Summary of Program
Employees use networking sites to communicate with one another (as well as current and potential customers). They post their daily thoughts and activities, uploading photos and, occasionally, adversely impact their employers’ business. What can an employer do to protect itself without intruding on employee rights?
Program Highlights
…
Summary of Program
Employees use networking sites to communicate with one another (as well as current and potential customers). They post their daily thoughts and activities, uploading photos and, occasionally, adversely impact their employers’ business. What can an employer do to protect itself without intruding on employee rights?
Program Highlights
…
By: James Kachmar
Those of you who attended our seminar on protecting confidential and trade secret information last Spring may recall our discussion about a trade secret misappropriation case involving a Twitter account. In that case, PhoneDog v. Kravitz, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 129229 (N.D. Cal. 2011), a product news and review company, PhoneDog, claimed it issued Twitter accounts to its employees so that they could publish content for users to support PhoneDog’s business. When one employee, Kravitz, left PhoneDog, he refused to provide PhoneDog with access to the Twitter account he was assigned, changed its handle to delete references to PhoneDog, and continued to use it (with its 17,000 followers) for personal purposes.Continue Reading A Reminder to Employers of the Need for Social Media Policies
Right in time for Halloween, See’s Candy Shops, Inc., has managed to sweet talk the California Court of Appeal into giving a sugary treat to employers in terms of wage-and-hour laws. According to the decision in See’s v. Superior Court, California employers might be able to use a “timekeeping policy that rounds employee punch in/out times to the nearest one-tenth of an hour” without violating the state’s strict overtime laws. The appellate court’s opinion is available at this link.Continue Reading See’s Candy Decision a Halloween Treat for Rounding Punch Times
Attendance at work seems like an obvious requirement to keep a job, right? The unfortunate answer often given by lawyers to that question is, “it depends.” In the employee-friendly state of California, permitting telecommuting or exemptions to an attendance policy may be a reasonable accommodation if a person has a disability. However, recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that predictable attendance can be an essential function of certain jobs; in this case, the job of a neo-natal intensive care unit (“NICU”) nurse.Continue Reading Is Compliance with an Attendance Policy an Essential Function of the Job? The Ninth Circuit says “Yes!”
