Q. Our company has an employee handbook. One of our employees has stated that this creates an employment contract and that he is no longer an at-will employee. Is this correct?

Q. If our employee has an accident while talking on a cell phone in a company car, is the company liable to the injured party?

Q. Our company’s attendance policy calls for issuing a warning when an employee has three absences. Five absences result in a suspension, and seven absences result in termination. Can we continue this policy?

The Atlantic City Council recently repealed a temporary ban on smoking in the city’s casinos, citing an ailing economy. Not all casino workers are in favor of the change ...

Hand-held devices, such as BlackBerrys, Trios, iPhones, etc., make it easy for workers to check e-mail and do work at any time of day. And your nonexempt, hourly workers may demand to be paid for that screen-time. So, when must your organization pay nonexempt employees for such off-the-clock work? There’s no clear-cut answer.

Philadelphia-based CIGNA has instituted a complete smoking ban at all of its 179 properties, effective April 1.

Employers may generally impose rules requiring employees to adhere to reasonable workplace appearance, grooming and dress standards. But as straightforward as the issue seems to be, grooming standards can create problems for employers.

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.

Under the Illinois Wage Payment and Collection Act, employees can sue their employers if they believe they are owed money, including promised commissions and the like. The law doesn’t require that the money owed be promised in a binding, written contract.

It goes without saying that you should enforce your rules fairly. That’s why you must track every disciplinary action and make a clear record of why each employee earned his discipline. Later, when one of those employees claims the real reason he was fired was due to age, sex or some other protected classification, you can show that wasn’t the case.

The best way to prevent a lawsuit is to promptly respond to every harassment complaint you receive from employees. Conduct a thorough investigation, reach a conclusion and document that you followed up and found no further problems. Be especially sure to show how you counseled or disciplined the harasser...

Employees who take certain prescription drugs for legitimate medical conditions may be unable to work safely if their jobs involve heavy machinery, split-second judgment or the ability to remain alert. If that’s the case, it’s not disability discrimination to ban employees from working while on those medications.

Oral agreements concerning compensation and bonus payments can be enforced in court, and that can lead to tricky “who said what” legal problems. Those are problems you can easily prevent with the help of good legal counsel.

Q. Flu season is coming and we are concerned. If employees have the flu or show flu symptoms, can we require them to stay home long enough to make sure they are no longer contagious? Would we have to pay them for time away?

Offering an extra three to 30 days of paid leave to employees who donate bone marrow or organs could improve your organization’s reputation as a company that cares about its community. Less than half of 1% of those who register as potential donors will ever be called to give, so the benefit will cost your organization very little.