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Texas

Is nicotine addiction a disability?

11/12/2015
Q. An employee says she must be allowed to take smoke breaks. She claims she is so addicted to nicotine that she has a disability, and that therefore I must accommodate her requirements. If I don’t allow her to take smoke breaks, can she sue me?

5 years in, what’s ahead for Affordable Care Act compliance?

11/12/2015
Phased implementation of the ACA has kept employers busy over the past few years. Here’s your cheat sheet and some tips for what’s ahead.

Austin software firm sued for pregnancy discrimination

11/12/2015
Austin, Tx.-based e-MDs, which develops software for managing medical practices, faces charges it terminated an employee because she took maternity leave.

The gift of time: Is unlimited vacation leave right for your company?

11/12/2015
In the all-out battle to recruit and retain the best qualified, most highly motivated and loyal workforce, more organizations are experimenting with taking a radically flexible approach to monitoring employees’ vacation and personal leave—or even abandoning such tracking entirely.

Internal complaint doesn’t equal whistle-blowing

11/12/2015

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled that simply complaining to one’s boss  about allegedly illegal activity is not whistle-blowing protected by the Texas Whistleblower Act. Employees must inform law enforcement.

Agencies: Tell staff they’ll get comp time instead of OT

11/12/2015
The Fair Labor Standards Act allows government agencies to offer comp time in lieu of overtime when employees work more than 40 per week. As long as you clearly let employees know that’s how you will treat OT, they can’t complain later.

Same person sends hundreds of applications? Don’t fall into discrimination lawsuit trap

11/12/2015

Sometimes an eager candidate will apply for several jobs with the same employer. If you are sure he or she isn’t qualified, you don’t have to agree to an interview for each open position. Be aware that if you do interview him for one of the positions and choose someone else outside his protected class, he may sue and argue he was much better qualified than whoever you did choose.

Think twice before suddenly withdrawing ADA accommodation that’s been working

11/12/2015
Once you have an accommodation in place for a disabled employee, don’t suddenly take it away. If the accommodation has been working, that may spur an ADA lawsuit.

Court stops funds diversion in largest EEOC verdict

11/12/2015
The battle to collect the largest EEOC verdict on record continues. A U.S. district judge has overridden a confidential settlement involving a Texas land deal that would have re-directed over half a million dollars away from a class of 32 intellectually disabled former employees of Hill Country Farms.

Home health care firm said to fire worker for being pregnant

11/12/2015
The EEOC claims Your Health Team illegally fired a home health care aide simply because she was pregnant.