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Minnesota

Employment Lawyer Network:
Minnesota

Carl Crosby Lehmann (Editor)

Minnesota Employment Law

Carl.Lehmann@GPMLaw.com
(612) 632-3234

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Carl Crosby Lehmann, Esq., of Gray, Plant Mooty in Minneapolis, has significant experience in advising employers on personnel matters, drafting employment policies and agreements, and litigating employers' interests in both administrative and judicial proceedings. Carl's practice includes advising employers in personnel-related matters, including terminations, discrimination and sexual harassment issues, defamation claims, employment and independent contractor agreements, noncompete and confidentiality agreements, wage-hour concerns, voluntary and mandatory affirmative action policies, and insurance issues.

Audit discipline cases for hidden racial bias

07/15/2014
Supervisors sometimes enforce rules in a biased way or discipline members of a protected class more severely than others. But HR can stop this discrimination dead in its tracks with an internal informal audit. Regular monitoring (and fixing any problems you find) may be the best lawsuit-prevention tool around.

Employee’s out of FMLA: What options are left?

06/16/2014
Q. An employee has been out on leave and has now run out of FMLA leave. It’s unclear when she will return. Can we terminate her employment?

Is it possible to apply FMLA retroactively?

06/16/2014
Q. We have 75 employees at our one facility. An employee recently took two months off for a serious operation. We did not classify this as FMLA leave, but now we think we should have. What can we do?

Should we be paying for the trip from our home office to the work site?

06/16/2014
Q. One of our work crews needs to drive to a single work site during the day. One employee drives a truck and trailer with tools and equipment from our main facility. We would like to allow other employees to save gas by riding in the company’s truck. Do we need to pay employees for this commute time?

EEOC issues new employer guidance on religious dress and grooming

06/16/2014
As the workforce becomes more diverse, religious accommodation requests are becoming more common. In addressing such requests, employers should be mindful of the new in­­for­­mal guidance recently issued by the EEOC regarding religious accommodations involving dress or grooming.

Hibachi Buffet carves out settlement in wage suit

06/16/2014
A U.S. Department of Labor Wage and Hour Division investigation has found that the Hibachi Buffet restaurant in Minneapolis owes 18 employees a total of $117,000 in unpaid wages.

Unintentional misconduct doesn’t block unemployment

06/16/2014
Employees who are fired for misconduct aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits. But an unintentional mistake doesn’t block benefits.

‘Just cause’ clause may stop firing after ‘last chance’

06/16/2014
If your union contract has a “just cause” for termination clause, get the union’s sign-off on a covered employee’s last chance agreement.

Ensure past FMLA leave doesn’t affect decision to rehire rebound applicant

06/16/2014
Here’s a warning to pass on to everyone involved in the hiring process: If the most qualified applicant for an open position happens to be a former employee who used FMLA leave in the past, you can’t use that leave as an excuse not to rehire him. That’s retaliation under the FMLA.

Prepare to show you were fair if disabled workers take a hit during RIF

06/16/2014
Sometimes, poor appearances lead to lawsuits. That can certainly be the case when a reduction in force (RIF) seems to disproportionately affect a protected class of workers.