Pennsylvania

EEOC now publishes charge data, by state. Have a look…

May 17, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

You can access the state-by-state charge data here. And view it all in a single downloadable spreadsheet here.

In the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, individuals filed 4,302 charges of discrimination in FY2011, which amounts to 4.3% of the total number of US charges filed. As with Americans across the country, retaliation was the most popular box checked (37.2% of all charges) in Pennsylvania. However, disability was number two in PA (31.1%) versus a national average of 25.8%, which pales compared to race and sex, nationally. Rounding out the top five in PA were: (3) sex (30%); (4) race (27.3%); and (5) age (27.3%).

Across the river in New Jersey, which has two-thirds the population of PA, residents filed less than half the number of charges (1,841) with the EEOC in FY2011 as were filed in PA. The reason? I suspect it is because individuals who have claims under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, which is very similar to the federal discrimination laws, do not need to file a claim with the New Jersey Division on Civil Rights, the state’s administrative agency, before going to court. The top five boxes checked on NJ EEOC charges were: (1) retaliation (35.1%), (2) race (33.9%); (3) disability (25.8%); (4) sex (24.8%); and (5) age (23.3%).

Fact or Fiction: FLSA preempts state wage and hour laws?

March 29, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

That’s right folks. It’s time for another edition of “Fact or Fiction” a/k/a “Quick Answers to Quick Questions” a/k/a QATQQ f/k/a “I don’t feel like writing a long blog post” d/b/a (just for today) “Eric’s 36th-Birthday Post”.

*** Sigh ***

Ahh…let’s get to today’s question:

Court allows plaintiff a quick peek into defendant’s Facebook account

March 22, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

A state court judge in Pennsylvania has come up with a new way to afford litigants access to social media as part of discovery in a pending civil action. Daniel Cummins at Tort Talk has the details:

The Judge’s page long Order does not provide the background on the case leading up to this Motion and Order, or why such discovery was pursued by the Plaintiff.

While the Court did grant the Plaintiff access to the Defendant’s Facebook page and ordered the Defendant not to delete any info from the Facebook profile, the Defendant was granted permission to change his login name and password after seven (7) days following his compliance with the Court’s Order.

Good luck overcoming the at-will employment presumption in PA

February 2, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

In Pennsylvania, as in most states, an employee without a contract for a specific term of employment is deemed an at-will employee. Subject to certain exceptions (e.g., discrimination, violations of public policy), an at-will employee can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all.

How hard is it to overcome the at-will employment presumption? Pretty darn hard, as the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reminded us last week. More on this decision and some tips for employers after the jump…

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PA remains a hotbed of social-media discovery disputes

January 16, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

I’ve been slacking, folks.

Not since November have I blogged about a defendant’s motion to compel a motion to compel an individual’s social-media content. Since then, several more Pennsylvania courts have weighed in on this burgeoning area.

I’m sorry to each and every one of you. I have let you down. Will you ever stop judging forgive me?

Oh, let’s kiss and make nice. I’ll get you caught up on the social-media-litigation goings-ons after the jump…

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PA companies offering severance to employees should read this…

January 11, 2012 | by Eric B. Meyer

Starting this year, employees who receive severance pay in excess of 40% of the average annual wage in Pennsylvania will have their unemployment compensation benefits offset. Currently, that 40% number is $17,853.00.

As Jonathan Segal, Legislative Director for PA State Council of SHRM, notes here, employers should be very careful not to represent anything in a severance agreement that an employee could reasonably construe as suggesting that this change in the law will not apply. He adds here that employers should also consider beefing up their severance-agreement-release language to confirm that the release is effective even if severance is offset or reduced under PA law.

You can read more on the change in the law here.

Your favorite “The Employer Handbook” posts from 2011

December 30, 2011 | by Eric B. Meyer

As the year draws to a close, let’s take a look back at the most popular posts at The Employer Handbook in 2011, based on number of hits:

5. Social media and the workplace. School teacher Natalie Munroe made several appearances on the blog this year. Remember her? She was the blogging school teacher who wrote that her students were “utterly loathsome in all imaginable ways.” Although, Ms. Munroe eventually returned to work, her experience is a sound reminder to always think twice before hitting “send.” You can read the fifth-most-popular post, “Yes, you CAN discipline employees who abuse social media” here.

4. I’m a poet and I don’t even know it. I’m not sure what inspired the fourth-most-popular post. It must have been a slow news day. How else do I come up with the idea to Haiku — verbing a noun, sorry — about recent employment-law decisions from the U.S. Supreme Court?

Your employees’ “private” Facebook posts are not private

November 22, 2011 | by Eric B. Meyer

What is this? A broken record?

Yesterday, I blogged about a recent NY appellate decision in which the court held that an employee who had sued her employer would have have to turn over her Facebook postings that related to the case.

Today, we head south down 95, and then west to Franklin County, PA, where a state court judge recently explained, in far greater detail than in the NY opinion, why employees have no reasonable expectation of privacy in their Facebook posts. (Not coincidentally, everything is done better in PA than in NY. Inferiority complex, much? Yep.)

I’ll break it down — the decision, not my complex — after the jump…

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Say what?!? Not returning employee calls may be FMLA retaliation

September 27, 2011 | by Eric B. Meyer

An eligible employee may take up to 12 workweeks of leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act in a 12-month period. If an employee exhausts all of her FMLA leave and fails to return to work after the 12 weeks are up, can’t the company simply fire the employee? Well, it may not be that easy, as you’ll find out after the jump…

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An employer’s response to a social-media nightmare. Thoughts?

September 16, 2011 | by Eric B. Meyer

Earlier this year, a local teacher was suspended after her school learned about nasty comments on her personal blog concerning her students. And that story became national news. More on the history here, here, and here.

Now, word has it that the school is considering a social-media policy. Well, it’s about time! What’s in the policy and does it go too far? Find out after the jump.