Employment Law

Austin-based information technology firm HBMG and its president, Manuel Zarate, have agreed to settle a lawsuit alleging the company failed to transfer employee retirement fund contributions into its 401(k) program.

Faced with a sick employee, you may recommend short-term disability leave to receive medical treatment. But that could violate the ADA if the employee neither needs nor wants all that time off.

It’s complicated to determine who is an independent contractor and who is an employee. Someone you consider a contractor may turn out to be an employee under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act (TCHRA)—and the TCHRA may cover you if those contractors turn out to be employees.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently confirmed the existence of a “ministerial exception” to the ADA and other federal employment statutes such as Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The justices held that the Con­sti­tut­­ion’s First Amendment bars em­­ployees in ministerial positions from suing churches and other religious em­­ployers under such laws.

Employers are always looking for ways to reduce their workers’ compensation costs. Maybe making off-the-books payments to a state official isn’t the best way to go about it ...

It used to be that before an em­­ployee or former employee could get into federal court with a ­benefits-denial case, he had to show that he was a “plan participant.” But following a recent 9th Circuit decision, merely claiming to have been a plan participant is enough.

Recently, the National Labor Relations Board held that class-action waivers violate em­­ployees’ rights to engage in concerted activity. In D.R. Horton, the NLRB said that employers may not compel employees to waive their NLRA rights to collectively pursue litigation of employment claims in all forums, arbitral and judicial. What does that mean for employers?

Employers that leak information re­­lated to employee lawsuits can wind up doing more harm than good if the publicity prompts a jury to jack up awarded damages.

If you need to fire an employee for unethical actions, how you handle the termination may mean the difference between winning and losing a defamation lawsuit. Most important: Share information about the termination only with those who need to know about it.

The EEOC is supposed to engage in a conciliation process before suing employers for alleged employment violations. But sometimes the agency comes out with guns blazing, demanding a huge payment to settle a complaint. Some employers naturally respond negatively—and they may even walk away without further discussions. One employer recently did just that, and then tried to get a federal court to dismiss the EEOC lawsuit.