Employment issues

Business Expectations & Blurred Lines

by

This past week I spoke to The Canadian Tennis Professionals Association and the Professional Tennis Registry at the Rogers Cup in Toronto about Social Media and the Law. Part of that conversation involved encouraging each club to decide what their specific expectations were for their employees and then using those expectations to craft a policy for the use of Social Media.

What does your business expect from its employees? What does it expect from its’ executives?

If you don’t want, for example, your CEO, to stumble down a main street in Toronto while intoxicated, posing for photo opportunities, you may want to spell that out in their Employment Contract. If you think back to the two Blackberry Executives who were let go after being drunk & disorderly on a plane a year or so ago, you’ll see that it is possible for a lawyer to craft clauses in contracts that require good behaviour when representing your business.

The problem that businesses frequently encounter with expectations surrounding behaviour is their failure to specify what is expected in writing. If you don’t set out what behaviour you expect, you will have a hard time convincing a Judge that the employee knew the behaviour was bad and that you should be allowed to fire them for cause for not adhering to your good behaviour standards.

Expectations are not just limited to employer/employee relationships. If you do business with a customer on a “handshake” and you don’t meet what the customer’s expectations were, you have little evidence to present to a Court that you should still be paid for the service/good you provided.

All businesses have expectations. There is nothing wrong with putting those expectations in writing. You will not lose a customer worth having by requiring they sign an agreement detailing what you will provide and what they will receive.

When it is in writing there are no blurred lines regarding business expectations. If you want to enforce your expectations, Judges want it in writing, so let’s give them what they want.

Inga B. Andriessen JD

Your Business Reputation

by

Mike Duffy, Nigel Wright, Rob Ford – all men whose reputations have been taking a hit over the past week. Each of these individuals is choosing a different way to protect their reputation, but leaving aside personal reputations, what about your business reputation?

The issue of defamatory remarks by anonymous posters has become a business issue many have had to tackle – when hit with these remarks it is important to evaluate their impact and what, if anything, you intend to do about it.

If someone posts something defamatory about your business in an obscure blog that receives no traffic and does not appear in search results, then pursuing the poster will attract more attention to the false comments than leaving them alone. Before proceeding “on principal” ask yourself if the legal fees will exceed the monetary impact the posting has on your business. If the answer is yes, then you need to consider if you must proceed in any event to prevent yourself from being targeted by others or if it is better to simply let the blog comments die an slow, unviewed death.

Your business reputation extends beyond bad reviews on Yelp or in Blogs, it also extends into your credit relationships with customers. I recall vividly a young dentist we assisted many years ago. The dentist set up practice in a neighborhood and quickly found that many of the cheques for post-dated payments were being returned NSF. The dentist was getting a reputation for doing work without taking immediate payment and many were taking advantage of this. Ultimately, the dentist chose to sue on several accounts and “surprisingly” the dentist was no longer the victim of people seeking services with payment over time. The dentist has gone on to have a thriving practice, dispelling the concerns of many business owners that if they sue on for money that is owed, they will lose customers.

As lawyers we are always taught, you have one reputation, you don’t want to ruin it.

Are you protecting your business reputation from ruin?

Inga B. Andriessen JD

Understanding Clients and Delivering on your Promise

by

I snagged the title to this Blog from a Huffington Post Blog by Krizia. The original blog described the evolution of a small business called Lotus Premium Denim. This Blog is not about Denim.

The title of the Blog grabbed my attention because it refers to two things many lawyers fail to do, but two things I know that we do at our firm.

The title of the Blog grabbed my attention because it refers to two things many lawyers fail to do, but two things I know that we do at our firm.

Delivering on our promise is critical in maintaining the client relationships we have established over the past 20 years. I’m proud to say that many of the clients we have today are clients we have had for the entire 20 years the firm has been around.

The keys to “promising” as a lawyer in my opinion are:

1. Communicating clearly to the client what you will be charging them.
As lawyers all we have to sell is our time, but how we sell it (by the hour or by the task) is an important difference and clients must be told about this up front.

2. Honestly evaluating any litigation and being clear, even if you have a strong case, there is always a possibility of a Judge finding against you.
Clients have to be told Judges are human and let’s face it, there is a reason we have Courts of Appeal.

3. Before starting any litigation, assess the likelihood of collecting on a Judgment and advising the client if the only result will be a “pretty piece of paper stamped Judgment”.
No one just wants a pretty piece of paper and why should the law firm be the only party that benefits from litigation?

If you are our client, we understand you and we promise to continue delivering excellent legal services to you.

Inga B. Andriessen JD

Social Media in the Workplace – a Balancing Act

by

As practicing lawyers and business people, we’re not supposed to weigh in on contentious issues; so this week I’m not going to talk about the Middle East, Mayor Ford, plastic shopping bag bans, the Argos or the Nicki Minaj and Steven Tyler twitter feud. Except that I sort of am.

Part of the Lunch and Learn we held yesterday at the firm dealt with social media in the workplace. It’s an interesting topic from a legal standpoint and one that generated a lot of conversation from clients. One area of confusion however, is the balancing of rights between freedom of expression and the privacy and reputation rights of the employer. How much restraint is reasonable and what kind of social media policy infringes on an employee’s right to free speech?

There are a lot of complexities at play. If the employer has a social media account (like ours) it’s completely reasonable for an employer not to allow an employee (like me) to use the corporate account to vent about their political beliefs or to make insensitive comments about a protected group. That reasonable limit may even extend to the employee’s personal account, depending on the extent to which they represent the company as a “public face.” The Israeli Defense Force is dealing with a bit of a PR disaster this week as pictures of their social media guru wearing blackface and calling himself Obama are being circulated on Facebook. Add that to last week’s circulation of pictures of active duty personnel posing for smiley faces on Instagram while they prepared for a possible ground campaign in the West Bank and you have an organization that probably needs to clarify its social media policy.

Inga’s advice yesterday was helpful I think, and cut through a lot of the competing rights confusion – the policy has to be reasonable and it has to deal with actual harm. If the way someone uses their social media platform of choice isn’t harming the employer in a real way, then the policy shouldn’t be otherwise restricting their behaviour. But where there is the possibility of defamation, leaking confidential information, or devaluing the employer’s brand, a good policy can be the most effective mitigation strategy around.

Scott R. Young.

How Not to Treat Your Employees

by

Security in the workplace is important, as we expect those reading this blog will have sensitive information in their businesses that need protection. As you would protect your computers and servers with passwords, so you want to control entry to your place of business. Small businesses get away with restricting keys to the front door and those who are given the alarm security code. Larger businesses implement more sophisticated means to access the business, via electronic security cards and even biometrics.

Which leads me to how a large Toronto lawfirm in the news of late got it all wrong. It decided to implement a fingerprint security system for access to the office, but decided only to have secretarial and copy-room staff be subject to it. The lawyers, paralegals and clerks were exempt. Staff who were subject to the new security system were told the intent, in large part, was to track their comings and goings during the day. The rest of the staff did not need to be tracked.

Can you think of a better way to drive an irreparable wedge of discontent into your business? By no means are your employees expected to be best friends (between themselves or management), but why divide them in such an obvious and punitive way? If work tardiness is a problem, deal with it at the supervisory level. There should be no surprise that there has been much news made of the firm’s decision, to the point where some secretaries have openly revolted by ridiculing the lawfirm and senior partners on a (so far) anonymous internet blog. When they are found out, how is the lawfirm going to handle issues with them of discipline and termination? It has become a PR and HR disaster.

Inga handles all of the employment issues for our clients. She is always suggesting to clients that any pending disciplinary action or termination be discussed with her in advance, before implementation, to ensure that it is done correctly. If you think that what the above lawfirm did was a good idea, then give her a call to discuss it further before putting the wheels in motion.

Paul H. Voorn

Keeping your most important business asset safe

by

I am trying to think of an exception to the “Rule” I’m about to make, but am unable to come up with one – if you can think of one, please email me and let me know. The “Rule” is – your employees are the most important asset of your business.

You need your employees to produce work, maintain client relationships and generally ensure things get done.

I’m often shocked, recognizing the above rule, when I read news accounts of employees being undervalued and put in harms way. The latest example of this is the allegation (and it is just an allegation) that the gas station attendant who was dragged to his death did so because his pay would be docked for the missing gas.

Leaving aside the legalities of docking pay for theft (though it is commonplace is the restaurant industry) if the allegation is correct, it is not protecting your most valuable asset.

Our firm represents employers. We have zero tolerance for false claims of mistreatment, etc. Our clients share our view point – treat your most valuable asset fairly, your business depends on it.

Inga B. Andriessen

When a Court Decision Spawns Law Suits

by

Today I was reading the most recent Ontario Reports – the weekly digest every Ontario lawyer receives that includes some recent decisions of the Courts.

I read with interest the summary of a case involving a lawsuit by a client against an Insurance Company and an employee of the company.

The general state of case law in Canada regarding suing an employee for actions arising out of the course of their employment is that the employer is liable, not the employee. This case does not change that, however, my concern is that some people will read it, believe it does and thereby bring law suits doomed to fail.

Self-represented litigants are the new normal in business litigation and people who do not have law degrees often don’t understand the technical aspects of case law. The case I read this morning, while allowing the client to continue her law suit against the employee and the employer, was not a change in the rule of law I have set out above. Instead, it was addressing a technical “pleading” issue, how the words in the Statement of Claim are framed, and the Judge deciding the matter noted near the end, the decision to allow the matter to be argued was very different than saying it would succeed.

It is not just self-represented litigants who take a case like this and attempt to run with it. In this economy there are many lawyers who find their traditional areas of practice have “dried up” and decide they will dabble in a new area. Some of those lawyers do a good job, some do not. If you’re retaining a lawyer who does not clearly state what area of law they focus on, ask questions to ensure they are the right lawyer for you. You don’t need to pay to educate a lawyer in a new area of law.

Inga B. Andriessen JD

Log Off

by

An interesting decision was released last week by the Superior Court of New Jersey, a US state-level appeal court. According to the facts of the case, the defendant had accessed a co-worker’s Yahoo e-mail account from a computer lab terminal, which the plaintiff had inadvertently failed to log out of. The snooping defendant noticed an e-mail thread mentioning them, printed out the e-mail, and confronted the plaintiff with it. Obviously shocked by the invasion of privacy, the plaintiff immediately filed the suit, relying on the provisions of a state wiretapping statute – which apparently allows for both civil and criminal remedies.

It appears that historically, the test under this New Jersey law has been premised on the expectation of privacy held by the person whose communication was “intercepted”. That’s similar to the case law on the issue in Canada. However in the present case, the court was asked to decide whether the defendant knowingly accessed the account without authorization, and if not, what the extent of that authorization was.

Because the plaintiff had accessed their own inbox, and had left the index screen of the inbox up on the terminal when they left, the court found that the defendant did not infringe the law prohibiting access without authorization. The only question left to the court (in this case, a jury) was whether the defendant had exceeded the authorization provided by the plaintiff’s failure to log off. The jury found that the defendant did not exceed the plaintiff’s “tacit authorization” to access the account. On appeal last week, the court upheld the trial court’s decision – the snooping defendant was vindicated.

In Canada, the facts lend themselves not to a civil trial, but to criminal proceedings under the Interception of Communications provision of the Criminal Code. However the statutes are otherwise not all that different and much of the key phraseology is similar enough to think that the New Jersey case law might be relevant.

I don’t agree with the specific questions put to the jury, and the departure from the pure expectation of privacy test is unusual, but it would certainly be interesting to see how a Canadian case on similar facts would be interpreted.

Until we have such caselaw, the takeaway from all this is to protect your data and your communications as much as possible – any failure to do so, even accidentally, could be viewed as tacit authorization to snoopers and other evildoers.

Scott R. Young

Policies and Procedures

by

Every once in a while we are lucky enough to get to work on the holy grail of a client’s operations – the policies and procedures manual. Sometimes it’s after our business compliance audit turns up some unexpected sources of liability, sometimes it’s after some triggering event has highlighted the need to put things on paper, and sometimes it’s a proactive first step in putting together a company right from the ground up.

The P&P manual is a great place to tie employees into the workplace by giving them a comprehensive document that outlines all of the rights and responsibilities associated with their job. It includes government mandated policies that address privacy, harassment, violence, accessibility standards and many more. It also sets out the specifics of the discipline policy so there are no ambiguities (and far fewer lawsuits) in the event of discipline or termination.

I probably get a lot more excited about putting these together than Inga or Paul or Murray do – but they often have a lot of input into them. Either they have knowledge of the client’s operations that help customize a policy that works in their workplace, or they have court experience on a particular issue that goes directly into how the policies and procedures are written.

If you are putting together a business from the ground up or are ready for a spring cleaning to make sure that your workplace is compliant from the top to the bottom, please have competent legal counsel draft some policies that work for your business, or review your current policies to ensure that they reflect the hundreds of legislative changes that have occurred in the last decade.

Scott R. Young

ILA

by

Amidst all the Facebook IPO hype this week, there was the release of an e-mail from Mark Zuckerberg to his corporate lawyer, instructing them to dilute Facebook co-founder Eduardo Saverin’s share in the burgeoning company.

Aside from the obvious professional responsibility issue that this presents for the lawyer (assuming the lawyer was acting for the corporation, they had an immediate duty to declare a conflict of interest and cease all representation of the company), the story highlights the need to get good independent legal advice before entering into any legal agreement. I had a great example of the right way to do things last week – we were retained to give ILA to a shareholder on a Shareholder’s Agreement that they had largely formulated. Despite the fact that this shareholder had been the principal instructor to the corporation’s lawyer, and was intimately familiar with most of the terms of the agreement, the corporation’s lawyer still thought it would benefit all of the shareholders to get ILA – not just to waive it as is sometimes (unfortunately) done.

The shareholder was convinced that ILA would add value even if only to have a fresh set of eyes review the agreement. In our review, we offered more than that; considering various critical events from the shareholder’s individual perspective was very different than the perspective of corporate representative they had while preparing the agreement.

The details of the Facebook dilution are not entirely clear (the ensuing litigation was settled and not much is on the public record) but presumably the restructuring that diluted Savarin down to 10% was ultimately effected, and presumably without Savarin retaining counsel to explain this to him. And when he did realize the dilution, litigation was the only option available.

Getting independent legal advice is not cheap, but the value in what you are getting is often immeasurable. If you are entering into an agreement of any significance (including potential future liabilities), you absolutely must have legal counsel review the agreement and confirm that your interests are protected (or that your unprotected interests are known to you). It’s that simple.

Scott R. Young