When an Employee Sues, This Is How You Lose

Once you start hiring people, you run the risk of being sued by one of those employees. (And, no, you can’t avoid this by having only contractors–contractors have to meet very specific conditions. Trying to skirt these rules can also land you in court.) If you want to win these lawsuits, don’t do what Employment Attorney David Miklas’ client did: have no paperwork. He writes on LinkedIn:

 I am handling a case where I requested the employee’s file and I only get three things:
1) picture of the front of the employee’s driver’s license;
2) picture of the back of the employee’s driver’s license; and
3) picture of the employee’s W-4

That’s it.

I assume that I must have not been clear. So… I ask the client to give me EVERYTHING they have for this employee.

“I just did.”

[Insert blank stare here]

To keep reading, click here: When an Employee Sues, This Is How You Lose

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3 thoughts on “When an Employee Sues, This Is How You Lose

  1. The argument just proves that having employees is more than hire, work, fire. There’s a lot of communication between both the supervisor and the employees and documentation has to occur for any important conversation-such as presentation of training and completion of training—discussion on work performance issues no matter how minor—document everything—very important in right to work situations to avoid the situation of not having a specific reason for removal of a specific employee who doesn’t fit the job requirements.

  2. Hahaha, wow. I bet that lawyer did a headdesk, lol.

    I think you could just fire someone without any prior warnings if they did something really egregious, but you’d still have to document it somehow. Like if they started a fire or punched the boss or something. E.g., “January 12, 20xx, Bob came in early at 7:03 am and observed line manager Cyrus and Sally, the head of HR, in flagrante delicto on her desk.”
    And Bob’s report and the subsequent firing of Cyrus and Sally would be noted.

  3. And No Paperwork Employer is going to spend the rest of their professional career complaining that employees are just “a lawsuit waiting to happen.”

    Any time I’ve run into someone scared of lawsuits, they usually had a good reason to be (as in they were doing things that warranted a lawsuit).

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