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Employee Had No Privacy Expectation In Work Emails

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
09/26/2018
Public Sector Employment Law, Social Media
In a decision last week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals held that a Penn State University employee did not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in her work emails because the University owned and operated the email account at issue. In 2015, the Pennsylvania Office of the Attorney General (OAG) filed criminal charges -- including counts of forgery and computer-related offenses -- against a Penn State employee.  The prosecutor and OAG...
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Understanding Telework as a Reasonable Accommodation

Clifford Geiger
Clifford Geiger
09/23/2018
Disability & Leave
Handling employee requests to telework can be tricky, especially when the request is accompanied by a doctor’s note recommending the employee work at home all or most of the time. But just providing a doctor’s note does not entitle an employee to work at home.  An employer needs enough information to understand whether teleworking is a reasonable accommodation, and this means both the employer and employee must engage in the interactive...
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SSA To Resume Sending “No-Match” Letters

Clifford Geiger
Clifford Geiger
09/20/2018
Agency Activity, Immigration
Beginning in 2019, the Social Security Administration (SSA) will resume sending “no-match” letters to employers when information submitted on tax forms does not match SSA records. Typically, the name and social security number reported by a worker on Form W-4 does not match the information in SSA databases.  The practice was ended by the Obama administration in 2012, the same year the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program was...
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Union Threatens Strike over Marriott’s Green Initiative

Darrell VanDeusen
Darrell VanDeusen
09/19/2018
Labor Law
News reports on virtually everything over the past week (ok, more like nearly two years) has me shaking my head at the “crazy town” world we find ourselves living in.  I have restrained myself from writing blogs about the various things I regularly find absurd, largely because it would consume more time than I have.  But reports coming out over the past few days about the strike vote taken by UNITE HERE housekeeping employees at Marriott put me...
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NLRB Proposes Joint-Employer Standard Rule

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
09/14/2018
Labor Law
Today, the National Labor Relations Board (Board) published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPR) to establish the standard for finding that one entity is a joint employer with another entity.  Under the proposed rule, an employer may be a joint-employer of another employer’s employees “only if [1] it possesses and exercises direct and immediate control over the essential terms and conditions of employment and [2] has done so in a manner...
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Employment Law Test, Question Two.

Darrell VanDeusen
Darrell VanDeusen
09/13/2018
Religious Discrimination
Ok, class, today’s quiz involves religious discrimination.  There’s been a lot of discussion in the news lately about when it is acceptable to act on your religious beliefs regardless of how your actions affect the interests of others.  This becomes a bit tricky when employment discrimination law says you cannot treat people differently, but then someone claims that their religious views require it. For example, “my religion doesn’t permit...
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Think You Understand Employment Discrimination Law? Here’s a Test.

Darrell VanDeusen
Darrell VanDeusen
09/11/2018
Employment Discrimination, State Law
If you are a student of employment law, you likely know the basics of employment discrimination and the concept of “disparate treatment” – the theory that it is impermissible to intentionally treat someone differently because they are a member of a protected class.  That’s where you get the most typical claims of discrimination.  The “I wasn’t hired because of my national origin,” or “I didn’t get paid the at the same wage because...
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Expanded Construction Contractor Wage Liability Takes Effect October 1, 2018

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
09/10/2018
State Law, Wage & Hour
Beginning on October 1, 2018, construction contractors doing business in Maryland may be held liable if their subcontractors fail to pay their workers.  To say that this expanded liability is significant would be an understatement. First, a bit of background.  The Maryland Wage Payment and Collection Law permits an employee who has not been paid in accordance with his or her employer’s regular pay practices to sue the employer for the wages that...
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Failure to Mediate Bars Claim for Unpaid Wages

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
09/07/2018
Virginia Employment Law, Wage & Hour
The Supreme Court of Virginia has affirmed the dismissal of a suit for unpaid wages because of the plaintiff's failure to seek mediation before filing suit.   In Primov v. Serco, Inc., the Court upheld the Circuit Court of Fairfax County's dismissal of a  complaint with prejudice upon sustaining a plea in bar for failure to comply with a contractual condition precedent before filing suit. In Primov, the plaintiff alleged that he had an employment...
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Male Employee's Sexual Comments to Male Coworker Sufficient to Send Harassment Claim to Jury

Kollman & Saucier
Kollman & Saucier
09/07/2018
Sexual Harassment, Virginia Employment Law
Sometimes I read cases that make me realize how boring and uneventful my worklife is compared to the workplaces we read about as employment lawyers and mediators (and that is a good thing).  A recent decision from the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia  drove that point home yet again. In Funk v. MWX Technologies, Inc., No. 6:16-cv-53 (W.D. Va. 8/22/18), Terry Trent and Perry Funk were male co-workers.  According to...
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