By Dawn R. Solowey and Lynn A. Kappelman As trial lawyers representing employers, we have learned a great deal over time about how jurors tend to think about employment cases. Yet watching a jury deliberate during a mock trial — ...

Tagged with: Employment Law

Where a federal government employee’s depression resulted in repeated absences and tardiness from work, her employer’s refusal to offer her a permanent position did not constitute unlawful discrimination or retaliation. Background In March 2011, the Office of the Director of ...

Tagged with: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Employment Law

On May 5, the Charlotte office of Fisher & Phillips will host its annual seminar, “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly – One Day, Many Solutions.” The seminar will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the ...

Tagged with: Employment Law

Laborers do not have to be directly employed by a company in order to be entitled to a first lien according to state law, the South Carolina Court of Appeals ruled on June 10. The statute at issue in C.R. ...

Tagged with: Employment Law

It’s fleetingly rare to see a federal judge overturn an arbitration award, much less see one do so with the enthusiasm displayed by U.S. District Court Judge Bruce Howe Hendricks in a decision last month. Hendricks pointedly overturned an award ...

Tagged with: Arbitration Employment Law

LATTA (AP) — The state department of employment and workforce says Latta Police Chief Crystal Moore was fired without cause in April. The Morning News of Florence reported Wednesday that after a four-hour hearing, the panel found Moore’s actions were not ...

Tagged with: Employment Law

From cross-dressing office workers and litigious strippers to employees who can toke like Cheech and Chong, the challenges employers face navigating employment and labor law are anything but boring these days. Lifestyle issues once taboo in the workplace are spilling out from behind closed doors and into the mainstream, and the law is responding in a perpetual game of chase.

Tagged with: Employment Law

BOSTON — Employment attorneys say that they have seen an increase in disability-related charges since final regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act went into effect more than a year ago. Lawyers say they have also noticed a dramatic change in the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s approach to disability bias investigations.

Tagged with: ADA Employment Law

The U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that oral complaints about workplace conditions made to a company supervisor are covered by the anti-retaliation provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act has employment lawyers taking notice. The decision in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp. not only clarifies the protections against retaliation in the FSLA, it could also apply to other statutes with similar wording. Plaintiffs' attorneys cheered the ruling, which is the latest in a series of employee wins in retaliation claims before the court.

Tagged with: Employment Law FLSA Labor & Employment Retaliation

Is texting while driving a mere craze or is it sheer crazy? With hundreds of people dying annually in cell phone-related auto crashes nationwide, federal authorities seem to think it's not just a craze and now have anti-texting guidelines that apply to businesses nationwide. For South Carolina employers, that means it's time to work up written policies against text messaging. The idea is to keep businesses' potential liability as low as possible, say two Palmetto State employment lawyers.

Tagged with: Employment Law Labor & Employment