Typically a similarly situated employee is someone who is virtually the same in terms of position held, job duties, job responsibilities and compensation. They have to be almost identical in all respects as to what the employee’s position is so they can both be set side by side and then ask how is this similarly situated person being treated versus you and is there any real discrimination here?
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 of the employer that were unlawful. In that situation if the employee’s fired the employer could be liable for substantial damages to the employee, for firing the employee. For the employees loses. The employees attorney’s fees and cost.
There are many different types of contracts, but the most common component of a contract is offer, acceptance, and consideration, meaning that one party offers something, the other party supplies something else, and there’s mutual promises exchanged. There are other types of contracts also, such as unilateral contracts, where one party has offered to have a person provide a service, and the other party says nothing and simply provides a service in exchange for what was offered. For example, somebody offers in writing to pay $50 if you mow their lawn, the other person simply mows the lawn, says nothing. A contract’s been formed and the money is owed once the project is completed.
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 such as monies are owed if the notice is not given.
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.
The Family Medical Leave Act is a federal statute that allows employees to take a certain amount of leave time for very important events such as, for example, the birth of a child or to care for a very close family member. To fall within that statute, the employee has to work for a certain number of hours in a certain period of time for the employer. The leave is set out by statute as to the amount of time the employee can take.
To be discriminated against at work means that the employee is being protected by specific legal categories, such as the color of their skin or their ethnicity. When an employer violates employee’s rights to be free of discrimination, the employer is treating the employee worse because of this protected category, mainly the color of their skin or their ethnicity.
There are other categories the law protects, also. These are what we call discrimination claims.
Interference with contractual relations is a business tort, and it basically involves this, that there is a contractual relationship and somebody knows the contractual relationship exists, but they go ahead and try to get the person to break the contract for their own personal advantage.
Due diligence is checking up on the details of a transaction. Typically, due diligence occurs when there’s a purchase of a business. The buyer of the business is, of course, wanting to find out are the representations of the seller accurate? They’re going to want to go look through the papers. They want to make sure the financials are accurate, that they’re not being lied to or misled. They’re going to want to go and check with customers to determine if these really were the sales of the business. The due diligence period is to determine if you’re really buying what the seller is representing and whether the value the seller puts on it is really a fair value.
Employment at will means that the employer does not need a reason, nor does the employee need a reason, to terminate the employment relationship. It can be terminable at any point in time with or without any reason. A cause provision, by contrast, requires there be a good reason for it: for example, poor performance, or not showing up, or not completing assignments, or insubordination. There can be good reasons, and that’s what’s considered a cause provision.
Florida Business Litigation Lawyer Blog