Cache Bux was riding high as the president of Nodding Donkey Oil Field Services which recently opened new offices in Peru. Nodding Donkey’s earnings were beyond its wildest projections. Cache would easily hit his annual employment agreement performance incentives – entitling him to a substantial year-end bonus. But Cache’s elation plummeted when he overheard two directors on Nodding Donkey’s board discussing a plan to fire him for “cause” to avoid paying his almost-certain bonus. Knowing there were no grounds for termination, Cache persuaded an IT consultant to scour the directors’ emails, which revealed multiple communications planning their scheme. Fearing the directors’ emails would be deleted, Cache gathered and saved them on a flash drive, along with the company’s financial reports, demonstrating that he satisfied all performance metrics. Cache hid the flash drive at home. Sure enough, the directors fired Cache for “cause” days before the annual bonus numbers were revealed. Cache hired a lawyer and turned over the emails and financial reports, thinking that he was well on the path to victory. He had saved key evidence, right? Or, did he?
Continue Reading Should You Take Your Company’s Business Records to Support Your Lawsuit When You Leave?
Employment
Who Pays When Your New Employee Brings Your Competitor’s Trade Secrets?
Days ago, engineer Anthony Levandowski was indicted on criminal charges accusing him of stealing information from Google-owned Waymo and taking it to Uber. While the indictment alleges he downloaded 14,000 documents containing trade secrets before he left Google, Levandowski insists the downloads were his. An arbitration panel ordered Levandowski to pay Google $127 million. After firing Levandowski – who repeatedly asserted his constitutional right against self-incrimination before the trial – his new employer, Uber, paid $245 million to settle its own civil lawsuit with Google. The sitting federal judge recommended a criminal probe into a possible theft – now an indictment. Everybody does it, right? Who pays the $372 million? Does Uber have to protect Levandowski? Can Levandowski claim ownership of his ideas? Can Levandowski go to jail?
Continue Reading Who Pays When Your New Employee Brings Your Competitor’s Trade Secrets?
Sticking it to Your Employees During Flu Season
Frustrated with the high number of employees that did not show up for work in the fall and winter last year, Jim Duncey, the owner of Duncey’s Caps, Inc., issues a memo to all employees that they must provide proof that they got a flu vaccine shot by January 1, 2018 or they would be fired. Tommy Goinmyownway protests, saying that his religious beliefs prohibit him from getting vaccinations. New Year’s Day comes and Tommy is fired after he doesn’t provide the required proof. As he is escorted out of the plant Tommy threatens to sue Duncey’s for discrimination. Does he have a claim?
Continue Reading Sticking it to Your Employees During Flu Season
Dashing Through Non-Competes Christmas Style
Wanting to expand out of North Dakota before the Christmas season, Homer’s Christmas Tree Farm picked Bubba’s Christmas Farm in the Texas Panhandle. Knowing that Bubba’s employee, Skeeter Jones, was critical to Bubba’s continuing success, Homer required Skeeter to sign a new employment contract complete with non-competition and non-solicitation provisions under North Dakota law. When…
Whistleblowers, Do Tell?
Whizzle Blour, a professor of surgery at University Medical School, complained to his supervisor that trauma residents at University Hospital were treating and operating on patients without an attending physician’s supervision in violation of Medicare and Medicaid law. After agreeing to settle those federal claims, University Hospital stripped Whizzle of his faculty chair position claiming he was a poor administrator. Later he was fired. He filed a whistleblower suit alleging his demotion was in retaliation for reporting the federal law violations. Will Whizzle Blour prevail?
No. Whizzle Blour failed to prove all the required elements for retaliation under the Texas Whistleblower Act (TWA). Reporting the Medicare and Medicaid violations to his supervisor did not satisfy the TWA because the supervisor was not qualified as “an appropriate law enforcement entity.”
The Supreme Court Narrows the Definition of “Supervisor” – The Cat’s Meow for Corporations
Ellen Tabby, an African-American, has worked for Binge and Purr, a cat food manufacturing company, for several years. Tabby reports to Stephanie Schnauzer, who is white. Tabby and Schnauzer argue like cats and dogs. Tabby is convinced that Schnauzer’s poor attitude toward her is rooted in the fact that Tabby is African-American. Although Schnauzer directs…
Workers’ Compensation Insurance – Buying “the Shield” or “Going Bare”
Rocky Haire (the actual name of an attorney in town who gave permission for it to be used in this article) is thinking about opening his own small business Fine and Dandy Confectioners. He is considering purchasing medical and wage benefits for his employees because he expects the 8-10 new employees will stack crates head…
Supervisors and FLSP Overtime Exemption
For over ten years Dudleydil E. Gent has been the purchasing manager for Effervescent Electronics, at one time supervising as many as ten purchasing agents. Due to the failing economy and lagging sales and in a desperate attempt to save his company, the Effervescent owner Julius C. Dithers directed four forced layoffs in the last…
Dangers of Employee Cell Phone Use?
Daneka Dodgy blamed a low-flying pelican and a dropped cell phone for her veering her sponsor’s million-dollar sports car into on-coming traffic near Galveston, crashing into Wilma Woondednee’s car and overturning it so that Wilma’s driver’s side hit and then slid along the roadway. The luxury French-built Bugatti Veyron provided to Daneka by her sponsor…
Recognizing Employees’ Holidays
Gurglin’ Guideon Cavatelli is upset with his boss Shank Brisket. Cavatelli and his fellow believers at the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster celebrate the third Wednesday in December by taking a pilgrimage to the Great Pasta Patch to try to catch the Flying Spaghetti Monster rising up to spread carbohydrate girth and mirth to…