Connecticut Employment Lawyer & Attorney : Daniel Schwartz : Stamford, Hartford New Haven, CT

This week, the U.S. Department of Labor updated their website and provided some new online tools to help employers figure out which recordkeeping, reporting and notice requirements apply to them. 

According to the DOL:

The new FirstStep Recordkeeping, Reporting and Notices elaws Advisor has been integrated into a FirstStep suite of advisors that also includes the revised and expanded FirstStep Poster Advisor and FirstStep Employment Law Overview Advisor.

"These Internet tools will make it easier for small business employers to learn about and comply with the federal laws that apply to them," said Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao.

However, employers in Connecticut using these tools should be cautious.  There are additional requirements that employers in Connecticut that may apply and some are stricter than the federal rules.

Because of this, employers should use the department's online tools as a resources, but should followup with an attorney or the Connecticut Department of Labor about additional requirements that may apply.

(H/T Delaware Employment Law Blog)

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Without much fanfare, the Connecticut Judicial Branch is now posting criminal conviction records with free access to the public. You can view these records at this link here.  It is easy to search and easy to use.

The possibilities in the employment context are deep and wide as employers may now seek to review this database for hiring purposes or even to look up existing employees.  For example, the prior convictions of Joshua Komisarjevsky, one of the suspects accused in the murder of various Petit family members, are all up there.  You can see and trace that history fairly easily.   

First, a bit more about the details (from A Public Defender):

As promised by Representative Mike Lawlor months ago, the criminal disposition database is now online. You can search by last name and birth year, courthouse, docket number. This covers criminal and motor vehicle cases.

...It gives you his name, his lawyer’s name, his lawyer’s juris number (state bar number), his year of birth, his arrest date, the arresting agency, the sentencing date, and then a lot of information about the offenses of conviction, including the sentence, what he pled to initially, the date of the offense, the date of the verdict.

For state employers, the ease of this access can be a tease, particularly given the state's law prohibiting the use of some criminal conviction information for purposes of making employment decisions.  Connecticut's public policy is to encourage employers to hire qualified ex-offenders.  (Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 46a-79.) Law enforcement agencies (which include Sheriff's Department court house security and transportation personnel) are the only governmental entities in the state that by law can deny employment based solely on a person's criminal history.  In all other cases, state officials cannot deny felons employment, occupational licenses, or permission to engage in state-regulated professions without examining (1) the relationship between the crime committed and the job or license that the person is being considered for, (2) the convicted person's degree of rehabilitation, and (3) the time elapsed since conviction or release.

For private employers, there are no such restrictions on the use of conviction records for purposes of making employment decisions.  The only relevant restrictions for employers prohibit the use of erased criminal records (Conn. Gen. Stat. Sec. 31-51i).  Indeed, subsection (f) reminds employers that while there is no restriction on the use of criminal records, such information must be restricted to those with a "need to know" within the company -- normally the human resources personnel or the person making the decision to hire the applicant.

That said, the use of an outside service to conduct the background checks may still run into issues with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, as I outlined in a prior post.   

While the criminal defense attorney bar may lament an "invasion of privacy", this information has always been available to the public --- just not as easily as before.   It is a very useful resource to have -- whether for employers or in the civil litigation context.  Kudos the judicial branch for putting forth a database that is a useful resource for the public.

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AT&T’s attack on the December 7, 2007 protective order is not unlike Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sixty six years ago, both were unwarranted and doomed to fail.

So reads a footnote from a December 20, 2007 Order from the United States District Court of Connecticut denying AT&T Service's request for a reversal of a protective order in a wrongful discharge case.  It's the type of footnote that makes the reader sit up straight and take notice.

The decision, by Judge Dominic Squatrito in Rebaudo v. AT&T Services et al. (available here), only marginally addresses the employment law issues in the case (which AT&T has already moved for judgment on) so it doesn't warrant full coverage here. 

However, the issue before the court is one that does come up in other employment law cases -- namely, whether a Plaintiff-Employee, who signed medical authorizations for the Defendant-Employer to view his medical records, is entitled to a copy of such records before his deposition.  The court, in an earlier decision, said "yes", a plaintiff is entitled to such a copy and had ordered AT&T to produce a copy of such records one week before the plaintiff's deposition.  AT&T sought reconsideration of that motion.

The court discusses the issue of medical records further:

AT&T’s position is that [the medical records] constitute confidential, attorney-work product information of AT&T and therefore, the Plaintiff is not entitled to discover it. The court disagrees. Merely because AT&T obtained the medical records through a signed authorization of the Plaintiff does not mean that this information is now confidential. First, as AT&T notes in its memorandum, this medical information is the Plaintiff’s information. Thus, it would be paradoxical to find that the Plaintiff’s medical information is the privileged work of AT&T. Second, the Plaintiff’s request for documents concerning the incidents of the lawsuit clearly encompasses these medical records. Third, given the large quantity of medical records that the Plaintiff has amassed, justice requires that the court allow the Plaintiff and his counsel to prepare themselves thoroughly, prior to the
deposition.

The Court adds the above footnote for good measure.  Though after reading the footnote, you don't need to read much else of the case. The rest, as they say, is "history".

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