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

Today's Guest Blogger is Evil HR Lady.  I should tell you that I do know her first name; but she has told me that she'd hunt me down if I revealed her identity.  So instead, I've asked her to provide a short blurb to introduce her; here was her candid response:

Evil HR Lady works for a Fortune 500 Company making sure that as many people as possible get fired. Hence, the Evil part of her name. She blogs and takes questions here.

Nothing like an HR person with a sense of humor, right? Well, she also has a very entertaining blog that part Ask Amy, and part Jack and Suzy Welch.  Her bio "picture" is of brownies.  But her wit aside, it's good reading for some down-to-earth HR advice, without all the legal jargon. 

Here are her thoughts on one company's blogging policy:

Wal-mart doesn't exactly have the best reputation in the blogosphere.

For example: Wake-Up Walmart is dedicated to exposing the company's wrongs. The popular (and now defunct, as the author quit her Wal-Mart job) Behind the Counter detailed how Wal-Mart's policies resulted in bad behavior by customers. And, back in the blogging dark ages (2006), Wal-Mart had to admit that a public relations firm was writing a blog that purported to be independent.

I'm not going to get into the reasons for the lack of Wal-mart love. For full disclosure, I occasionally shop at Wal-mart, and would do so more often if it were: a) closer to me and b) didn't require a 3 hour wait in a checkout line.

All of these things considered (and the fact that I used to work at rival K-Mart, which has it's own nightmare stories), I was shocked to find the New York Times reporting that Wal-mart buyers were writing an uncensored blog.

Wow. That takes guts in the business world. Sure, it's one thing to trust your employees with your customers. It's another thing to let them loose on the internet.

The internet is forever.

Don't believe me? Just try deleting your Facebook page to hide your foolish exploits of youth from a googling supervisor. Even if you succeed, there's no guarantee that someone else hasn't copied, posted and preserved what you said originally.

So, I'm officially impressed. Well, not officially, officially. We'll see how the blog goes and if upper management (and the PR people) can keep their hands off it. If they can, and it remains "uncensored" (and the employees writing it continue to feel free to express their true opinions), then I'll be officially impressed.

Editor's note: Hearing the Evil HR Lady name, I can't help but think of the classic ELO song, Evil Woman. Fortunately, there's already someone who combined that song with another favorite: Lost.  You can take a gander below:

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Last month, I reported that the U.S. Supreme Court had agreed to hear the case of Huber v. Wal-Mart, to decide whether disabled employees must be reassigned to a vacant position for which they are qualified or merely be permitted to apply for such a position.

Yesterday, however, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to dismiss the matter because the parties had reached a settlement. 

Multiple blogs have commented on it including the Ohio Employer's Law Blog, and SCOTUS Blog.  A few news articles also have provided coverage, including this blurb from Bloomberg, which indicated that the case settled on Friday for undisclosed and confidential terms.   

It's unfortunate that we won't have any guidance from the Supreme Court on this subject but I would expect the Court to find a case with similar facts to take up in the upcoming months.  (I would also expect other attorneys with similar cases to file their petitions with the court shortly.)  In the meantime, employers will be left to struggle with the question and risk second-guessing before we receive further guidance from the court.

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The U.S. Supreme Court this afternoon granted certiorari to an important question under the Americans with Disabilities Act, namely whether disabled employees must be reassigned to a vacant position for which they are qualified or merely be permitted to apply for such a position.

In Huber v. Walmart, the Eighth Circuit held for the employer in concluding that:

the ADA is not an affirmative action statute and does not require an employer to reassign a qualified disabled employee to a vacant position when such a reassignment would violate a legitimate nondiscriminatory policy of the employer to hire the most qualified candidate. ... Thus, the ADA does not require Wal-Mart to turn away a superior applicant for the router position in order to give the position to Huber. To conclude otherwise is “affirmative action with a vengeance. That is giving a job to someone solely on the basis of his status as a member of a statutorily protected group.” [citation omitted]

Here, Wal-Mart did not violate its duty, under the ADA, to provide a reasonable accommodation to Huber. Wal-Mart reasonably accommodated Huber’s disability by placing Huber in a maintenance associate position. The maintenance position may not have been a perfect substitute job, or the employee’s most preferred alternative job, but an employer is not required to provide a disabled employee with an accommodation that is ideal from the employee’s perspective, only an accommodation that is reasonable.

The SCOTUSBlog, as usual, has the particulars including the opinion below, the petition for certiorari and the brief in opposition. Expect more analysis to come.

UPDATE: Oral argument is likely to be held in March 2007, with a decision by the end of the term in June 2007.

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