Labor & Employment Law

THINK BEFORE YOU SIGN THAT NON-COMPETE

Posted on March 13, 2011
THINK BEFORE YOU SIGN THAT NON-COMPETE In an increasingly competitive business environment the use of non--competition agreements has become commonplace. Employers and employees tend to resort to cookie-cutter agreements which are not narrowly tailored to fit the particular employment relationship at issue...

Where is the Common Sense Employment

Posted on March 07, 2011
Where is the Common Sense Employment law is a hot area especially in times of economic turmoil. More often than not, employment lawyers are called into action because of a fundamental institutional breakdown in communication. Employers do not want to communicate with their employees about workplace issues because they fear that whatever they say, ?Can and will be used against them...

Strippers and Sexual HarassmentCan

Posted on April 29, 2010
Strippers and Sexual HarassmentCan sexual harassment occur in a strip club? You bet it can and it does. Many of the young women take jobs in strip clubs, as servers or strippers, naively thinking that it can provide them with an income to pay the bills or their college tuition...

Sometimes Good Things Come Out

Posted on April 18, 2010
Sometimes Good Things Come Out of Train WrecksWhen I grew up there was a different perception of employment relationship that we have seen in the past twenty years. It was an unwritten rule of work that if you, as an employee, gave your all to your employer, they do would do the right thing, even though they were not legally obligated to do so...

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Termination and at will employment

Posted on January 28, 2010
Termination and at will employment Most employees are considered to be "at will" employees. What that means in plain English is that the employee is free to leave at any time, for any reason, and with or without notice. Yes, the days of involuntary servitude are over...

TerminationThis is a topic that

Posted on November 30, 2009
TerminationThis is a topic that I don?t to like to write about, especially during the holidays. Call me the The Grinch (I?ve been called worse) but, as they say, ?We need to talk.?This is not a good time for employers or employees. The rules have changed...

Be Careful about who you call your

Posted on October 19, 2009
Be Careful about who you call your friend. You all know that I use Twitter on occasion and the same holds true about Facebook. Those of you that know me also know I am the shy retiring type of person who never speaks their mind. That means that I won?t use Twitter or Facebook to their full potential, but at least I won?t bore you will the details of every aspect of my life...

I'm not a techie....When I meet

Posted on July 13, 2009
I'm not a techie....When I meet with people, especially after I speak about privacy and technology in the workplace, I often hear, "I'm not a techie so why do I have to understand social networking, texting, Blogging and cell phones." Usually this is followed by a litany of the evils associated with new technology...

Non-competition Agreements:Ten

Posted on June 06, 2009
Non-competition Agreements:Ten (10) Cautionary ThoughtsPeople do odd things when they enter into a new relationship. I call it the honeymoon period. It's a time when it is all good, your vision is clouded by optimism that overlooks faults or problems that are visible to everyone else...

Facebook habit leads to job lossSocial

Posted on May 09, 2009
Facebook habit leads to job lossSocial networking can have its benefits. It can also have its drawbacks. Consider the case of a woman in Switzerland who was fired for being on Facebook while she off of work sick. When I first read the teaser for the article, my first thought was, "That's horrible...

Seattle Law Bloggers MeetAbout

Posted on April 25, 2009
Seattle Law Bloggers MeetAbout once a quarter the Seattle Law Bloggers get together to share ideas on everything from Blogging techniques to practice management. The last meeting was held at Spitfire a local bar just north of the heart of downtown Seattle...

Cheer Leading Coach gets Dooced!!!The

Posted on April 20, 2009
Cheer Leading Coach gets Dooced!!!The term "dooced" used to mean that you were fired for something that you put on your Blog or website. The term was coined by Blogger Heather Armstrong when she was fired for commenting about her work on her Blog, dooce...

For all you lawyers out there.I

Posted on April 15, 2009
For all you lawyers out there.I came across a quote from the famous trial lawyer, Richard "Racehorse" Haynes, that I think any lawyer that tries cases can identify with:"I would have won them [all], if my clients hadn't kept reloading their gun and firing...

Cracker Barrel settles sex harassment

Posted on April 14, 2009
Cracker Barrel settles sex harassment lawsuitCracker Barrel just settled a sexual harassment lawsuit with the EEOC. (Click here to read article) The allegations surrounding this claim were that the General Manager, Managers and male employees, at the Cedar Bluff, Tennessee Cracker Barrel, subjected female employees to lewd comments and sexual jokes...

Romance... I just came across

Posted on April 07, 2009
Romance... I just came across Vault's 2009 Office Romance Survey. Before I talk about the survey, here's my disclaimer. This seems to be a voluntary Internet survey and I have no idea how many people participated and whether it has any scientific validity...

2.3 Million reasons to have an

Posted on April 06, 2009
2.3 Million reasons to have an effective training program On Wednesday of last week, a Los Angeles jury returned a verdict in favor of Officer Melissa Borck in a lawsuit against the Los Angeles Police Department. The verdict: $2,300,000.00. (To read more click here...

Posted on March 04, 2009

Washington Employers: Workplace

Posted on February 25, 2009
Washington Employers: Workplace PostersThe Department of Labor and Industries has updated three of its workplace posters which are required to be posted in a conspicuous place in the workplace. The updated posters are:1. Job Safety and Health Law (click here to download)2...

Correction to Cobra Bites PostLast

Posted on February 24, 2009
Correction to Cobra Bites PostLast week I posted an update on the legislative changes to COBRA that are part of the economic stimulus package. In that post I indicated that individuals that paid for COBRA at the full rate since September 1, 2008 would be able to receive a reimbursement for 65% of the premiums paid since under the terms of the new legislation they are "assistance eligible individuals...

EEOC settles sex harassment case

Posted on February 18, 2009
EEOC settles sex harassment case for $200K plusAccording to the EEOC, a female employee (Bell) that worked in the Service Department at Murphy Ford, in Chester, Pennsylvania, was the victim of sexual harassment perpetrated by the store Service Manager...

CAUTION: COBRA may bite.Employers

Posted on February 17, 2009
CAUTION: COBRA may bite.Employers that employ 20 or more people are required to comply COBRA. What that means is these employers have to allow departing employees the option to continue their health insurance by paying the premium, as well as, a 2 % administrative fee...

Blog to watchKimberlie Ryan is

Posted on February 17, 2009
Blog to watchKimberlie Ryan is an attorney, teacher, television legal analyst and author in Colorado. I ran across her Blog (Kimberlie Ryan's Hot Button Forum) after reading an article she published on severance agreements on the website of a Colorado television station...

1.55 Million Reasons to get your

Posted on February 15, 2009
1.55 Million Reasons to get your act together...The EEOC recently announced that it settled a claim brought against Merrill Lynch for the sum of $1,550,000. In it's lawsuit the EEOC alleged that Merrill Lynch refused to promote and terminated Majid Borumand because of his Muslim faith and Iranian descent...

Law Firm sues former Associate

Posted on February 12, 2009
Law Firm sues former Associate for educational expenses.When employees elect to leave an employer, they often fail to consider whether they have obligations to their employer. Although I don't know if that was the case in a matter involving an associate at the Perkins Coie law firm but according to a recent article (click here to read), Perkins Coie is suing one of its associates for approximately $36,000 in educational expenses paid by the firm...

Rod's Reminder:Don't forget about

Posted on February 08, 2009
Rod's Reminder:Don't forget about the WLADWashington is one of those few states that has a strong state law against discrimination, the Washington Law Against Discrimination (WLAD). Too often when employers enter into to a dialogue of sexual harassment, and other forms of discriminatory conduct, they tend to focus on the federal components of the law (i...

Severance AgreementsSince I represent

Posted on January 31, 2009
Severance AgreementsSince I represent employers and employees, I have mixed feelings about severance agreements. Originally, severance was a benefit that was offered to employees to reward them for their length of service and loyalty to the company. That original concept has evolved...

EarthquakeThis morning I woke up

Posted on January 30, 2009
EarthquakeThis morning I woke up to find out we had an earthquake here in the Seattle area. Depending on who you listen to it was 4.5 or 4.6 magnitude earthquake. I slept right through it. Those of you that have been in an earthquake know that it's not that big a deal until it his a 5 plus magnitude...

IBM and Papermaster settle In my

Posted on January 27, 2009
IBM and Papermaster settle In my November 18, 2008 (Apple and IBM mix it up), I wrote about a lawsuit filed by IBM against Mark Papermaster, its guru of IBM?s Power Architecture and X-64 Blade Servers. The gist of the lawsuit was that Papermaster allegedly violated his non-competition agreement with IBM when he accepted a position with Apple that gave him oversight of the iPod and iPhone...

New U.S. Supreme Court decisionFolks,

Posted on January 26, 2009
New U.S. Supreme Court decisionFolks, this one is hot off the presses.This involves a lawsuit brought by an employee (Crawford) against the Metropolitan Government of Nashville (Metro). Crawford, in response to an internal investigation related to rumors of sexual harassment by her supervisor (Hughes), reported that Hughes had sexually harassed her...

Paralegals and Executive AssistantsThe

Posted on January 23, 2009
Paralegals and Executive AssistantsThe unsung heroes....I can remember my first paralegal. Her name was Rita. When I got out of law school she had been at her vocation for probably thirty years. Although I knew the theory of how to build a rocket, the truth was I never built rocket and certainly never launched a rocket...

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