Tag Archives: FMLA

Employees and Covid-19

Ten Ways to Get Sued by Employees During a Pandemic

Even though the idea has been in the news recently, at the current time there is no absolute liability immunity for Texas employers from COVID-19-related claims made by employees who are exposed to the virus in your workplace or otherwise harmed during the pandemic. You can be sued for many different legal failures as an employer during this crisis, so you should know what the law expects of you right now.

The law firm of Fisher Phillips is maintaining a fascinating database of COVID-19-related cases filed so far in 2020. Their database shows that 38 COVID lawsuits have been filed in Texas for claims such as unsafe workplaces, discrimination, paid leave violations, retaliation and even wrongful death. I have no doubt those claims will continue to increase as employers struggle with all of the safety guidance and other rules burying them during this crisis.

I’ve narrowed the possibilities of a Texas employer getting sued during this global pandemic down to these ten mistakes:

Continue reading Ten Ways to Get Sued by Employees During a Pandemic

COVID-19 Paid Leave Laws Affect Small Employers

Congress has passed and President Trump has signed a new law that requires small employers to provide paid leave to employees for two weeks of sick leave and as many as 10 weeks of leave to take care of kids whose schools have closed.

This Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”) goes into effect on April 1, 2020. It requires all employers with less than 500 employees, including very small employers and nonprofits, to pay employees whose absences are caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. The DOL has created a fact sheet and an FAQ to help employers understand these laws better.

Here are a few highlights of the FFCRA law:

Paid sick leave for two weeks is available to all full-time, part-time, temporary, seasonal, and other kind of employee if the employee has to miss work for one of the following reasons:

  1. Employee is subject to government quarantine; or
  2. Employee has been advised by healthcare provider to self-quarantine; or
  3. Employee is experiencing symptoms and seeking a diagnosis; or
  4. Employee is caring for an individual subject to quarantine or self-quarantine as advised by healthcare provider; or
  5. Employee is caring for children under 18 because schools or “caregivers” are unavailable; or
  6. Employee is experiencing any other condition that is substantially similar to COVID-19, as specified in HHS regulations to come.

Paid Family and Medical Leave is available for up to 10 more weeks (after using up 2 weeks of unpaid time or 2 weeks of Emergency Paid Sick Leave as spelled out above) to all full-time, part-time, temporary, seasonal or other kind of employee if the employee has worked for the employer for at least 30 days and then has to miss work for this one reason:

  • The employee is unavailable to work or telework because the employee is caring for a child under the age of 18 because that child’s school or childcare facility is closed because of the coronavirus.

The paid sick leave has to be paid at the employees’ regular hourly rate (including commissions, tips and piece rates, but not overtime rates) if the employee is absent for reasons #1-3, above. The paid sick leave and the paid family and medical leave have to be paid at 2/3 of the employee’s regular hourly rate if the employee is absent for reasons #4-6, above. There are also daily and total caps on the amounts you have to pay the employees for these absences.

Employers with less than 50 employees are subject to these FFCRA paid leave laws, even though you have never before been required to comply with Family and Medical Leave Act or any paid leave law. There is a provision that the Secretary of Labor can exempt a business when giving the leave would “jeopardize the vitality of the business.” In other words, if granting this paid leave could make your company go out of business, and you can prove that in your financials, you might not have to provide this paid leave. You don’t have to get the Secretary of Labor’s permission for this exemption by filing anything, but you will have to be able to document the correctness of your decision after the fact.

This law is not retroactive, meaning you don’t have to pay for leave taken before April 1, 2020, if it wasn’t your company policy to pay employee absences.

However, you also can’t make employees apply your paid time off policy before using this emergency paid sick leave or family leave. It is the employee’s choice alone on how to coordinate their PTO and these paid leave laws.

The good news for employers is that the employer gets a tax credit on payroll taxes for 100% of these amounts paid to employees for emergency sick leave and paid Family and Medical Leave. On the next Form 941 that will be due by July 31, 2020, the IRS will add a line for the employer to take the tax credit. If the amount you paid out to your employees for these paid leave laws exceeds the payroll taxes that you owe, then you are supposed to be able to get a refund from the IRS within 2 weeks after filing your Form 941.

We are still waiting for the Secretary of Labor to provide more guidance through regulations. He should also be providing us with notices, posters and other explanations to give to your employees.

There are also other employment laws that a company has to consider in this crisis, which are summarized here.

HR Director Can Be Individually Liable for FMLA Violation

Most human resources professionals and managers think that working for a corporation gives them some protection from being sued themselves by former employees, but a federal appeals court recently held that an HR director can be individually liable for violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”). The federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals made this decision in Graziadio v. Culinary Institute of America, No. 15-888-CV (2d Cir., Mar. 17, 2016).

The Second Circuit decided that the HR director who instigated the firing of an employee who was out on leave to care for her ailing sons could be sued in addition to the company who formerly employed the plaintiff. The FMLA provides that for purposes of being a defendant in a lawsuit, an “employer” includes “any person” who “acts, directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer” toward an employee. Therefore, a manager, supervisor, vice-president, HR director, leave administrator and other decision-making employees could be sued along with their company if the FMLA isn’t administered correctly.

The courts look at the “economic realities” of the situation, including whether the HR director had the power to hire and fire employees; supervise and control employee work schedules or conditions of employment; determine the rate and method of payment; and maintain employment records. Although a vice-president actually made the final firing decision in the Graziadio case, the evidence suggested that the HR director played an important role and the vice-president essentially just rubber-stamped the HR director’s recommendation of terminating the employee who was on leave.

These kinds of decisions are frightening to management employees who have to make hiring and firing decisions and those who have to administer the complex FMLA. However, this ruling should not come as a complete surprise to those of us who live and work in Texas, because the Fifth Circuit, which rules on federal cases in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, made a similar ruling ten years ago.

In addition, our Fifth Circuit court approaches the Fair Labor Standards Act (wage and hour) cases in the same manner. If the economic realities demonstrate that a supervisor was responsible for the misclassification of an employee as an independent contractor (meaning that the proper taxes weren’t paid, among other violations of employment laws) or the underpayment of minimum wages or overtime, then that supervisor may face a personal lawsuit by a former employee, along with the company being sued.

How can you as a manager or HR director protect yourself from a lawsuit that could endanger your personal assets? Continue reading HR Director Can Be Individually Liable for FMLA Violation

Workplace Posters For Free Online

There are companies that want to sell you expensive workplace posters that you don’t need to purchase because they are available for free online. Many employers are afraid that they don’t know which employment notices must be visible in the workplace, so they fall for the marketing pitch to pay for these expensive commercial posters.

As a Texas employer, have you received advertising in the mail similar to the notice pictured here? Such notices appear official, and can feel almost threatening, with warnings of penalties and fines associated with an employer failing to post current state and federal employment posters in the workplace.

Employment Poster Solicitation

It is not necessary for a Texas employer to pay $84 for the poster offered here. While it is true that posting certain notices and information is legally required, employers need not pay any company for this information. Free copies of the required posters can be found from the websites of each of the federal or Texas agencies that require them. The Texas Workforce Commission has graciously gathered a list of these posters into one place for you here.

Not only are you out the money if you buy one of these expensive posters, but these for-profit posters could actually hurt you if they promise rights to your employees that the law does not give them (such as promising Family and Medical Leave rights if the company has less than 50 employees and isn’t required to provide Family and Medical Leave). You don’t want to obligate yourself to things the law doesn’t require you to provide. The poster “invoice” pictured here didn’t ask the size of the employer’s workforce and apparently was not tailored to the laws to which a particular employer was subject.

As of August 2015, the posters that you as a Texas employer must have on your bulletin board, depending on the size of your workforce, are as follows: Continue reading Workplace Posters For Free Online

Accommodating Pregnant Employees

Employers often face the question of how to reasonably accommodate pregnant employees. Many of my male (and some of my female) clients panic when they discover that one of their employees is pregnant. They fear that the pregnant employee won’t be able to do the work, that the employee will have some kind of workplace injury or that the employee won’t return to work after maternity leave.

Most employers walk on eggshells around their pregnant employees, even afraid to ask when the baby is due so that the employer can plan for work to get done while the employee is out on maternity leave. Overall, employers are just scared that they will inadvertently do something that will get them sued for pregnancy discrimination.

Their fear is not unfounded. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the courts are taking a careful look at pregnancy discrimination. They want employers to reasonably accommodate the pregnant employee just as you would a disabled employee. You would do this anyway if the expectant mother had any pregnancy complications, such as gestational diabetes.

The only change is that now you would be wise to accommodate an employee who is having a normal, healthy pregnancy, if the employee asks for a reasonable accommodation.

A recent U.S. Supreme Court case held that a plaintiff can establish an initial case of pregnancy discrimination by showing that she is pregnant, that she sought some sort of reasonable accommodation for her condition, that the employer did not accommodate her, and that the employer did accommodate others “similar in their ability or inability to work.”

In other words, if you let other employees work light duty jobs from time to time, you need to allow your pregnant employee the same privilege. If you would allow an employee who has severe back problems to skip the duty of lifting heavy boxes, do the same for a pregnant employee is she asks for that accommodation. If standing at a cash register all day is hard on an expectant mother, offer a stool for her to sit on, just as you would an elderly employee.

Don’t be patronizing and assume that a pregnant employee can’t work or needs an accommodation. Allow her the dignity of working without help if she chooses. But if an accommodation is requested, you should engage the employee in a discussion (“the interactive process”) to determine what help she needs. You can decide together if her request is reasonable or if there are other equally effective options. Work willingly with your employee to help her out for a few months and she will most likely be glad to return after her maternity leave to be a very productive employee.

Here are a few other quick tips for dealing with pregnant employees: Continue reading Accommodating Pregnant Employees

Employers Required to Post New FMLA Information

If you employ 50 or more employees (counted by names on a payroll, whether full-time, part-time, owner, etc.), your business is subject to the requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act, which generally gives employees up to 12 weeks (26 weeks for military family leave) of unpaid leave for pregnancy, the birth or adoption of a child, a serious health condition of the employee or a family member or for leave associated with the call to active duty or the injury of a member of the military. If your business is subject to the FMLA, you must place a poster on your workplace bulletin boards about your employees’ rights under FMLA. A few weeks ago, the Department of Labor changed a little of the language of that poster with regards to military families and airline flight crews. Even if these changes don’t specifically apply to your workplace, if you employ 50 or more employees, you must post the new FMLA poster in your workplace by March 8, 2013. You can find the new poster and print out a free copy of it at: https://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/posters/fmlaen.pdf.