Employer Liability – The Devil is in the Details

As a California employer, it’s tough enough to manage running a business, dealing with employee issues, trying to comply with a myriad of HR laws on the books, navigating COVID-19 regulations, and just staying afloat. What is now facing employers, is a new level of employer liability spurred on by aggressive plaintiff attorneys taking advantage of the California justice system and seeking settlements and attorney fees for technical HR errors.

In California, employers are at a disadvantage because the laws favor the plaintiff in court. Quite simply put, if you lose your case, you pay the settlement and attorney’s fees. If you win your case, you still pay your own attorney’s fees and cannot request reimbursement from the plaintiff.

Plaintiff’s attorneys know this and are counting on a quick settlement anywhere from $25,000 – $75,000 because they know that will be less expensive for the employer than going to court. As an attorney friend said recently, “it’s only degrees of losing” when it comes to employers and labor-related lawsuits.

We are seeing this more often lately, as more external pressure falls on employees and employers, and California laws get more technical and more restrictive.

The Details

There are far too many compliance issues to address in this short blog, but we do want to list some areas that can really get your business in trouble if you are not careful:

Accommodation and the Interactive Process

Employees that are involved in personal or work-related health issues or injuries are likely to wind up with a physician-directed, temporary modified work duty or restrictions because of their compromised health. It’s critical that you work with the employee to determine whether you can accommodate their restrictions and that you document every step of the way.

Be sure to contact Infinium HR whenever an employee is out on work comp or disability.

Pregnancy Disability Leave (PDL)

Pregnancies can be a difficult time for the expecting mother, but also challenging for the employer to navigate the leave laws surrounding pregnancy leave. Some of these challenges occur while the pregnancy is still active, and employers must nuance the law, their business needs, and the expectant mom’s health needs. This can be tricky, and much care is necessary to prevent pitfalls and allow the expectant mom her due time off for physician’s appointments, days not feeling well and pregnancy complications.

New moms, in addition to the 12 weeks PDL want to extend their time off to bond with their baby, according to CA pregnancy leave laws. There are several laws that come into play here including PDL and CFRA, allowing the mom up to 7 months off, depending on your company size. Dads can get time off as well so be sure to check in with Infinium when you have a pregnancy at your workplace so we can guide you accordingly.

Discrimination and Retaliation

These two issues, backed up by harassment and discrimination laws, can be challenging for employers because many times the occurrences are not clearly identifiable, and employees can take advantage of a lack of documentation and seek an attorney to go after a settlement. In these cases, usually, other issues get thrown in, like meal and rest breaks violations, time worked off the clock, and others.

Be sure that when you have employees that may be having issues with other employees or management, the situation is properly investigated and dealt with to the full satisfaction of the employee. It often involves several meetings and a thorough review of the issues before a determination can be made and a resolution sought after. Again, seek advice from Infinium HR when issues arise.

Conclusion

Again, these are only a few issues that we’ve seen recently that drive employees to seek attorneys. Our goal at Infinium HR is to help you prevent small issues from becoming big issues with attorneys involved.

Don’t think an issue is too small to contact us, we’re here to help, and likely have the answers you need to rectify a situation before it goes to an attorney.