Employers are often in the dark when it comes to what is considered workplace retaliation. Bosses often don’t realize that a cold shoulder here and a verbal slight there can count as unlawful retaliation. Based on new data revealed by the Ethics Resource Center, Forbes compiled a list of the most common retaliation tactics. Widely known forms of retaliation – job loss, pay cuts, demotions, and reassignments – certainly made the cut....
As a parent, there is no shortage to the scary stories of abusive babysitters. But that also doesn’t mean you can never leave the house without your children. It’s not a matter of never hiring a babysitter; it’s a matter of finding the right one. And part of finding the right babysitter is training the right babysitter. Any sitter you hire needs to know exactly what you expect when it comes to schedule, interaction, and, most importantly, discipline....
If you’ve heard of HIPAA – the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 – you probably know that it protects private medical information. But beyond that, most people are understandably clueless. HIPAA actually ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to create standards for the protection of electronically stored and submitted personal health care information. Those standards limit the use and dissemination of personal data; create a system for submitting electronic information; and dictate security standards....
When you’re injured on the job, keeping you from working, you may think that either workers’ comp or disability benefits will keep you afloat. However, while both of these benefits cover times when an employee may be unable to work, there are significant differences between what each will cover and when you may be eligible. So should employees seek worker’s compensation or disability benefits for workplace injuries? Here are a few things to consider:...
A New Jersey jury convicted NJWeedman of possession of Monday, but was unable to decide whether he intended to sell it or keep it for himself. For the uninitiated, NJWeedman’s real name is Ed Forchion, and he’s a California resident who operates a medical marijuana dispensary in Hollywood. NJWeedman is a bit of an Internet celebrity and active in the medical marijuana scene. He also tried to legally change his name to NJWeedman....
A sham is something fake, and the word applies to anything from bedding to marriages. A pillow sham, for example, is an ornamental cover, for surface effect only. It’s what you put on a pillow to make it look good. Similarly, a sham marriage dresses up a person’s legal status. It is a union entered into for immigration benefits, not one based on two people’s genuine desire to share their lives....
Everyone from Ohio knows that “toward the lake” means north, and “toward the river” means south. In Ohio, when someone asks you how far away something is, you respond in minutes, not miles (“it’s about 15 minutes from here”), and the University of Michigan is your mortal enemy. When visiting the Buckeye State, if there’s one thing you have to know, it’s that candy buckeyes are delicious and real buckeyes are poisonous....
A new FindLaw survey on student loans finds that more than half of all loan recipients are still paying them off. On a larger scale, that means one in six Americans are currently dealing with student loan debt. For students still in school, loans may feel like a far-off problem to be dealt with sometime in the future. Unfortunately for some, it may take years or even decades before they’re able to dig themselves out of debt....
It was off, now it is back on. This kind of situation is perhaps the exact one the Obama Administration was hoping to avoid by addressing the don’t ask don’t tell policy through a congressional repeal, rather than through the court system. Just a few days ago, the Pentagon had suspended implementation of don’t ask don’t tell after California Federal Judge Virginia Phillips had issued and injunction against its enforcement. As of October 20, the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed the injunction and the situation....
Clevland mass murder suspect Anthony Sowell pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Sowell was indicted on 85 counts and appeared in court via a video hookup from his jail cell. A registered sex offender, he also is accused of killing 11 women and burying their remains in and around his house in Cleveland. All 11 remains were of African-American women. The Cuyahoga County prosecutor, Bill Mason, has said that he would seek the death penalty....
If it can happen to Mickey D’s, it can happen to Marky Mark. The former rapper’s family burger joint, Wahlburgers, has been sued for unpaid wages, claiming “rampant … wage theft and violations of federal and state labor law” at the Coney Island franchise since opening in 2015. And if it can happen to the most famous member of the Funky Bunch, it can happen to you. So find out what’s going on in the lawsuit against the Wahlbergs and how your small business can avoid it....
A judge in Alameda County Court in California ruled yesterday that the furloughs ordered for state employees by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger must end. Judge Frank Roesch found that the three day a month forced days off for employees of state agencies violated state law. As a result, Californians might now get a chance to stand in line at the DMV on Friday, once again. According to The Chronicle, Judge Roesch’s earlier rulings on the furloughs found that California law setting state employee work weeks at 40 hours was violated by the governor’s order....
There are some classic threats you hear regarding legal arguments. “You’re getting sued!” “I’ll see you in court!” “I’m taking my case all the way to the Supreme Court!” But what if your beef is with a judge or the court itself? Can you take the court to court? While courts and judges generally enjoy immunity from civil lawsuits, there may still be ways to hold them accountable for certain actions....
Infants seriously hurt in staircase injuries are often being carried by a parent or caregiver, a new study finds. Multitasking may be to blame for the accidents, researchers told CNN. For children under 1 year of age, nearly 25% of stair injuries occurred while the child was being carried, according to researchers at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. Their study, which looked at stair injuries involving children under 5 between 1999 and 2008, appears in the journal Pediatrics....
Detroit News reports that child support debt keeps growing in Michigan. The reason for the child support debt growth? Laws governing child support in Michigan require that a surcharge be placed on payments for child support of delinquent parents. The surcharges, which started back in 1996 was put into Mighigan child support law in order to encourage timely payments of child support. Instead, it now accounts for approximately $9.2 billion dollars in back child support that is owed to the state of Michigan....
It’s tax season, and you’re sending out your tax forms to all of those people who worked for you in the past year. One of the big questions many have is, “Which form”? Do you send out a W-2 or a 1099? Which form, indeed. That question hinges on a lot more than some tax technicality. In order to answer it, we need to reach into employment law to help determine the answer to the first question: employee or independent contractor?...
San Diego has announced a program offering no-interest loans of up to $100,000 for small businesses to make energy efficiency improvements. Initiatives like San Diego’s, and programs in other regions hope to give businesses incentives to invest in energy efficiency that will yield not only long term, but also short term benefits. The San Diego Clean Enterprise program is a joint project by the city, the non-profit CleanTECH San Diego and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E)....
Endorsements, particularly those by celebrities, athletes, or other well-known figures, are a classic form of marketing. But what if your marketing budget doesn’t allow for extravagant spending on celebrity endorsements, or your product is too little known or too new to have garnered organic positive customer feedback? For some business owners – such as the California lawyer recently suspended for Photoshopping herself into pictures with celebrities and posting the pics on her website – the plan seems to be: fake it until you make it....
Consumers should stop using (and immediately throw away) a number of popular skin sanitizing and skin protectant products, because they may contain high levels of disease-causing bacteria, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced earlier this week. The affected products are all manufactured by Clarcon Biological Chemistry Laboratory Inc. of Roy, Utah, and marketed under a number of different brand names. According to an FDA Consumer Warning, the following Clarcon skin products (all of which have been recalled) may be contaminated by bacteria and should be discarded as soon as possible:...
How Change of Custody May Have Played Key Role in Capture It’s probably not going too far out on a limb to call this yesterday’s no-brainer decision of the day. The winner? Mary Watson, the grandmother of 4-year-old Haylee Donathan, the girl who up ’til Tuesday had been missing 27 days in a highly publicized Ohio case. Haylee was finally found Tuesday in California after being taken across the country by her mom with her sex offender boyfriend Robbie Potter (who, by the way, happened to be a fugitive)....
