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 # 61: I am the General Counsel of a small company. As our company’s only attorney, I have to provide expertise in a wide variety of substantive areas. In connection with retaliation claims, I occasionally hear about “temporal proximity.” When I’m advising my clients, I’d like to be able to provide them some clear guidance regarding the length...
Quirky Question # 60: We are having trouble managing exempt employees’ paid time off (PTO). Our current policy allows new employees to begin earning PTO right away, with the potential to earn up to 120 hours of PTO per calendar year. PTO that is earned but not used is paid out or carried over at the end of each calendar...
Quirky Question # 59: We are a large company with substantial number of employees. We have decided to compel our employees to arbitrate all of their employment claims, through the adoption of a mandatory arbitration policy. Since we are writing the agreement that binds the employees, we have decided to include a provision barring any class action claims. Any problems...
Quirky Question # 58: I read with interest your last question about a company’s obligation to accommodate an individual’s religious beliefs, assuming that it would not cause an undue hardship to the employer. We have a slightly different problem. One of our employee’s religious beliefs would appear to be in conflict with our anti-discrimination prohibitions. Acknowledging the changing composition of...
Quirky Question # 57: Our retail firm used to operate six days a week. We recently decided however, that we needed to remain open on Sundays to ensure that we can compete effectively with other similar retailers, many of whom have been operating 7 days/week for some time. When we made the decision to keep our stores open on Sundays,...
Quirky Question # 56: Our company is committed to eliminating sexual harassment. We have a well-defined sexual harassment policy that is included in our employee handbook. We also have conducted training sessions on a bi-annual basis to ensure our employees understand our company’s position on sexual harassment. Some time ago, one of our employees complained of sexual harassment. For various...
Quirky Question # 55: We have a highly mobile workforce, and we are concerned about our former employees going to work for a competitor, stealing our customers, and raiding our employees. We are a technology based company and have developed proprietary information that would give our competitors an edge if our former employees were to use or disclose it to...
Quirky Question # 54: We have an employee who has missed a fair amount of work due to various surgeries. As set forth in our handbook, we offer FMLA leave for employees who have worked 1250 hours in the preceding 12 months. When we were informed that our employee would need to miss additional time due to some follow-up surgeries,...
Quirky Question # 53: I read with interest your Quirky Question # 46, regarding the issue of whether an employer can fire an employee for having an abortion. I have a slightly different inquiry. Could we fire an employee because of her infertility treatments? I ask because we need to reduce our workforce slightly and one of the employees we...
Quirky Question # 52: I formerly was employed as an engineer of a high tech start-up company. I worked for the company for several years in a non-management role. The company struggled to complete its product (or even to get it to work properly). Because of these ongoing problems, the company had continual difficulties raising money. Nearly bankrupt, the company...
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...
