Tag: Employment law

Settling up: the need for specificity in employee releases

By Kyla Stott-Jess and Kyle Cadieux An employer in Canada would be forgiven for thinking that a release of liability related to employment would protect it from all future claims by that employee. However, a recent Alberta Human Rights Tribunal decision, Hutton v. ARC Business Solutions Inc., 2015 AHRC 7, suggests that the matter is […]

Ode to Letterman: EntertainHR’s own Top 10

David Letterman, a late-night staple for 33 years, aired his final episode on May 20, 2015. Whether you preferred Johnny, Leno, Conan, Kimmel, or Fallon, no one can deny Letterman’s impact on pop culture, and the fact remains that he retires as the longest-serving late-night talk show host in American television history. While there were […]

Drugs, alcohol, and the workplace: What employers need to know

No employer wants impaired workers on the job, and most take steps intended to prevent drugs and alcohol from causing harm. But despite carefully considered policies, problems often occur. Statistics reported in the June 2 Wall Street Journal are giving employers more to worry about. Statistics from Quest Diagnostics Inc., a major administer of workplace […]

Would Senator Hatch’s H-1B solution help?

by Elaine Young In 2013, Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) was part of the group that drafted and passed a comprehensive immigration bill in the Senate. The bill later fizzled out in the House of Representatives. This year, Senator Hatch introduced the Immigration Innovation Act of 2015, which addresses one aspect of comprehensive immigration reform—increasing the […]

Gall, Blatter

Joseph “Sepp” Blatter is a man whose name seems an adjective as much as a proper noun. Blatter, as you likely know by now, was just elected to a fifth term as President of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), the international umbrella organization for international soccer. The 79-year-old Blatter was his typically arrogant […]

Case signals lower threshold for mental distress when cause allegation fails

By Thora Sigurdson The British Columbia Supreme Court recently awarded damages for mental distress in the context of a termination for cause. The decision in George v. Cowichan Tribes signals that it may be easier to establish such a claim when there is a just cause allegation that fails, compared with terminations without cause. It […]

FMLA confusion: Employers grapple with forced leave, pay for reduced schedule

Questions regarding the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) can get tricky. For example, if an employee is off work because of a medical condition, can the employer start the FMLA clock ticking even if the employee doesn’t want his time off counted against his FMLA leave allotment? And what about an exempt employee who […]

Willful blindness: a leadership and cultural downfall

by Brad Federman Willful blindness is a legal term that means there is information you could and should know but have elected not to know. Deliberate indifference and contrived ignorance also are used to describe the phenomenon. Unfortunately, there is a great deal of willful blindness in the world today. Willful blindness causes the downfall […]

Dirty Dancing: hot summer hiring considerations

With summer quickly approaching, it’s time to pull out those warm-weather clothes and dust off my copy of Dirty Dancing, one of my favorite summer films. Who can forget the summer of 1963 when Baby performed her triumphant lift, Johnny taught us about standing up for others no matter what it costs us, and we […]

CareFirst Is Latest Insurer to Suffer Major Cyberattack

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield has become the latest major health insurer to acknowledge having suffered a large-scale cyberattack on its member data. Information on about 1.1 million individuals was affected by the breach, which CareFirst discovered during an information technology security review conducted in the wake of the attacks on Anthem and Premera. In June 2014, […]