by Charles Horowitz | Dec 6, 2017 | Employment Law, Miscellaneous
Whatever the wording of your employer’s computer, e-mail and internet usage policy, chances are you use your work-issued computer for at least some personal, non-work-related communication. This practice raises potentially serious privacy concerns. Employer...
by Charles Horowitz | Nov 29, 2017 | Civil Rights & Tort Law, Contracts, Leases, & Disputes, Miscellaneous
Few would dispute that we live in politically and socially acrimonious times. Online social media broaden the reach of ever more vile rhetoric aimed at individuals, ethnic groups, products and businesses. Although some forms of hate speech are constitutionally...
by Charles Horowitz | Oct 25, 2017 | Contracts, Leases, & Disputes, Employment Law
Minnesota law goes beyond federal law in protecting parents-to-be against unfair treatment in the workplace. The 2014 Women’s Economic Security Act (WESA) allows Minnesota employees up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave from work in order to have or adopt a child,...
by Charles Horowitz | Sep 25, 2017 | Employment Law, Insurance Claims
The federal Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, popularly known as COBRA, allows employees separated from employment as a result of a “qualifying event” (quit, lay-off, or termination, unless resulting from “gross misconduct”) to...
by Charles Horowitz | Sep 20, 2017 | Employment Law
Minnesota law imposes on all Minnesota employers with 20 or more employees very specific requirements concerning employee personnel files, referred to in the statutes as “personnel records.” The degree of regulation is interesting, considering that their...
by Charles Horowitz | Jul 18, 2017 | Miscellaneous
The Minnesota Court of Appeals recently issued a remarkable decision clarifying the rights of parties seeking to enforce non-competition agreements under Minnesota law. Long story short, contractual language dictating the right to injunctive relief will be enforced...
by Charles Horowitz | Apr 19, 2017 | Civil Rights & Tort Law, Consumer Law
Minnesota was one of the last states to recognize a legal claim of invasion of privacy in the landmark opinion of Lake v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 582 N.W.2d 231 (Minn. 1998). The case involved employees in a discount store’s photo lab who circulated within the...
by Charles Horowitz | Apr 19, 2017 | Contracts, Leases, & Disputes, Employment Law
Non-competes are a special kind of contract, whose language must be interpreted under the law of contracts and not on the basis of a standard borrowed from some other area of the law. That is the learning of the April 3, 2017 decision Valspar v. Mueller, A16-1113...
by Charles Horowitz | Mar 28, 2017 | Employment Law, Miscellaneous
Some employees, including fire fighters and medical care providers, are required as a condition of their employment to be on call during off hours, available to work on short notice. Sometimes they are paid a token wage, other times nothing at all. Whether the time...
by Charles Horowitz | Feb 15, 2017 | Employment Law
I’m pleased to report that on December 6, 2016, Judge Kevin Siefken of the Mower County District Court signed an order dismissing all claims against my client in a lawsuit entitled Brinkman Claim Service LLC v. Jeremy Korn and Pharmacists Mutual Insurance...
