The concept of an employment contract seems simple enough: “You work for me and I pay you for that work.”
But there are some very important contractual nuances to the relationship between employers and employees that human resources professionals should be aware of and prepared to deal with.
First, not all contracts are written...
In our June 2009 issue, we discussed the increasing trend of employers turning to preemployment arbitration agreements in an effort to avoid risky jury trials. Our June 2010 issue covered two recent cases applicable to Oklahoma employers with mandatory employment arbitration programs in place. This summer, the U.S. Supreme Court...
In the following case, a number of written agreements a consultant/employee entered into with a company over the years became ripe for arbitration. The employee wanted to press forward with arbitration, but the employer balked. Let's take a look at how the South Dakota federal district court resolved the dispute. (Although your...
Recently, several members of Congress have proposed legislation that would significantly limit the ability of employers and employees to agree to binding arbitration to resolve employment disputes. Some proposed legislation has gone as far as to make predispute arbitration agreements invalid or unenforceable if they require...
A company required its employees to arbitrate their employment disputes and pay their half of the arbitration costs. But when a former employee complained that forcing her to share the costs violated public policy, the courts listened. Now the state's highest court has weighed in, explaining how to determine whether a cost-...
When you think an employee is guilty of serious misconduct, it's not uncommon to suspend him for a few days while you gather all the facts. When the Bacardi Corporation thought Pablo Zayas was guilty of stealing time, that's exactly what it did. When it later fired him, the union invoked the "industrial double jeopardy" doctrine,...
The federal district court in Honolulu refused to enforce a mandatory arbitration clause between 24 Hour Fitness and an employee. A written and signed arbitration clause was part of the gym's employee handbook. But because 24 Hour Fitness had the unilateral right to revise any portion of that handbook, the court said the clause was...
The Montana Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act (WDEA) says that failure to exhaust available grievance procedures "is a defense" to a wrongful discharge claim, but until now, it wasn't clear whether failure to exhaust completely barred a wrongful discharge lawsuit. In a recent case, the Montana Supreme Court said that an...
Adrian Douglass received an employee handbook when he was hired by Pflueger Honda. It contained an arbitration clause that stated that "any and all claims arising out of the employee's employment" would be settled by final, binding arbitration. Douglass signed an acknowledgment form in which he agreed that he had read and...
As employers seek to reduce the expenses of litigating employees' claims, more and more arbitration clauses are appearing in employment agreements. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that federal policy should favor arbitration and that any doubts about whether an issue is "arbitrable" (or subject to arbitration) should be resolved...
