If you’ve been playing close attention, this blog has been a bit quiet of late. Indeed, it’s probably the longest stretch between posts in the 11 years I’ve been doing this.
It’s not for lack of ideas.
Rather, after many years of spouting off (which, after all, is the underlying purpose of the blog), I
Employment law lawyers are asked to review a lot of employment decisions.
If we’re lucky, we’re brought in early in the process when the decision isn’t yet final and where our input can be useful.
Other times though, we’re asked to opine on decisions after the fact.
And truth is, it’s really pretty easy to
The Dialogue – an occasional discussion between myself and a prominent employee-side attorney, Nina Pirrotti returns today after a late summer hiatus. Today’s chat focuses on employee separations and severance agreements. Share your own tips or observations in the comments below. As always, my thanks to Nina for sharing her insights here.
Dan: Hi Nina!
Your employee that you are firing should not hear about his firing from a television report first.
I suppose that would seem an obvious rule to follow. But apparently not.
Let me back up.
Earlier today, the President fired FBI Director James Comey — an act that
Years ago, I recall having a friendly conversation with another attorney in Connecticut where the topic turned to the notion of “At Will” employment.
When we couldn’t settle on an answer, we moved on to talking about whether the Hartford Whalers would ever come back.
I think we had a better answer for that question:
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?”
Continue Reading Maybe That Lawsuit Brought By Your Employee Isn’t So Frivolous
You might think that smoking pot on the job as a state employee would be justifiable grounds to get you fired.
A no-brainer, right?
(Let’s save a discussion for eating brownies and swearing at your cat for another blog post.)
After all, even the Connecticut Supreme Court is stating that the “statutory, regulatory and
Before I even begin this post, let me advance the disclaimer right off the bat: Despite the title of this post, there is no sure-fire way to fire an employee without getting sued.
Indeed, the title is a bit of a misnomer. It’s often been paraphrased that anyone can sue anyone else for anything at
The Connecticut Law Tribune reported earlier this month on a new Connecticut Supreme Court case that, for the first time, allowed claims brought by kids to proceed based on injuries suffered by their parents.
Plaintiffs’ lawyers have a new weapon in their arsenal. The state Supreme Court, in a split decision, has ruled that Connecticut
If you like getting lost on roads with your head spinning on which way to go, this is your post. (Everyone else, well, try to keep up.) I recap a case for companies with unions to pay attention to.
Let’s start with this example:
Employee X is required by law to report suspected abuse in