The 4th Circuit just made it easier for employees to sue for having to work in a hostile environment. The court said that unpleasant and offensive conduct aimed as one’s sex or race does not have to happen in the presence of the employee who winds up complaining. Conduct witnessed by other employees can be used as evidence ...

Offensive postings on the social networking web site Facebook led the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools (CMS) to fire one employee and discipline seven others.

Q. We do not believe that one of our employees is keeping accurate time records of her work. Can we pay her what we believe she worked instead of what her time records show?

California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act protects employees from sexual harassment by co-workers. But what happens if management stops the harassment but the co-workers find other ways to make life miserable for their victims? It’s HR’s responsibility to make sure a victim of sexual harassment isn’t targeted for other mistreatment ...

Employees who are fired after breaking work rules often allege that they were targeted because of some protected characteristic like gender, age, race or ethnicity. The best way to counter such claims is to know beforehand whether your organization is being tougher on some employees who belong to a protected class while letting others slide.

New England College has filed suit against poetry professor Anne Marie Macari, alleging she stole its innovative master’s degree program in poetry and set up shop at Drew University in Madison.

Former state Sen. Wayne Bryant, once one of New Jersey’s most powerful politicians, was convicted of bribery and pension fraud for taking state jobs for which he did no work and steering state business to cronies in return.

Q. Our company recently discovered some theft in our operation. We called an employee in for an investigative interview. He claimed to have consulted with an attorney and refused to answer our questions on the grounds that he could not be forced to incriminate himself under the Fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. What are our choices?

Ramsey County prosecutors declined to file felony theft charges against Sonia Pitt, former director of homeland security and emergency management at the Minnesota Department of Transportation, finding her conduct in the wake of the deadly I-35W bridge collapse objectionable, but not criminal.

How Michigan’s new Medical Marijuana Act will affect employers has been hotly debated. Proposal 1, approved by voters in the November 2008 election, removed state-level penalties for registered patients who use or possess marijuana.

You probably rely on your supervisors and managers to give you all the relevant information before you make a disciplinary decision. But what if they don’t? If you don’t ask the right questions, you may inadvertently approve what ends up being a discriminatory action.

Here’s another good reason to insist that HR handle all terminations: It’s much harder for employees to sue the company for its supervisors’ alleged harassment or discrimination if the HR office has primary responsibility for discharge decisions. Here’s why ...

Employers can’t punish or otherwise hold it against employees for taking FMLA leave—that’s interfering with FMLA rights, and it’s illegal. That’s why it’s important to exclude FMLA leave when making any disciplinary decisions based on employee absences.

The HR office is often the first stop an employee makes before filing a lawsuit alleging supervisor harassment. How you handle the initial complaint can mean the difference between stopping a problem before it gets out of hand and losing a lawsuit.

Brenda Monk, a former learning specialist for Florida State University (FSU), has announced plans to file a $600,000 lawsuit for defamation following allegations that she provided test answers to FSU football players and other athletes she was tutoring.