Employment Law for Business Owners, Managers & HR - Avoid Getting Sued

the coffeemaker is broken

seriously this video is for business

owners managers and human resources

professionals that want to avoid

employee lawsuits I'm going to give you

a broad overview of modern employment

law from an attorneys perspective but

I'm not going to throw a bunch of legal

BS at you and I'm not gonna hedge every

statement like most lawyers I'm gonna

give you actionable insights on how to

avoid getting sued in every major area

of employment law now I am an employment

lawyer in California but this video

isn't just for people in California it's

for all 50 states but it's not legal

advice if you need actual legal advice

contact an employment lawyer in your

state if you're in California feel free

to contact me okay with that said let's

get this party started

[Music]

employment law is a gargantuan body of

law that's why this video is so long but

it can be broken down into twelve

bite-sized subcategories employment

contracts torts in the workplace wages

and hours discrimination harassment

leaves of absence workplace safety

unfair competition unemployment layoffs

collective bargaining agreements and

everything else but before we start

getting into each of these I'm gonna

give you the number one way to prevent

employment lawsuits I've said this a

thousand times and I'm gonna say it a

thousand more employees do not file

lawsuits because the law was broken they

file lawsuits because they feel that

they were treated like garbage treat

your employees with dignity respect and

fairness and in my opinion you'll avoid

almost all lawsuits even if you've

inadvertently broken the law if you like

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notified when I make more videos in the

future do we have any red vines the red

vines are gone number one employment

contracts typically when an employee is

hired they sign a bunch of paperwork

most likely an employee handbook but

that's not a contract binding them to

the employer in the way we traditionally

think of contracts know most employees

are at will meaning they can quit at any

time and for the most part employers can

fire them for almost any reason at

almost any time now where the vast

majority of the litigation in employment

contracts is and where the vast majority

of the money spent by company is is over

salesperson agreements salespeople have

Commission agreements usually written

Commission agreements hopefully where it

says how much money they're going to get

paid for the number of widgets that they

sell where people get in trouble where

companies get in troubles when they

tinker with that in the middle of a

sales cycle or in the middle of a sales

agreement period

lots of salespeople are type A

and they do not like when the rules of

the game are changed under their feet

so don't tinker with the sales

agreements except for when it's time to

rewrite them and you will drastically

reduce your chance of getting sued by

your sales folks

number two torts in the workplace okay a

tort is simply the infringement of a

right and in the context of employment

law there's four big ones that were all

the money is spent

number one wrongful termination we've

all heard the term but really most

people don't know what it means

so basically wrongful termination is

when an employer fires an employee in

violation of a state specific law okay

I'll give you an example in California

it's unlawful for an employer to fire an

employee because they complained about

unlawful harassment or an unsafe working

environment or price-fixing so the easy

action step is don't fire an employee

soon after they make a complaint about

something that is protected by your

state law so do do a little bit of due

diligence and research on your state law

and then just hit the pause button

before you fire somebody and consult

with somebody who knows what they're

talking about

okay number two is defamation now this

is common in former employees what do I

mean by that so here's the scenario

an employee is fired by you by your

company and then is looking for a new

job a perspective employer contacts your

company and says why was John fired and

then you say because he embezzled ten

thousand dollars or or misquoted

something by a hundred thousand dollars

if the employee the former employee has

some sort of evidence or a credible

argument to say what you told the

prospective employer is false leading to

them not getting the job they've now got

a defamation lawsuit against you and

it's a very sad day number three is

privacy pay attention to your state

privacy laws this not where a ton of

money is spent but it will be a lot of

money if you're infringing a lot of

employees privacy rights at work number

four and this is a biggie

misrepresentation okay the situation is

as follows you put out a job advertised

or you make representations as to what a

job is going to be and then somebody

quits their job comes to work for your

company based on those job

advertisements or those representations

which turn out not to be true here's an

easy example let's say you told somebody

the job is gonna pay a hundred thousand

dollars but when they show up you say no

it only pays forty thousand dollars

they're gonna sue you for

misrepresentation and it's gonna be a

sad day so make sure you work with HR to

make sure everything that's in the job

advertisement is accurate and correct

number three the wages that people earn

and the hours that they work or wage an

hour in law without question the big dog

here is unpaid overtime and here's how

it plays out if you're an employer and

you inadvertently fail to pay an

employee fifteen minutes of overtime pay

a day for example and that accumulates

day by day by day because your policy or

your pay system makes it happen then

three years down the road that's a very

sizable chunk of money that the employee

can go after you for so you want to make

sure you know your state laws on

overtime very well and they change from

state to state and that you follow them

as close as possible now this can get

really scary when you group a lot of

employees together and they file a class

action and it becomes especially scary

when if you lose in a wage in our case

you're also gonna pay attorney fees on

top of the judgment so this is an area

of law that you need to be very careful

and you need to pay very close attention

to what your state laws are all right

number two is off the clock work this is

very common where somebody is working

for the employer benefit yet they're not

on the clock and usually it's in small

amounts like they show up 15 minutes

before they clock in for their shift or

it's a requirement that they show up or

they work during their lunch break or

you ask them to run errands after they

clock out for the day again if you if

you accumulate a lot of people and a lot

of violations over the course of a long

period of time this can become a large

class action third bonuses

tips unreimbursed expenses mileage pay

attention to those rules because they

add up over time forth and this is

primarily when we're talking about

individual lawsuits is when an employer

says to an employee okay

I've hired you for this job and I'm

gonna pay you a salary yet the job

duties that that person is required to

do dictate by state law that they be

paid by the hour

hourly they're a non-exempt employee

well then if they're being paid a salary

they're not earning overtime for all the

hours over 40 in a week and they're not

getting lunch breaks and all the

benefits that come with being a

non-exempt employee so that can add up

over time and they can get really

expensive even just for one person if

you accidentally or inadvertently or

intentionally misclassify somebody

number for discrimination title 7 which

is the federal anti-discrimination and

employment law prohibits discrimination

by employers against employees or

prospective employees on the basis of

sex race color national origin and

religion now that's the federal minimum

your state probably like my state does

has additional protected characteristics

that your state's legislature has said

are prohibited means for termination or

refusal to hire so pay attention to your

state's anti discrimination in

employment law in California you can

look at the fair employment and Housing

Act and it lays them all out very

clearly in the big statue the big three

in terms of money spent in this area are

race age and disability discrimination

race is fairly self-explanatory so I'm

not going to get into it historically we

very much understand that age is a

little bit more nuanced typically this

law protects people over the age of 40

you can't fire somebody because they're

over the age of 40 and replace them with

a 20 year old because they have more

energy that's going to look really bad

in a court of law

so make sure if you're terminating

somebody over the age of 40 and you're

replacing them with somebody who's

significantly younger you need to make

sure you've got documented clear reasons

why that's happening

have nothing to do with their age the

third and by far the biggest in my

opinion is disability discrimination and

this is nuanced because it's not just

hiring firing it's also accommodating do

you need to provide your disabled

employee a reasonable accommodation if

they request time off to go see a doctor

do you have to accommodate that if they

ask for modified job duties do you have

to accommodate that and if you don't

think that they can do the job duties

that you've lined out in your job

description order you've told that

employee because their disability

prohibits them from doing it can you

fire them this gets really complicated

really messy and that's why I would say

the majority of discrimination cases

that my office handles and most lawyers

now handle are disability discrimination

cases number five harassment remember

when I talked about respect dignity and

fairness that's where this really starts

to pay off because aside from the large

class actions in my opinion harassment

cases pose the largest risk to

organizations in terms of dollars than

any other type of case in employment law

and the reason is because if an employee

has a solid case against an employer for

harassment they're gonna be putting

forth evidence in front of a jury in a

public forum that shows truly atrocious

atrocious and sustained conduct by the

harasser you don't want to be defending

them you don't want to have anything to

do with that

so the actionable insight is really

simple you can avoid most harassment

cases if you manage your managers and

what I mean by that is most harassment

is done by manager who does not feel

like there's going to be any

consequences that they don't have any

oversight over them or they don't feel

like they have oversight over them so

they kind of just do whatever they want

so if you properly train your managers

and that they that you show that the

managers that there's oversight over

them that they're gonna they feel like

they could get in trouble if they don't

behave properly then they're gonna be

far less likely to engage in harassment

type behavior now a good warning sign

that you should be aware of

as if you're getting complaints by

employees about bullying bullying is not

illegal right it's perfectly legal to

bully somebody in an employment context

it's wrong but it's legal but that

should be a large warning sign to you

because usually if somebody believes

they're bullied they're gonna call a

lawyer and that lawyer is gonna be the

one who's gonna ask that employee a

whole bunch of questions and if the

lawyer is talented enough and there's

the lawyer gets lucky they're gonna be

able to tie that bullying behavior to a

protected characteristic and pursue a

harassment case and it's gonna be a sad

day for your company number six leaves

of absence this is a complicated area of

law at its basic level in the olden days

companies would just fire people if they

couldn't come one day right so the

federal government and the state

government's recognizing a need for a

stable workforce and predictable

employment pass laws that permit people

to take temporary leaves of absence from

companies while that company holds the

job open for them so when they come back

they can resume their work without being

fired that's the basic premise now the

big law in the country is called the

Family Medical Leave Act FMLA that's the

primary one people think about it as

maternity leave law but it's it's

broader than that it applies to

disabilities and certain other types of

leaves of absence so you first want to

find out whether or not FMLA even

applies to your company you secondly

want to find out if there's any state

laws that apply to your company because

like most areas of employment law

there's a federal law there's a state

law and they overlap and sometimes

contradict each other so make sure you

if if an employee of yours wants to take

a leave of absence and you're unsure

whether or not you have to do it and you

don't want to do it make sure you

consult with a professional about it

before you decide to give the leave of

absence or deny the leave of absence

number 7 workplace safety number 1 get

workers compensation insurance if you

don't have it don't be dumb get it

number two take workplace safety very

seriously if your industry has heavy

OSHA regulation

find out what they are and follow them

don't try to circumvent them don't cut

off the safety mechanisms off the

machines just do what you says and

follow this proper safety protocols

where workplace safety can get extra

painful for an employer is if an

employee comes and complains about an

unsafe working environment and then the

company retaliates against that employee

for that complaint that's where we're

getting to whistleblower type cases but

the reality is you'll avoid all of this

if you make safety a priority so do it I

wonder if we have any doughnuts number

eight unfair competition now the first

under this is the duty of loyalty

there's not a lot to say about this

aside from the fact that employees

generally have a duty of loyalty while

they're working for a company so that

you really shouldn't be out competing

against the company while they're

working for it the duty of loyalty

varies from state to state and it's not

something you take action on I just

think it's a great reminder to give to

employees now and again the second is a

trade secret litigation this is where

all the money is spent in this area of

law well what is a trade secret well

we've all heard about famous trade

secrets like the coca-cola formula but

in most everyday context it's a system

or a process or a customer list or some

type of invention that a company has

made that it keeps secret if you patent

something it's not a secret anymore so

it's something that you keep secret from

all your competitors and from the public

eye and if an employee who works at your

company who knows that information then

takes it and uses it against you or uses

it to benefit somebody else some other

company you could file a lawsuit against

them now the practical insight on how to

avoid all this from happening in the

first place is to at the beginning of

employment give the employee a document

that shows exactly what the trade

secrets are identifies them by name and

what they are and tells the employee

that there are trade secret they're

confidential and they cannot be

disclosed to anybody even after they

quit that you have that document

identified acknowledged in sign

employee and that would help you

immensely in enforcing temporary

restraining order or a lawsuit against

the employee down the road

the third category here are non-compete

agreements there's not a lot to say

about them in some parts of the country

like California they're almost

completely void and unlawful so figure

out what your state's non-compete laws

are and make sure you abide by them if

you're putting them in employee

contracts before I get to the final four

I want to say something I think is very

important if you need actual legal

advice don't put any information in the

comments section below you want that

information to be privileged therefore

reach out to an employment lawyer in

your state if you are in California

you're more than welcome to reach out to

me directly via email or my phone number

however just note I'm a professional I

have a family I have obligations I'm not

going to respond to a bunch of people

asking for free legal advice I don't

give free legal advice I do give free

consultations but there's a difference

the final four subjects I lump them all

together not because they're not

important they're very important but

because they kind of fall outside the

scope of what an everyday business owner

manager or HR professional can do to

prevent employment lawsuits but real

quickly unemployment largely as an

administrative thing somebody applies

for labor board benefits for

unemployment benefits and then the

company has to respond to that not a big

dollar spend in the context of

employment law secondly if we're talking

about layoffs if you're gonna lay off a

lot of people at one time you might need

to comply with the WARN Act so contact a

professional for advice on that third

collective bargaining agreements oh my

gosh that's way outside the scope of

this video

unions grievance procedures union

contract negotiations kind of that's a

labor law traditionally discussed as

labor law finally arbitration and

insurance arbitration is a super hot

topic it's about whether or not you can

prevent employees from filing lawsuits

in court do they have to go to a private

judge which is scary for an employee not

to be in a public forum but it's very

expensive for the employer because they

have to pay for a private judge finally

insurance is about what kind of

insurance companies can can buy in order

to protect themselves from employment

disputes like Employment Practices

Liability insurance or EPLI to protect

against discrimination in harassment

claims all right that's the basics as

you probably can imagine by now there's

a whole lot more to employment law than

what I've said in this basic overview

but I think that's got the job done if

you think I missed something you have a

question about something that I said if

you disagree with something that I said

or you want to request a video on a

particular subject in the future that's

what the comment section is for leave

comments I will respond to them thanks

for watching have a good one