Small startup companies often have a situation where they may have cash flow problems and need to reduce pay of their salaried executives until the finances get better. Under New Hampshire law, RSA 275:43-b(I) a salaried employee is to receive full salary for any pay period in which the employee performs any work without regard of the number of days…
When an employee believes he was wrongfully fired, he may have state or federal statutory claims he may proceed with in court, such as claims of employment discrimination and retaliation. In those cases, he may assert, as part of his damages, emotional distress. However, if the facts surrounding the firing do not support such a statutory claim, the employee’s options…
A recent New Hampshire federal trial court decision discusses the limits a disgruntled employee has in bringing claims against her co-employees and boss. In the case of Lorettann Gascard v. Franklin Pierce University, et al, Professor Gascard, a faculty member of the University, sued it and the Dean as well as other individuals claiming employment discrimination in violation of federal…
Most good managers have analytical abilities to allow them to assess the cause of any problems to enable resolution of them. However, with employee performance issues, a manager’s speculations as to the cause for the performance issue could put the company in a discrimination case. Such was the issue in the case of Addiel Soto-Feliciano v. Villa Cofresi Hotels, Inc.…
Both current and former workers are, upon their request, permitted a reasonable opportunity to inspect their personnel file and to obtain a copy of that file subject to a reasonable fee related to the cost of copying the requested documents under New Hampshire RSA 275:56. If after inspection of the personnel file the worker disagrees with any information contained in…
If a former employee and employer have a dispute that has or will likely lead to litigation, they have a duty to preserve relevant evidence. If either of them deletes relevant e-mails from their respective computers, they may find the sanction by the Court to be substantial. Such a sanction was ordered in the decision from the Massachusetts Superior Court…
Stock options can be a good way to provide the opportunity to an employee to share in the potential success of the company thereby providing the employee additional incentive to build the company’s value. If an employee is offered stock options in a publicly-held company, generally those options will be provided at a certain price for which the employee can…
Embezzlement of company funds by employees is more common than reported in the media. Often employers will work out private restitution agreements in order to keep the matter confidential and therefore out of the media and the courts. A system of checks and balances can diminish the likelihood that an employee will embezzle as well as help catch that employee…
Officers can be personally liable for wrongful acts they take to benefit their company, even when those acts have been ordered by their superiors. For example, you, as the president of a corporation, are told by the CEO that the company cannot afford to pay its employees at this juncture and are asked to request the employees to work for…
New Hampshire Courts will narrowly construe employment agreement terms that restrict workers from competing with their former employers and modify them when necessary so as to only protect the legitimate business interests of the former employer but will generally have little patience for a worker who plans to use confidential information of his former employer to compete in his new…