Real Life Employment Law
Nearly every day, executives and managers, and the in-house counsel and Human Resources professionals who work with them, are confronted with unanticipated questions regarding the workforce. Just when they think they have "seen it all," along comes a new and often stranger scenario involving an odd twist to an area they thought they fully understood. These individuals often find themselves back at square one when trying to construct an appropriate response and devise a creative solution to the problem presented. Sometimes these "Quirky Questions" can be resolved easily; other times, they implicate practical and legal issues that are not immediately apparent.
This Quirky Employment Questions Blog addresses unanticipated questions regarding the workforce.
We encourage you to submit your thoughts and reactions to the questions presented. We also encourage you to submit questions that you would like to see addressed, subject to these guidelines.
Stephen D. Bell
Michael Droke
Joseph W. Hammell
Sarah Andrews Herman
Ryan E. Mick
William J. Miller
Melissa Raphan
Gregory M. Saylin
Gabrielle Wirth
David C. SingerBLOG CONTACT INFO
E: Wirth.Gabrielle@dorsey.com
P: 714.800.1455
Quirky Question # 33: I am the VP of HR for a hospital. Each of our employees receives a formal policy, prohibiting them from divulging any “patient care data” to anyone. Our policy is compliant with federal law. A nurse in our ER recently became aware that a mother and her two children were being evaluated for meningitis, and that...
Quirky Question # 32: I am an attorney in the Law Department of an advertising agency. I recently learned in a roundabout way that one of our female employees is a motorcycle enthusiast. For the last few years, she has taken time off from work to attend the motorcycle rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. This year, someone at work was...
Quirky Question # 31: Our company provides desktop computer terminals with email to virtually all of our employees. We have adopted a policy covering the use of all of our Company-provided communications systems, including telephones, computers and email, fax machines and photocopy machines. Our policy provides, “Communication systems are not to be used to solicit or proselytize for commercial ventures,...
Quirky Question # 30: We are a large, national, medical device company. Over the years, we’ve adopted personnel policies to provide appropriate guidance to our workforce and to comply with federal and state laws. We have a well defined and clear sexual harassment policy. Notwithstanding our sexual harassment policy, we find that we periodically confront workplace problems associated with relationships...
Quirky Question # 29: Our company has offices in California. This year we want to improve our document retention practices. We’ve decided to maintain electronic records of personnel files. Can we do this in California? We were told that California law requires the records to be available at the job site. If this is true, can we switch to an...
Quirky Question # 28: Our company has a manufacturing facility that has several product assembly lines. Most of our production employees are required to wear basic smocks, hardhats, safety glasses, earplugs and gloves. When the employees enter the building prior to their shift, they retrieve and put on their gear, then walk to their assigned production area. At the end...
Quirky Question # 27: We recently terminated our Controller. We had concerns about the way in which he was managing his department. Certain funds (not an insubstantial amount) were not accounted for and our firm’s accounting records designed to track various purchases and expenditures were largely inscrutable. We lost a lot of money due to these problems. My perception is...
Quirky Question # 26: We are desperately trying to hire someone for a position we have had open for far too long. Perhaps our standards have been too high because we haven’t been able to find the right candidate. I recently interviewed a very impressive candidate and would like to extend him an offer. I have not been successful in...
Quirky Question # 25: We own and operate glass container manufacturing plants around the country, including Seattle. One of our employees resides in Pennsylvania, and regularly travels around the country to work as a foreman on glass furnace rebuilds. This particular employee began working for us in the 1980s and worked exclusively for us for about five years. Under the...
Quirky Question # 24: We run a large food service company, with more than 100,000 employees. Notwithstanding our best efforts to train our store managers regarding federal and state employment laws, we invariably have problems that result in claims of discrimination being filed with the EEOC or parallel state agencies. In our experience, these federal and state agencies do not...
Erica ChenErica is an associate in the Costa Mesa office of Dorsey & Whitney and a member of the firm’s Labor and Employ...
Jack SullivanJack is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employment group, where he focuses his practice on employment adv...
Ieva AubinAs an employment and business immigration attorney, ...
Michael DrokeMike started his career as a client, not a lawyer...
Matt DurhamMatt defends employers in Utah and throughout the ...
Aaron GoldsteinAaron is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Josh HughesJosh’s experience spans trial and appellate advoc...
Jillian KornblattJillian is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor & Employ...
Laura LestradeLaura began practicing at Dorsey in 1992 and has s...
Ryan MickFor more than a decade, Ryan has counseled corpo...
Nick PappasNick litigates and counsels with respect to com...
Melissa RaphanMelissa is a Partner in Dorsey’s Labor and Employ...
Gabrielle WirthEmployers turn to Gabrielle for guidance on how they...
