The California Chamber of Commerce has provided an analysis of the most common ways employers end up in litigation. They found these ten acts that many employers do, draw employee lawsuits and employer liability:
- Classifying all employees as exempt, whether they are or not;
- Being nice to employees – letting them take lunch whenever they want;
- Making everyone independent contractors because having employees is too much trouble;
- Letting employees decide which hours and how many hours they want to work each day;
- Terminating any employee who takes a leave of absence, whatever the reason, because it is too much trouble to administer leaves of absence and the employer does not know if the employee will return;
- Refusing to give former employees their final check until they return company property;
- Providing loans to employees and deducting the money from the employees’ paychecks each pay period or from their final paycheck;
- Using non-compete agreements to protect confidential information, such as business secrets, customer lists and pricing information, that prevent employees from working for the competition; and
- Implementing a “use it or lose it” vacation policy and refusing to pay out all that money upon employment termination.
The listed conduct is prohibited by Federal and State laws. There are statutorily prescribed ways employers must treat and pay workers. If you fail to follow them you too could become the “Defendant.” Before you decide how to handle your employee situations get some good, solid legal advice so you don’t end up on the Court Docket.
Contact your legal counsel in order to help prevent you from making mistakes that could spell disaster.
The information presented is not intended to be, and does not constitute, “legal advice.” Because each situation varies, and only brief summary information is provided here, you should not use this information as a basis for action unless you have independently verified with your own counsel that it applies to your particular situation.
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