It seems likely that some type of paid Family and Medical Leave (otherwise known as “Paid FMLA”) bill is going to pass the General Assembly.
But the “paid” aspect of the
Four Ways the New Paid FMLA Bill is Bigger Than You Realize
Five Questions With… Sarah Poriss: Crumbling Foundations and Employers
The holidays are here and you know what that means: New Year’s Resolutions. I recently caught up with Attorney Sarah Poriss who I’ve known for many years and realized she had an interesting perspective for employers and how to start the year off right. Sarah runs her own small firm focusing, in part, on foreclosures for individuals. Recently, she’s been handling matters for homeowners impacted by the crumbling foundation crisis happening in eastern Connecticut. What follows is an edited online conversation we had following my meeting with her and continues a long-running (if rarely repeated) series I’ve done conducting interviews with people outside my firm. I hope you enjoy.
Dan: So, before we talk about crumbling foundations, you had mentioned that you’ve gotten a great appreciation for an employer’s perspective by running your own business. What have you seen?
Sarah: Now that I am an employer, I have begun to appreciate the value of a focused and efficient staff. It can be distracting enough when something good or exciting happens in the life of one of my staff; it’s even worse when they experience something stressful or tragic.
My goal is to provide a workplace that allows time for their family and personal needs, but I can only go so far when it comes to ensuring they are not distracted by the stress of financial issues.
I’ve had staff with debts in collection, or who are working on their credit with a goal of buying their first home, or who have unexpected expenses due to illness of a parent or child or unemployment of a spouse.
Dan: With that in mind, what’s do you try to achieve?
Sarah: Whenever I’m dealing with my staff (and clients) who present with these issues – I really do try to work with the aim of providing some peace of mind so we can all get back to work (I actually feel like I’m more of a sleep specialist than a lawyer at times).
Dan: For those of us used to paying a mortgage each month, I confess it’s tough to know what to say to someone (like an employee) who is facing not being able to make their mortgage payment. What’s some general recommendations you make to those people?
Are You Really Protecting Your Employee’s Data?
Do you remember when the Target store data breach made news? This was not that long ago, and yet, five years later we’ve arguably become immune to the news.
Take Facebook’s latest snafu — 50 million accounts compromised. And yet, it hardly made headlines for a 24 hour period.
Heck, even the U.S. State
You’re Fired! — No, I Quit!
You’ve agonized over firing an employee. You hired her over a year ago and it just isn’t working out. The employee is kind, conscientious and punctual, but just doesn’t have the skills needed for the particular position.
But you’ve made up your mind. You’re firing her at a meeting this afternoon.
In that meeting, the
The Basics of Sexual Harassment Prevention Training and Posting
In yesterday’s post, I talked about the basics of what is and is not “sexual harassment”.
Continuing the theme of going back to the basics, employers in the Constitution State have certain posting and training requirements that must be followed.
These requirements are found in the administrative regulations set up by the CHRO regarding sexual
Employer Resource Guide by Department of Labor Now Available
Sometimes, government is thought of as the enforcer of rules. But sometimes, the government is also in the business of helping businesses too.
The latest example of this is an Employer Resource Guide put out a few weeks ago by the Connecticut Department of Labor. You can download it directly here.
According to its introduction:
This is Why the Number of Employees You Have Matters in Employment Law
There are many confusing aspects of employment law — not the least of which is that certain laws only apply to employers of a certain size.
For example, the federal age discrimination law, ADEA, only applies to a business if it has 20 or more employees who worked for the company for at least twenty
A Rare Look Into An Employee’s Duty of Loyalty to the Employer
After nine-plus years of writing about employment law in Connecticut, it’s getting to be pretty rare to find a topic that I haven’t at least touched upon, but here’s one: The Duty of Loyalty.
Indeed, a new Connecticut Supreme Court case is giving me the opportunity to do so.
The case arises from an employee
Employer Can Refuse to Pay Commissions After Termination — Under Certain Conditions
Thanks to all who came to our Labor & Employment seminar on Thursday. Our biggest crowd yet. In it, we talked about the importance of offer letters. Marc Herman returns today with a post updating us on a recent Connecticut Supreme Court decision that came out while I was on vacation a while back that
Maybe That Lawsuit Brought By Your Employee Isn’t So Frivolous
In yesterday’s post, I talked about some of the reasons why an employee’s lawsuit against his or her employer was destined for failure.
But employers, I’m afraid you’re not off the hook that easily. This post is for any employer that just got sued or threatened with suit.
Maybe that lawsuit isn’t so frivolous after all.
Wait a second! You said yesterday that ‘Odds are, you probably weren’t discriminated against’!”
Ah, but isn’t that rub? Odds. Statistics. Yes, some (many?) lawsuits brought by employees are losing propositions. But some are not.
Here are some things I tell clients or prospective clients when I see a lawsuit filed or threatened as to why they should take the lawsuit seriously.
1. That frivolous lawsuit is still going to cost you thousands (if not tens of thousands) to defend. But I thought you said this post was about non-frivolous lawsuits? True. But for my first point, that’s beside the point entirely. Whether a lawsuit is frivolous or not, the system of justice through our courts and administrative agencies moves slowly and with some cautiousness. Even the frivolous ones need to be defended. Court filings need to be, well, filed. And court conferences need to be attended. So your first point always is to recognize that all employment law cases have a cost associated with them.
And as such, all cases have what we call a “nuisance” value as well. That is — you are going to spend X amount of dollars defending the lawsuit. It may be cheaper to just pay a certain amount to avoid the cost of defense. Now, there are business reasons why you won’t want to do so in all or even many cases, but the employer who fails to recognize the nuisance value of the case is destined to be disappointed in the long run.
It’s a bit of hyperbole to say that any person can sue anyone at any time for any reason. But not that much. Lawsuits are a part of doing business. Frivolous or not, you will still have spend money to defend your decision. Be prepared for this eventuality when making your employment decisions and deciding whether or not to offer severance in exchange for a release.
2. “At Will” Employment Is a Misnomer. In Connecticut, the default employment relationship between an employer and employee is “at-will”. As many offer letters suggest, that means either the employer or employee can terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason or no reason at all. And so, I sometimes hear employers exclaiming “Connecticut is at-will! We should be able to just fire them for any reason! How can they still sue?”