On March 21, 2011, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Court rendered a decision which emphasizes the importance of employees subjected to harassment by co-workers to report such abuses to their boss and the importance of that boss to investigate, and, when appropriate, discipline the harassers. This Court hears appeals from the federal courts within the…
A recent Massachusetts decision emphasizes that an employee’s abusive and mean boss does not always equate to legal liability to the employer. In the case of Anthony McCarty v. Verizon New England, Inc. and Jeffrey Romano, Anthony McCarty, a service technician for Verizon brought a Massachusetts state court lawsuit alleging claims of intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress based…
Written unambiguous agreements between employers and employees are generally enforced based upon their specific terms, irrespective of whether the employer or employee claim they orally agreed to something other than what is in the written agreement. This issue was addressed by the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit in the February 18, 2011 case of Anthony Artuso…
As the end of 2010 approaches, many of us will attend social gatherings with fellow workers, whether it is a company holiday party or informal get-together. Such gatherings are an opportunity to get to know your fellow workers in a more casual setting, not a time to get drunk, pry into others’ personal lives, tell dirty jokes or disparage co-workers.…
At the beginning of the new year, some workers are considering making a move to a new employer and as part of that consideration should assess their obligations to protect confidential information of their former employee including information they have obtained from their former employer’s computer network. A recent New Hampshire federal court case addresses a dispute between a worker…
Employees of private employers may legitimately lose their job for exercising what they believe is their free speech at the work place. This point was illustrated in the New Hampshire federal court decision of John R. Griffin, Jr. v. Margaret Garrison. In that case, Griffin filed a lawsuit against Garrison as a New Hampshire Department of Employment Security employee in…
A recent decision from the New Hampshire federal court dismissing a lawsuit brought by a professor against the University of New Hampshire illustrates that an employer’s public disparagement of an employee does not always give the employee the right to pursue a defamation claim against the employer. John Collins, a tenured professor at the University of New Hampshire, filed a…
New job assignments given to an employee often do not result in that employee having any rights to sue the employer. This point was illustrated in the New Hampshire Supreme Court decision of Mara Sabinson v. Trustees of Dartmouth College. In February 2008, I wrote about Mara Sabinson’s journey through the federal court system attempting to prove employment discrimination against…
For a worker to have a claim for employment discrimination, he must be able to show that his employer’s discrimination caused him to suffer a materially adverse action which must be more disruptive than mere inconveniences or an alteration in job responsibilities. This point was illustrated in the case of Angel David Morales-Vallellanes v. John E. Potter, United States Post…
For some jobs to be done correctly, they must be done on a full-time basis. For such jobs, a disabled worker is not entitled to an accommodation of working only part time. That point was illustrated in the case of Judith Tompson v. Department of Mental Health where the Massachusetts Appeals Court agreed with the trial court’s decision not to…