLA? – from HR Daily Advisor

• Pick On Mom At Your Own Peril: The Emerging Trend Of Family Responsibilities Discrimination – from Hunton Employment & Labor Law Perspectives™

• It’s Better to Avoid Litigation Than to Win Litigation – from Arkansas Employment Law

• First Comes Love, Then Comes Marriage, Then Comes Flex-Time and a Baby Carriage – from Delaware Employment Law Blog

Labor Law

• Obama: “I’m a Pro-Union Guy”… and here are some union stereotypes – from Work in Progress

• EFCA Comes Tumbling Down – from The ChamberPost

• Waste Management’s Contract Talks Stink – from Workplace Diva

• New NLRB Issues Third Decision, First Involving Charges Against Employer – from Labor Relations Today

Pleading

• Democratic representative opposes Iqbal/Twombly bill – from PointOfLaw Forum

• Plausibly Pleading Employment Discrimination Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V – from Workplace Prof Blog

Wage & Hour

• Key FLSA Issues Featured in DOL’s Spring 2010 Agenda – from Prima Facie Law Blog

• An FLSA Primer – from Rob Radcliff’s Smooth Transitions

• Employee Versus Independent Contractor: EMPA – from Stephanie R. Thomas, Ph.D.

• Employer Sued for Violating RICO by Knowingly Hiring and Assisting Illegal Workers – from Fitzpatrick on Employment Law

• Gas station attendants strike oil in wage and hour lawsuit – from Sindy Warren at the Warren & Hays Employment Law Blog

• DOL Releases Semiannual Regulatory Agenda – from Washington D.C. Employment Law Update

Miscellaneous

• EEOC Expects Final GINA and Revised ADA Rules Soon – from Washington Labor & Employment Wire

• School District’s Woes from Using Webcams to Track School-Issued Laptops Should Be an Eye-Opener for Employers – from Workplace Privacy Counsel

• Handbooks: Email and Porn Forever – from The Word on Employment Law with John Phillips

• Stray Remarks Doctrine Still Lives – from San Antonio Employment Law Blog

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Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.