Supervisors who stand up for subordinates when they claim they have been discriminated against may be engaging in “protected activity.” That could make punishing those supervisors retaliation.

It’s a fact of life: Employees get into arguments at work. Obviously, you can’t let a situation get out of hand. But be careful how you discipline the individuals. That’s especially important if there’s no clear evidence about who said what to whom. If you decide to suspend one employee, suspend the other one, too.

The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) requires employers to follow the terms of their collective bargaining agreements when they contribute to employee benefit plans. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has refused to extend the concept of “joint employer” to ERISA’s collective bargaining agreement provision when the second entity has not signed that agreement.

If you have to fire an employee, don’t worry that a court is just waiting to second-guess why you did so. The fact is, courts are reluctant to question your reasons as long as you can convince them the reasons were honest, even if in retrospect they may seem baseless or even foolish. They don’t want to become a national HR department.

Federal employees have special rules they have to follow in order to sue their employers for discrimination. One of these requirements is to contact an Equal Employment Opportunity “counselor” within 45 days of the alleged discriminatory act. The 9th Circuit has concluded that employees don’t have to contact the individual their employer has designated as the EEO counselor ...

Here’s a bit of good news from the Supreme Court of California: The court has ruled that labor unions can’t intercede for union members to sue employers for missed meal and rest breaks under the state’s unfair competition law or the private attorney general statute.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could just turn your employees into independent contractors? That way, you wouldn’t have to pay unemployment compensation taxes, provide workers’ compensation insurance and so on. But California courts are quick to zap employers that wrongly convert employees into contractors.

It probably comes as no surprise to Southern Californians that the Los Angeles and Orange County region ranks as one of the nation’s worst examples of urban sprawl, according to a recent report by the Brookings Institution. Only Detroit, Chicago and Dallas have more spread-out employment bases.

Guess what: You can’t press forward with a wage-and-hour class-action suit after you’ve already settled with the organization you’re suing. So said the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals when it tossed a class-action bid brought by two former T-Mobile sales reps.

Deputy probation officer Timothy Bentley is suing the Los Angeles County Probation Department, claiming that the county had a “pattern and practice of refusing to pay overtime” to deputy officers in the Suitable Placement Division.

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury recently awarded $370 million in damages to five former employees who said they were defamed by Georges Marciano, co-founder of fashion company Guess, Inc., and an independent candidate in the 2010 California governor’s race.

Public employees retain the right to free speech under the First Amendment and can’t be punished for exercising that right. However, the right is limited when the “speech” they’re using is part of their jobs. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has recently concluded that for California police officers, free speech protection may be even more limited.

The Fair Labor Standards Act says some managers may be held personally liable for unpaid wages, independent of the company’s obligation to pay. Not even a company bankruptcy halts individual liability.

A federal judge recently refused to certify a class-action suit in which workers at several California refiners sought to jointly sue ConocoPhillips Co. for failing to provide meal periods.

It can be months or years of administrative hearings to decide how much you are obliged to pay terminated employees. That’s one reason the Court of Appeal of California has begun advocating arbitration as a legal alternative to hearings.

You know that you have to accommodate disabled applicants and employees under both the ADA and California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act. When making those accommodations, think of customers, too. The California Supreme Court has ruled that customers who can’t access your public spaces can sue for damages.

Here’s a good idea if you are reviewing employment agreements that spell out how you pay commissions: Be sure to specify that the end of employment means the end of commissions.

The Pacific Legal Foundation recently filed a lawsuit alleging that Caltrans’ new contract quota program for minority-owned firms is unconstitutional. The suit, filed on behalf of the San Diego chapter of the Associated General Contractors of America, argues that Caltrans did not do enough to show that discrimination was a problem before it implemented the program.

Are you considering ways to weather the current economic storm? Perhaps you can cut some benefits, at least for new hires and maybe for current employees, too. For example, nothing in California law (or federal law, for that matter) requires you to offer vacation time or pay.

The commissioner of California’s Department of Insurance has reached a $37.3 million settlement of four lawsuits stemming from Fremont Indemnity Co.’s 2003 bankruptcy.

Warn your supervisors and managers: If they sexually harass business associates who aren’t your employees, those associates can sue for sexual harassment, too. The harassment has to meet the same standards as in the employment setting.

Are some of your organization’s leaders still stuck in the Dark Ages when it comes to attitudes about pregnancy, childbirth and child care? You might be a few off-base questions away from a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit. Remind managers and supervisors to keep their opinions on mothers and motherhood to themselves.

Sometimes, you have to make workplace changes because of outside factors. If those changes are going to affect a disabled employee’s job, proceed with caution. Make sure you can come up with a concrete, reasonable rationale for your decision—that shows it was unrelated to the employee’s disability.

Most companies employ a broad range of workers with varying backgrounds. Those who are well-educated will have no trouble reading and understanding an application or employee handbook. Others may have a harder time understanding what they are reading. Still others may not speak or read English. That’s why it’s important to use plain language when drafting any documents your employees need to read.

If you want to take advantage of the arbitration process to resolve workplace issues, make sure the arbitration agreement you give employees covers enough territory. Remember, for example, to include statutory claims in the language. If you don’t, employees will still be able to sue in court to enforce those laws.