Total Eclipse of … Liability?

We don’t mean to darken anyone’s day—we want our clients and their employees to join in on the 2017 eclipse festivities as much as everyone else—but we need to alert you as to some issues and suggest some precautions for employers to maximize fun and minimize liability during the eclipse. As lawyers, we just cannot avoid the gravitational pull of the Nervous Nellie Star System.

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FMLA Master Class: Georgia - Advanced Skills for Employee Leave Management

On-Site Seminar:
Atlanta | Thursday, January 14, 2016

Choose your conference option! Attend the full conference, or just attend the morning or afternoon session.

Master FMLA administration in just one day with this all-new program created just for Georgia employers and HR management...

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Sick Leave State Law Changes for 2015

California

On January 1, 2015, California’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (California's paid sick leave act) went into effect. Under the law, employers with employees who work in California will need to provide up to 24 hours or three days of paid sick time to current and new employees beginning on July 1, 2015. On June 22, the California Assembly passed amendments to the sick leave law. The amendments must also pass the State Senate by a two-thirds vote and then be signed by the governor. They are expected to pass as they merely clarify the original law.

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Do You Need to Update Your FMLA Forms?

Many alerts and articles have been published about updating Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) forms due to the Department of Labor's (DOL) issuance of new forms in late May. If your FMLA leave forms already contain the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's (EEOC) endorsed Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA) language, however, you probably don’t need to engage in this exercise.

As most employers know, while the DOL’s FMLA forms are not mandatory, they are practical as they follow the regulations concerning what employers may ask with respect to FMLA leave, and they may be used as a defense with respect to compliance. The new forms are not that much different than the old ones, except that they just finally contain references to the GINA. The added language, however, is not ideal to preserve an employer’s safe harbor rights under GINA. 

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Final Paycheck—“Whaaaaaat?” Moment

A client with a few remote employees in states other than where it is headquartered recently received a letter from a terminated Oregon remote employee’s lawyer making claims for civil penalties arising out of the company’s failure to pay her commissions the day after she was fired. “Whaaaaaat?” the client asked. The client had paid the employee her final regular wages and commissions pursuant to its regular payroll schedule, which was less than 30 days from the day of termination.

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“Accidental” Personal Charges on Company Credit Card

A client recently called because a relatively high-level executive had charged more than $40,000 of personal purchases on the company’s credit card. When confronted about the situation, he apologized and said it was a mistake and agreed to move the charges to his personal cards. Not altogether surprising, it turned out he was having financial issues. He did not have enough credit in his cards to make the transfer, could not open new credit cards, and did not have enough funds to pay the debt. He agreed to repay the company through a payment plan, but after a few checks the payments stopped. What should the company do?

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