Employment Laws

Subscribe to Employment Laws via RSS

Until recently, Georgia was one of the most difficult states in which to enforce a non-compete or other restrictive covenant agreement against employees who left their jobs, set up their own business or went to work for a competitor.  In 2009, the Georgia Legislature decide to change this by enacting legislation intended to clarify the law on non-compete agreements as well as other restrictive covenants (such as non-solicitation and non-disclosure provisions).

While the goal was clear, the legislation was not.  The law that was enacted (and the amendment to the Georgia Constitution that was needed to permit the new legislation) left confusion about when the new law would take effect. 

Can you terminate an employee for participating in an internal investigation at your company that is not connected with a formal EEOC proceeding?

Recently, in Townsend v. Benjamin Enterprises, Inc., the Second Circuit joined five other federal appellate courts in answering this question with a “yes.”  The Court held that participation in an internal employer investigation not connected with a formal EEOC proceeding is not protected activity under the participation clause contained in Title VII.  So, an employee participating in an internal investigation is not protected from being terminated in retaliation for such participation.  However, even if such a termination is not unlawful, it is still not a wise or productive decision for any company.

I have recently written about cases where discrimination and retaliation led to large verdicts and huge liability for employers.  These cases remind us that hostility at work, in the form of discrimination and harassment, is wrong and expensive.  An additional example from just this week shows what happens when harassment occurs and is allowed to continue, and ends up out of control.

This past Tuesday, a federal jury in New York awarded $25 million to a steel plant worker on his mind-boggling claims of racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation, as well as some tort claims for emotional distress.  That kind of verdict raises eyebrows for sure.  But what is even more startling is what the employee was subjected to by his co-workers and how his employer responded (or in most cases, failed to respond).

Using a cell phone while driving is dangerous – we all know that.  Texting while driving is (or will soon be) illegal in 39 states and the District of Columbia.  But are your company’s employees using their cell phones to call or text while driving?  Are they doing it in a company car, with a company phone?  Even if your employees are only handling company business on a personal phone in a personal vehicle, you may still be at risk for a distracted driving lawsuit should they be involved in an accident. 

Sometimes employment lawsuits are so “funny” they almost literally make steam come out of your ears.  In one recent case, the “employee’s” claim for unpaid overtime was particularly infuriating because she never worked for her alleged employer.

The Tampa Bay Times ran an article yesterday about a business in Pinellas Park, Florida that was sued for alleged unpaid overtime by two former employees.  The business owner didn’t believe he owed anyone any overtime or that he had violated the FLSA, so he hired an attorney to fight the lawsuit.  He was upset about having to spend money to defend himself, but he was even more concerned because he had never heard of one of the two plaintiffs suing him, even though he knew all of his current and former employees.

A previous post discussed a huge jury verdict for an employee who was harassed and mistreated at work due to her religion.  The lesson:  harassing an employee, subjecting her to a hostile work environment, and retaliating against her for complaining about harassment are all wrong, illegal and expensive.

A decision handed down yesterday by the federal appeals Court covering Georgia, Alabama and Florida has made that point again.  In doing so, it further explained that retaliating by creating a hostile work environment for employees who complain about discrimination also violates Title VII — and is also wrong, illegal and expensive.

We started HRLawMatters.com because we recognized how important the Labor & Employment laws that Human Resources professionals have to understand and contend with every day really are to their businesses’ success.  We think many of you agree, as do your companies.  I noticed recently one company that looks like it really gets that human resources and the law really matter, and what they did that signals that they “get it” is a bit unusual.

If you think getting a federal agency like OSHA to approve your medical questionnaire form will protect you from violating the Americans with Disabilities Act, think again.  Whirlpool Corporation learned this lesson the hard way – but their hard lesson can be useful to you.

In a recent case in Ohio (Miller v. Whirlpool Corp.), Whirlpool had created a medical questionnaire in response to an accident that resulted in an OSHA safety violation.  It narrowly believed that satisfying OSHA’s requirements and protecting the safety and health of its employees were its only concerns.  However, the questionnaire included invasive medical questions such asking employees to identify specific mental or physical illnesses or accidents, the date of onset, and all medications the employees were taking.  The Ohio court had little trouble concluding that the questionnaire was an improper disability-related inquiry because it intends to reveal or necessitates revealing a disability.

A few weeks ago, our colleague posted about whether obesity would become a protected class.

Biases based upon appearance don’t end with obesity.  Studies show that:

Can our current set of federal, state, and local discrimination laws and regulations properly address appearance-based discrimination?  Or does this bias demand that unattractiveness be made a new protected class?

Our Troutman Sanders LLP Labor & Employment Group just sent out an Advisory on the NLRB’s Union Rights Poster Rule.  In a nutshell, the Rule — which requires employers to put up posters informing employees of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act — was supposed to go into effect on April 30, 2012.  However, a federal district court last week found the rule to be invalid.