At the LLSSA State Meeting in Baton Rouge, Jennifer Anderson of Baker Donelson spoke about litigation catastrophes. the 10 catastrophes below are specific to employee litigation, but the same "cures" could be used in an situation. the focus of the session was to be sure that what you are doing is legal by simply having an attorney take a look at your documentation and processes. Laws change and unfortunately ignorance of the law does not protect you, so have an attorney that will.
1. One Size Fits All Contracts - Don't copy your contract off google or "borrow" it from another company, and certainly don't piece together several contracts. There are many laws that dictate what you can and cannot include and your attorney will know what needs to be included to protect you.
2. Letting Exceptions Rule - Once a precedent is set it becomes the exception to the rule. What does that mean. If you have an employee that is late because they are taking a child to school, or just has no sense of time. You can't enforce a rule that punished tardiness on anyone else because you have already set a precedent for them to use in court.
3. Rushing to Judgement - Suppose a Supervisor comes to you and tells you an employee is not doing a good job and is creating a problem in the department. Most of us would trust that supervisors judgement and allow him to let the employee go. Then the company gets charged with a racist charged firing. As the owner you are responsible - did you speak with the employee? Make sure you have all the facts and that those facts are documented before rushing to a judgment.
4. Cats Paw - this is simple one person fooling another to do their dirty work or doing it disguised as something else. Remember get the details yourself and always get both sides of the story. Don't allow yourself to be misguided.
5. Going it Alone - should you face a court case - never go it alone. Have your attorney, HR department and documentation in place to support your side of the story.
6. Documentation Problems - we know it's a pain to keep up documentation, but we also know it is your best defense in court. If it's not in writing you can't prove it happened. Make sure those documents are dated, signed and filed properly.
7. Not Minding Your ESI - Never Text, say, email or write anything on anything that you would not feel comfortable seeing on the 6pm news. Everything is traceable and findable these days. This rule should apply to your employees as well.
8. Underthinking the Reason - Jennifer kept saying if you can substitute and illegal reason for the reason given - then your reason is not specific enough. An employee was let go for poor work performance, however that employee believes he was let go because the supervisor didn't like him. During the case the supervisor is unable to provide any proof of poor work reviews. Even if it's true the employee did poor work, if there is no documentation then it's also true he supervisor fired him unfairly for not liking him.
9. Poor Timing - don't wait to document, Because documentation after the fact is illegal no matter how true it might be.
10. Purging Instead of Preserving - You've let the employee go so time to dump the data on that employee - WRONG. when you let an employee go that is the time to take all the data and put it together incase something should arise in the future.
These are just my notes from this session. If you want to know more about how to protect yourself from litigation reach out to your attorney. If you don't have an attorney we have included Jennifer Anderson's link below if you would like to reach out to her.
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