I was disappointed earlier this week to see a consultant quoted in an otherwise good article in the Wall Street Journal -- "Employee Theft Often Leads Small Firms to Make Bad Choices" -- as advising the "bogus RIF" strategy with employees who are suspected of theft.

Talk about bad choices!

What's the "bogus RIF" strategy? That's when you're really firing an employee but don't want to ...

As expected, Law360 reports this morning that Plaintiff Alexandra Marchuk has asked Judge Alvin Hellerstein to reconsider his ruling that Nadeem Faruqi and Lubna Faruqi, co-founders of the New York law firm Faruqi & Faruqi, be dismissed from her lawsuit as individual defendants. She also requested reconsideration of the court's decision granting judgment to the defendants on her ...

The defense completed its case yesterday at the trial of Alexandra Marchuk's sexual harassment claims against the New York City law firm of Faruqi & Faruqi and partner Juan Monteverde. Prior coverage of the trial is available here, here, here, and here.

Yesterday, Mr. Monteverde testified more about the blood-stained carpet, saying he had not noticed the stains until Ms. Marchuk told ...

January 27 at the Marchuk v. Faruqi sexual harassment trial: Judge Alvin Hellerstein has denied Alexandra Marchuk's request for an adverse inference instruction based on Faruqi's destruction of the alleged blood-stained carpet in Juan Monteverde's office. Judge Hellerstein noted that Ms. Marchuk admitted in her trial testimony that she asked Mr. Monteverde to hide the stains ...

NOTE: Thanks to an attorney reader, who suggested last week that I put my Faruqi trial updates in separate posts to make it easier for people to find them on Google and other search engines. I thought that was a good idea, so I'll do that with my remaining posts. (Testimony is supposed to wrap up this week, and possibly today.) Prior coverage is available here and here.

PARENTAL ADVISORY: This ...

Last October, I posted about a consent decree entered into between Wal-Mart and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, in which Wal-Mart agreed to pay $72,500 to candidate for a store job in Maryland whose offer was withdrawn because she couldn’t undergo a urine test for drugs.

The candidate had end-stage renal disease.

Now, Kmart has been hit, too, in a case involving almost ...

As an employer, what can you do to protect yourself when one employee claims severe sexual harassment and the other party denies it or claims it was all consensual?

The Marchuk v. Faruqi & Faruqi trial (daily updates here) is far from over, but that case, as well as one involving CRST Van Expedited in California, provide some valuable opportunities for us to learn from other employers ...

"I Have a Dream," in its entirety. This is about 17 minutes long, but it's well worth the time if you haven't heard it in a while, or if you have never heard it as it was actually delivered in 1963.

http://youtu.be/1UV1fs8lAbg

Thank you, Dr. King. May you rest in peace.

The Supreme Court decided today to review the right of states to ban same-sex marriage. The Court granted certiorari in four cases, all from the Sixth Circuit (Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee), whose U.S. Court of Appeals had upheld state bans. Here are the issues on which the Court will hear argument:

1) Does the Fourteenth Amendment require a state to license a marriage between ...

Guess what? You know those SEC disclosures about pending litigation that publicly held companies are required by law to make? Well, if an employer says too much, it may be "retaliating" against the litigants.

I am not making this up. International Monetary Systems, Ltd., is facing a jury trial on a retaliation claim made by a former employee. The company is going to trial because it listed ...

SCOTUSblog has the transcript of yesterday's oral argument in Mach Mining v. EEOC.

NOTE TO READERS: I am updating this post daily with the previous day's trial testimony. As of January 21, I have also decided to reorganize the post to include the most recent testimony before the jump. Prior days' testimony will be below the jump, as well as my "two cents," which I posted last week as the trial began.

I hope that everyone is following the Marchuk v. Faruqi & Faruqi sexual ...

Do nice guys really finish first?

Yesterday morning, I tweeted a thought-provoking article by Travis Bradberry in Forbes on "Why Your Boss Lacks Emotional Intelligence." According to the article (and no big surprise), a study found that people in higher management and executive level positions have less emotional intelligence than lower-level managers because in those ...

By David Phippen of our Metro D.C. Office.

While the year is still young, here are 15 New Year's resolutions that employers may want to make: