September 1, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: Leadership
Readers: Set forth below is the fifth article in my Leadership Series, this one by Vice President of the United States, Walter Mondale. More than any person I’ve ever met, Mr. Mondale is perfectly positioned to opine on leadership. His lengthy public service includes roles as Minnesota Attorney General, U.S. Senator, Vice President of the United States and U.S. Ambassador to Japan. In these positions, he has been a remarkable leader himself and has had the opportunity to interact with leaders from the U.S. and around the world. At the end of the article is a video of an interview I had Read More →
One of our key executives recently resigned. Under the terms of his contract, he had the right to resign for “good reason.” He claimed that due to certain financial restructuring our company underwent, his job was going to change significantly. Even if his supposition was correct, didn’t he have to wait until these events played out? We checked his contract and the “good reason” provision is pretty employee friendly. The agreement states that his conclusion regarding “good reason” is entitled to deference from the company. Does that mean we have to accept any justification he advances? As you likely suspect, Read More →
Quirky Question # 155: A class action discrimination lawsuit was filed against our company. The proposed class included all African American employees who were employed during a specified time period. This group includes our former Vice President of Human Resources. We learned recently that the plaintiffs’ lawyers have met on several occasions with our former VP of HR. This troubles us since he was involved in numerous attorney-client privileged communications, both with in-house and outside counsel. Moreover, the early discovery that plaintiffs’ counsel served suggests that they have seen any number of documents that we generated to help us evaluate Read More →
August 28, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: General
Readers: Welcome to the new version of my Quirky Employment Questions Blog! It took us a bit longer than we had anticipated to make the move to this new format but I am hopeful the wait will prove worth it. I now have been given the green light to start posting again. As you will see, we retained the best features from the previous Blog platform. You still will be able to see multiple postings on the main page. You still will be able to search by topic the approximately 200 prior posts. You still will be able to participate Read More →
August 12, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: Trivia Game Question
This movie depicted the craft of the writer, and his many sources of inspiration. Years later, Disney created an animated version of the author’s play, which virtually every American child has seen at one time or another. Identify the movie, its three lead actors, and the real person portrayed in the film. And, now for the hardest inquiry, what was trapped? Provide the correct answers and you will win one of our prizes. Best, Roy
August 12, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: Trivia Game
Readers: After a somewhat surprising delay, and my provision of some obvious clues (such as, Angry Hombre), we have a winner to the last Employment Trivia contest. The question asked about the person who is currently selling Mercedes Benz automobiles, pointing out that this role paralleled his role in a television show. As our winner, Andrew Hunstad of Marshall, Minnesota, revealed, the person doing the voice-over on the current Mercedes commercials is Jon Hamm, the star of the popular television series about a Madison Avenue advertising agency, Mad Men. As Andrew related, Hamm plays Don Draper in the show. Draper, Read More →
August 8, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: Attorney-Client Privilege
A class action discrimination lawsuit was filed against our company. The proposed class included all African American employees who were employed during a specified time period. This group includes our former Vice President of Human Resources. We learned recently that the plaintiffs’ lawyers have met on several occasions with our former VP of HR. This troubles us since he was involved in numerous attorney-client privileged communications, both with in-house and outside counsel. Moreover, the early discovery that plaintiffs’ counsel served suggests that they have seen any number of documents that we generated to help us evaluate our workforce, our staff Read More →
[Readers: It's the first Wednesday of the month so it's time for one of our West Coast Quirky Questions. Tune in next Wednesday for the analysis from one of our colleagues in our Southern California office. Regards, Roy] One of our manufacturing employees, call him Jim, was fairly seriously injured in an accident on the production floor. Jim applied for workers’ compensation and was examined by a doctor. The doctor let us know that in his opinion, Jim would no longer be able to perform his job, since it required a significant amount of lifting and bending that he was Read More →
August 3, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: General
In 2004, Chambers USA (America’s Leading Lawyers for Business) began publishing its “Client’s Guide,” which includes a state-by-state analysis of law firms, divided into multiple practice areas. In the category of “Employment Law” in Minnesota, Dorsey was listed as one of three “Band 1” firms (Chambers’ highest ranking category), with four of our ten Minnesota partners (Christensen, Ginsburg, Hobbins and Reinhart) receiving individual recognition. As Chambers pointed out, one interviewee observed that “there are no weaknesses in the Department.” The 2005 edition of Chambers’ text echoed many of the 2004 comments. In 2005, however, Dorsey was listed as the only Read More →
Our company has independent-contractor consultants in many states. Our headquarters is in Minnesota. We know that we could be sued in any of the states where we have independent contractors, and that many of those states apply their own legal tests to determine whether an individual is an independent contractor or employee. To get a little predictability, and hopefully, minimize our liability, we’d like to include a choice of law provision in our independent contractor agreements designating Minnesota as the controlling law. Will that provision be enforceable if we get sued in a state other than Minnesota? [Readers: Set forth Read More →
July 30, 2010 | Posted by Roy Ginsburg | Topic: Guest Articles, Leadership
[Readers: Presented below is the fourth article in our Leadership series. This article was submitted by Christine Esckilsen. Ms. Esckilsen is a Managing Director in the General Counsel Department at Piper Jaffray’s Minneapolis headquarters. She manages all of the firm’s litigation. In addition, Ms. Esckilsen advises the firm on employment law issues and consults on matters including hiring, performance management, executive compensation, policies and procedures. Prior to joining Piper in 2002, Ms. Esckilsen was in private practice for seven years at Littler Mendelson in California where she was an employment and labor law litigator for national corporations. Ms. Esckilsen has Read More →
One of our employees complained of sexual harassment. We investigated, though admittedly not as promptly as we should have. We discovered that the harasser had engaged in some seriously problematic conduct. Our investigation also revealed that the harasser had engaged in similar conduct at a prior employer and previously, at our company, with a different employee who had elected not to report. The victim of the harassment is now threatening to sue us and demanding settlement compensation. Her lawyer suggests that if we do not settle, he will sue us for multiple claims, including both sexual harassment and negligent hiring. Read More →
We have several employees who periodically engage in somewhat bawdy behavior outside of work. (Surprise, surprise, sometimes alcohol is involved.) We don’t believe this behavior is consistent with the image our company would like to project. Can we discipline these employees for their conduct (which invariably is reported back to us)? Can we fire them? Generally, employees’ behavior outside of work is not something for which employees are subject to discipline, let alone discharge. Having made that general observation, however, let’s consider the various exceptions to that “rule,” which arguably, swallow it completely. You have not given me too much Read More →
[Readers: Yesterday, I posted an article on the recent Kidwell v. Sybaritic, Inc. decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court. As I referenced in the final practical pointer in the analysis, the decision does implicate a number of interesting ethical issues. My colleague, Bill Wernz, who was the former Executive Director of the Office of Lawyers' Professional Responsibility, has just written an article for Minnesota Lawyer (July 12, 2010, Vol. 14, No. 28) that focuses on just these ethical issues. With approval from Minnesota Lawyer, Bill's article is reprinted below. If you have any questions regarding Bill's analysis, don't hesitate to Read More →
The Minnesota Supreme Court finally has ruled on Kidwell v. Sybaritic, Inc., Nos. A07-584 and 788 (June 24, 2010), the “in-house counsel as whistle-blower” case that was pending before it for more than 18 months. Unfortunately, the Court’s ruling has not brought clarity to this area of the law. I previously discussed this case in a Blog entry in August 2008 (to see the earlier analysis, use the “View by Topic” bar to the left, scroll down to “Retaliation” and go to Quirky Question # 50). My analysis of the latest pronouncement from the Minnesota Supreme Court is set forth Read More →
[Readers: The July 4 holiday and key decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court that have diverted our attention from the posted Quirky Questions have altered our schedule slightly. I soon will report on an important decision from the Minnesota Supreme Court addressing lawsuits by in-house counsel claiming to be "whistleblowers." After I address that decision, I will return to our more standard Quirky Question format. In the interim, set forth below is one of our West Coast Quirky Questions, though its applicability is far broader than the West Coast. Tune in next week for the analysis. Best, Roy] An employee Read More →
[Readers: Set forth below is an analysis of the latest Supreme Court decision on an employment case. It was written by my colleagues Doug Christensen and Courtney DaCosta. Please contact either Doug or Courtney if you have any questions about this decision. They can be reached at christensen.doug@dorsey.com or dacosta.courtney@dorsey.com, or by phone at 612.340.8875 and 612.492.6017, respectively. Additional information regarding Doug and Courtney is available at http://www.dorsey.com/christensen_doug/ and http://www.dorsey.com/dacosta_courtney/. We hope you find this analysis helpful. Enjoy the July 4 Holiday. Best, Roy] Granite Rock Co. v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters By: Doug Christensen and Courtney DaCosta On June Read More →
[Readers: As I mentioned last week, the U.S. Supreme Court has been busy, particularly with regard to the resolution of the employment cases on its docket. Once again, we're postponing slightly the discussion of the pending Quirky Question to share with you an analysis of another critical Supreme Court decision. The analysis below was written by my partner, Mike Iwan. If you have any questions about the Supreme Court decision or Mike's analysis, do not hesitate to contact him at either iwan.mike@dorsey.com or 612.340.5613. Additional information regarding Mike is available at http://www.dorsey.com/iwan_michael/. We hope you find this analysis helpful. Regards, Read More →
By: Doug Christensen and Chris Amundsen On June 17, 2010, a sharply divided United States Supreme Court resolved the case of New Process Steel LP v. NLRB. The highly anticipated decision resolved a Circuit split that had developed after the National Labor Relations Board, which normally has five members, spent 27 months issuing decisions as a two-member body. In a 5-4 decision, written by Justice Stevens and joined by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Alito, the Court held that while the National Labor Relations Act allows the five-member Board to delegate its powers to three members, and Read More →
City of Ontario vs. Quon, 560 U.S. ___ (2010) On June 17, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court decided the case of City of Ontario v. Quon, No. 08-1332, 560 U.S. ___ (2010). The decision was unanimous, with the Court’s opinion written by Justice Kennedy. Justices Stevens and Scalia filed separate concurring opinions. The Court held that the City of Ontario’s review of Jeff Quon’s, and others’, text messages sent on City-issued pagers did not constitute an unreasonable search and did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. Background Facts Jeff Quon (Quon) was a member of the City of Read More →
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