Effective September 11, 2020, employers in San Francisco face steep penalties if they take adverse action against workers who are absent or request time off because they test positive for COVID-19, or because they isolate or quarantine due to COVID-19 symptoms or exposure. The new ordinance offers job protections for…
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The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that terminating employees because of their sexual orientation or transgender status is discrimination based on sex and therefore violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
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Question: We have an employee who is acting strangely, including making paranoid comments about coworkers sabotaging her work. I investigated, but found no evidence to support her allegations. The employee continues to complain. Can we require her to contact our Employee Assistance Program (EAP) and attend any counseling sessions recommended…
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In Washington, an employee may bring a legal claim against an individual supervisor who participated in an employment termination decision, according to a federal district court. A former middle school principal brought a claim for wrongful discharge in violation of public policy against both the school district and the individual…
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An employer in Missouri is finding out the hard way that balancing the competing rights of employees can be complicated. In this case, a coworker with Tourette’s syndrome regularly and repeatedly shouted racial slurs at an African American employee. The employer tried to separate the workers so they didn’t have to work…
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If an employer disciplines or terminates an employee on the advice of a supervisor, without knowing the supervisor is actually retaliating against the employee, the employer can still be liable, ruled the Oregon Supreme Court. Sometimes, the people with authority to make employment decisions don’t really make decisions alone, but instead rely…
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A drug store pharmacist who had been employed by a company for 34 years was terminated for threatening to use a gun at work, not because of his age or for reporting discrepancies in the store’s drug inventory, ruled a federal district court in California. A coworker reported to HR that the…
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Employers may need to offer leave under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) even when employees don’t ask, ruled a federal district court in Michigan.
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Question: We require all new hires to pass a pre-employment drug test. Do we have to use the same process we use for our random, reasonable suspicion, and post-accident drug testing and send positive test results to a medical review officer (MRO)? Or, can we simply ask potential new hires for a list of medications they have been prescribed?
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We just lost one of our biggest customers and have decided we need to lay off several employees from multiple departments. It turns out that all of the selected employees are over 40. Do we face potential liability?
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