New Jersey Employment Law Blog

The New Jersey Employment Law Blog welcomes Katie Steinberg, newly minted Villanova University graduate, to our little corner of the blogosphere.  It only took a few days (maybe only a few hours) for Katie to decide that the legal profession can stand a little loosening up. A few minutes of  brainstorming later, the Summer Cinema Series was born.

So, in honor of the season, for the next several Mondays our attention will turn to  cinema in the courtroom, pairing Hollywood with the law.

We kick it off with a scene from . . . .who else? . . .  The Three Stooges, from "Disorder in the Court."  Unfortunately, we can only link to it.  Take the time to follow the link.  The scene is short, and you won't be disappointed.

Enjoy.

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I love Dickens's "A Christmas Carol" and read it every Christmastide.  Marylee Abrams at Minnesota Labor & Employment blog has this interesting post, which is particularly apt for the season.  I can't improve on it, so I won't try.  I'll only note the obvious: Scrooge, not Fezziwig, started as the richest man in town.  And at the end he was giving his money away.

Off-topic, years ago I did some canoeing in Minnesota's Boundary Waters Canoe Wilderness.  The graphic on Marylee's blog got me thinking that it would be fun to stage a return trip.  But I think I'll wait for the summer.

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"Oh what tangled webs we weave,

When first we practice to deceive."

So Sir Walter Scott told us in Marmion.  (Yes, I too thought it was from Shakespeare, but a little research quickly disabused me of that notion.)  

Aaron Siebers, a Blockbuster employee in Colorado, apparently missed the class that covered the consequences of deception and tangled webs.

In a nutshell, Mr. Siebers went skateboarding before reporting to work, while wearing his uniform pants.  He fell and ripped them.  Concerned about the potential consequences to his employment of reporting to work in torn trousers, he tried to solve the problem by stabbing himself in the leg.  With a knife.  Really.  And he called the police and told them that he had been attacked by three men, explaining the wound.

The police quickly determined that Siebers' story was as full of holes as his pants.

Siebers has been criminally charged with filing a false report and obstructing police.  We don't know whether he got fired, but employment may be the least of his problems now.

Here's the full story, courtesy of The Smoking Gun.

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As you work through the last day and a half before the end-of-summer holiday, take 5 minutes to savor AirVenture 2009.  It's the largest airshow in America.  (I've been once and can't wait to go back.)  With background music by the Killers.  Watch a little bit of what makes America great. 

Off topic?  Absolutely.  Enjoy it anyway.  Happy Labor Day. 

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One of the nice things about blogging is that, in monitoring the blogosphere for good material, you come across the occasional "stranger than fiction" item.  This one is an example, and I'll let it stand without comment.  Thanks to Tim Eavenson of the Current Employment blog for finding this.

Who said the law can't be fun?

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The new Star Trek movie (which has been getting great reviews) contains some lessons on how to navigate a flying workplace through the galaxies.  Your office is probably conventionally ground-bound, but Dan Schwartz of the Connecticut Employment Law Blog draws some trenchant parallels.

Now, if we could just figure out what Tribbles might teach us about HR issues  . . . . . No, we don't want to go there.  But enjoy Dan's post anyway.  

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We all know the bad behaviors: lateness to meetings, Blackberry and cell phone interruptions, and so forth.  According to Denise O'Berry, an epidemic of such uncouth behavior has caused a spike in demand for "business courtesy boot camps."

Business courtesy boot camps?  Isn't that more than a little oxymoronic?  More to the point, have so many of us forgotten the simple manners that our parents taught us?  Or have we just forgotten that they apply to the workplace as well as social situations?

When the always gentle Miss Manners hears about this, she'll soon be reaching for her favorite civilized beverage.

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Last night's episode of Boston Legal featured the firing of a partner for his refusal to sign a "love contract" designed to protect the firm from sexual harassment problems that might arise from his in-office romance.  You can't get away from this employment law stuff even in a make-believe law firm on TV! 

And for all you Brad Chase fans, don't worry quite yet.  He's appealing the decision. 

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We've posted several times on the threat that unauthorized computer use can pose to employers.  But here's a new twist.  Lawyers USA reports that professional golfer Fuzzy Zoeller "is suing to track down the author who posted . . . a defamatory paragraph about him on the Internet reference site Wikipedia."  Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit entries.The paragraph in question accused Zoeller of abusing alcohol and his family but offered no evidence in support of the statements.  Although the paragraph was removed, it was picked up by other sites and distributed around the Internet. 

Zoeller traced the source of the offensive entry to Josef Silny & Associates, a Miami-based education consulting business.  Unable to sue Wikipedia, Zoeller sued Silny to identify the author.  LawyersUSA quotes Zoeller's attorney as saying that "the Zoeller family wants to take a stand to put a stop to this.  Otherwise, we're all just victims of the Internet vandals out there.  They ought not to be  able to act with impunity."  He has a point.  

Turnabout being fair play, Zoeller's Wikipedia entry now contains a reference to the incident and to the litigation.

But are there broader implications?  If the Silny firm failed to adequately control the use of its office computers so that they could be used to defame someone, might not Zoeller have a claim against the company as well as the author?

This is another good example of why all businesses that use computers and allow their employees Internet access should review their computer policies or, if they don't have one, get one right away.  Otherwise, like Josef Silny & Associates, they might end up with an unexpected legal bill --- and possibly a liability.

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A quick trip through the blogosphere reminds me how many good sources of employment law and HR information are available.  Here are just a few that have come to my attention recently.

Strategic HR Lawyer --- a well-updated blog that contains the latest in employment law and strategic HR information. 

Transgender Workplace Diversity is a blog maintained by Professor Jillian Weiss of Ramapo College.  It is highly specialized, focusing on the HR implications of the employment of transgender individuals.

The Pennsylvania Employment Law Blog is a new offering from Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP, and does for Pennsylvanians what the New Jersey Employment Law Blog strives to do for New Jersey businesses and business people.

All are well done and worth a visit.

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Reuters and Inc.com report that only 14% of small businesses offer 401(k)'s to their employees, and 63% do not offer any retirement benefit of any kind.

"The survey found that owners who do not provide retirement benefits fail to do so for a variety of reasons. Fifty-four percent said they didn't have enough employees to make it worthwhile, 28 percent cited a financial inability to match contributions, and 26 percent blamed unstable business circumstances."

This also raises the important question of what small business owners are doing to fund their own retirements.

It's not all that surprising that 401(k)'s are not used more widely by small business.  They're relatively expensive and complicated to administer.  And they usually lock you into matching contributions that you don't control: the amount that the employer must pay in matching contributions depends on how much the employees contribute.  That can strain the finances of a smaller company with limited cash flow.

On the other hand, there are other options, such as SEP-IRA's, that give the employer more control. The employer makes 100% of the contributions, but only when and in amounts that it chooses.  If the money is not available, there's no obligation to contribute at all.

Good information on retirement plan alternatives for small employers is available from brokerage firms and mutual fund companies, such as Schwab and Vanguard.

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We'll be away from computers for a few days, but should be back and blogging on October 30 --- Mischief Night --- which seems ironically appropriate. Till then.

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Lawyers who represent management, and those who represent employees, tend not to agree on much. However, they probably will agree that a recent ruling from the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit might make it easier to settle employment litigations. And for that both sides will be grateful.

There's little as boring as tax law, so here's the gist of it, sans the technical details. The case is Murphy v. IRS, decided on August 22, 2006. Money damages awarded for personal injuries historically have been treated as exempt from income tax. In pure personal injury cases, such as car crashes, this has been easy to apply. The courts have had a more difficult time with employment discrimination cases, in which the question is whether damages replace lost income, compensate for personal injury such as emotional distress, or a combination. Language in a 1996 statute presumptively treats all recoveries by plaintiffs in employment cases as taxable income. No one was happy about this except for the IRS, which stood to collect more money.

In Murphy, the court found that damages awarded to a fired employee for emotional distress and damage to her reputation are not income, and thus are not taxable. What is making waves, though, is the court's finding that it is unconstitutional for the IRS to consider such awards to be income.

Will the Supreme Court rule on the question? Right now no one knows, but employment lawyers are scrambling to take advantage of the ruling for their clients.

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We all know about addictions. Real and serious ones like alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. Now the Insurance Journal has published an article suggesting that employers are causing workers to become addicted to technology! Really! The theory, apparently, is that open internet connectivity tempts employees to work 24/7, which could lead to stress and mental illness.

Never mind that there are millions of people who already work or think about work nearly 24/7. They're called the self-employed, and generally they're neither addicted nor mentally ill. They may get stressed on occasion, but that comes with the territory and is generally preferred to the stress of having to deal with a boss.

So what are the worriers at the Insurance Journal up worrying about at night? That technology addiction will result in a flood of litigation, of course! And, I suppose we can infer, higher insurance premiums and higher payouts on policies. (By the way, no technology addiction lawsuits have been filed --- but it could happen, you know.)

You decide for yourself what you think of the technology addiction theory. But just for the sake of argument let's indulge the assumption that it's a real problem. The "solution" proposed by the article makes sense: "employees [should] walk away from their Blackberries, email, and cell phones while on vacation." Hopefully we're all still rational enough to agree on the wisdom of that advice, whether we're technology addicted or not.

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I just ran across a post from Diane Pfadenhauer at the Strategic HR Lawyer that discusses emerging trends in the workplace. Some are timeless problems, such as the ongoing impact of seemingly uncontrollable health care costs. Others are newer, such as the need to maintain peace in the workplace (literally) with the rise of violent conflict around the world, most notably in the Middle East.

It's thought-provoking stuff and worthy of your time.

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Have you ever wondered whether there is a difference in personality between people who are happiest working for others and those who are happiest working for themselves? It turns out that entrepreneurs usually share certain personality traits. George Lenard (George's Employment Law Blawg) links to an interesting quiz that tests your aptitude for the life of an entrepreneur. It's quick to take, and you may be surprised by some of the answers, many of which are not intuitive.

I have had my own law practice for more than 16 years, which presumably qualifies me as an entrepreneur, and I got some wrong. Here's a direct link to the quiz. Try it and see whether you are suited to take the plunge into running your own business.

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