LEGAL NEWS California Court of Appeal Upholds Requirement of Fitness for Duty Exam
On September 2, 2014, a California appellate court upheld an order requiring a college math professor to undergo a ―fitness for duty examination‖ (―FFD‖) based on behavior that his colleagues considered erratic and threatening in nature. The court also rebuffed the efforts of the professor‘s attorneys to interject themselves into the workplace dispute by placing conditions on the FFD. The court accordingly upheld a jury verdict against the professor on his
claim that the University violated the state Fair Employment and Housing Act by requiring him to submit to the examination. (Kao v. The University of San Francisco, 1st DCA Case No A135750.)
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Getting Fired For Bringing A Gun To Work Probably Isn't Discrimination A New Hampshire federal court ruled against an employee who claimed that his firing was discrimination despite admitting that he had bought a gun to work. The employee argued that the company had failed to take similar action against two other employees who brought weapons to work.
Not a bad argument, given the circumstances. But, the employee could not establish that these two comparator individuals were similarly situated to him, thus enabling a reasonable person to conclude that his firing took place under circumstances that would give rise to an inference of discrimination.
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Illinois Employer May Be Liable for Failing to Investigate Employee's Murderous Email Threats Can an employer be liable for wrongful death by failing to investigate an employee's email threats to murder his family? The Illinois Appellate Court recently ruled that the answer may be "yes" based on the employer's allegedly failing to follow its electronic communications policy and investigate the employee's murderous threats generated on the employer's computer system.
In Regions Bank v. Joyce Meyer Ministries, Inc., 2014 IL App (5th) 130193, the Court found that given such allegations, a wrongful death complaint against the employer should have survived a motion to dismiss and proceeded to discovery. The Court commented: "Accepting the allegations as true, it may be reasonable to infer that [employer] JMM increased the risk of harm to the decedents by failing to conduct an adequate investigation of its own communications systems and equipment, essentially electing to remain ignorant of facts concerning the source of the threats, when a reasonable person may have conducted an internal investigation of its systems and equipment." Id. at ¶21.
Read more DECISIONPOINT THE SITUATION (continued from page 1)
Bovis instructed Eddington that every worker needed to have an identification card and provided instruction regarding how those cards were to be generated. On November 14, 2007, Troup was working at the site creating identification cards. At some point, one of the individuals, identified for whom an identification card needed to be created, Michael Zerbo (Zerbo), became verbally abusive
toward plaintiff, stating, "F—Bovis. They can't stop me from making my money. There's nobody that's going to kick me off this site. I don't even need to take this ID. I don't want to take this ID."
Troup asked Zerbo to leave, but Zerbo refused. He then closed in on plaintiff and shoved him. Plaintiff testified that at this point, he reached, in vain, for his radio. A physical altercation ensued, resulting in plaintiff's falling to the ground, where plaintiff sustained a fracture of the leg which required surgery.
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