A fiduciary duty is the highest level of duty the law recognizes. It requires the fiduciary to place the interests of the beneficiary ahead of the fiduciary’s. In other words, whatever the transaction the fiduciary is engaging in, it has to be solely for the benefit of the beneficiary or the client.
Continue reading ›Typically, neither the employee nor the employer has to give a notice of termination. There can be exceptions to that. The most common exception, if there’s a written contract, one party has agreed to give a certain amount of written notice to the other party. If that happens, then the contract will trigger certain events…
Continue reading ›If a person is laid off and a younger person is kept, that’s not necessarily discrimination. It’s possible but not necessarily. There could be valid business reasons that the employer would have to retain a more junior employee, because, for example, their pay was substantially less than the person who’s laid off, or their work…
Continue reading ›Sometimes employees will lose their job if they blew the whistle. Sometimes the employees have not legitimately blown the whistle, but they’re simply trying to protect themselves from their own actions of the business and they’re trying to come with something to get back at the employer. Other times employees are legitimately objecting to activities…
Continue reading ›Some employers might wish to know whether a job applicant or current employee previously filed worker’s compensation claims. At first glance, such information might seem relevant and even useful to employers. For example, an employer in an accident-prone industry might want to know if the job applicant has a history of repeatedly filing worker’s compensation…
Continue reading ›Under Florida law, employers could face civil liability for the harm an employee causes to a third party. For that reasons, employers might wish to conduct a thorough investigation of a job applicant’s or current employee’s criminal record. According to federal guidelines, however, federal law could impose liability on employers who base their employment decisions…
Continue reading ›Background checks can be a valuable tool for employers. A thorough background check can shield an employer from future liability. However, both federal and state law place limits on what the employer can lawfully do regarding background checks. One such federal law is the Fair Credit Reporting Act (“FCRA”). An employer who wishes to know…
Continue reading ›Under Florida law, a corporation that acquires the assets of another corporation generally does not assume the liabilities of the predecessor corporation. The successor corporation will acquire its predecessor’s liabilities only to the extent it agreed to acquire those liabilities in the asset purchase agreement. Many states have similar laws regarding a successor corporation’s liability.…
Continue reading ›On April 17, 2014, the Florida Supreme Court resolved a conflict in Florida law: whether discrimination based on pregnancy constitutes “sex” discrimination in violation of the Florida Civil Rights Act of 1992 (“FCRA”). The Court held that because pregnancy is a “natural condition unique to women and a ‘primary characteristic of the female sex,’” discrimination…
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