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North Carolina

Choose: Create light-duty job or keep paying workers’ comp

11/30/2012
The job market is tough for poorly educated, untrained injured workers. However, unless you want to continue carrying such workers on your workers’ compensation policy rolls, it might be smart to do all you can to find light-duty jobs for them.

If employee loses workers’ comp appeal, don’t be shy about asking him to pay legal fees

11/30/2012

Congratulations! You just won a workers’ compensation case because you had strong evidence that the employee’s injury wasn’t caused by anything that happened at work. Now get ready for round No. 2. If the employee appeals, be sure to ask for attorneys’ fees.

Exempt or nonexempt? Forget 50% rule for store managers who must multitask

11/30/2012
Good news for employers that list store managers as exempt even though they spend 50% or more of their time engaging in mundane tasks like stocking, running registers and assisting customers. Managers may be multitasking but that doesn’t mean they’re nonexempt.

Erratic employee veering toward violence? Request fitness-for-duty exam, fire if he refuses

11/30/2012

Sometimes, it becomes clear to a supervisor that an employee is acting strangely. The employee may be cranky, argumentative and unpleasant to co-workers and supervisors. He may register repeated complaints about discrimination or other ill treatment. And he may make threatening comments. If that happens, play it smart.

EEOC bias complaints near record high in 2012

11/30/2012
U.S. employees filed 99,412 charges of job discrimination with the EEOC in fiscal year 2012, which ended Sept. 30. That’s just 535 fewer than were filed in 2011, when the commission handled the most bias complaints in its 47-year history.

Employee is own lawyer? NC law on your side

11/30/2012
North Carolina’s employment and discrimination laws would appear to give em­­ployees many ways to sue their employers. Fortunately, each has specific requirements, which means employees who act as their own lawyers will have a hard time using them to sue you.

Track all ADA accommodation requests, responses

11/30/2012
If an employee sues over reasonable ADA accommodations, her attorney will probably ask how many recent accommodation requests you have received and whether you granted them. If you have this information on hand, it will be easier to defend the lawsuit.

Nash Finch settles sex discrimination complaint

11/01/2012
Food wholesaler Nash Finch has settled complaints it discriminated against women at its Lumberton facility. Based in Minnesota, Nash Finch is the nation’s second largest food wholesaler and has received $14 million in federal contract payments since 2005.

Wilmington medical center settles ADA dispute for $146K

11/01/2012
The New Hanover Regional Medi­­cal Center in Wilmington will pay $146,000 to a class of applicants and employees because the hospital erroneously regarded them as disabled.

Court makes quick work of serial applicant’s lawsuit

11/01/2012
Have you ever faced an applicant who applies for every open position just because it’s easy to do—and then complains that she wasn’t chosen for any of them? A federal court made quick work of dismissing a lawsuit from one such applicant when it was clear she was overreaching.