Areas of Practice
Labor and Employment
HDJN knows that healthcare providers today manage a diverse and increasingly complex set of competing issues. Healthcare employers not only have management, employees, and independent medical staff members to consider, they also must comply with a broad array of laws, regulations and accreditation requirements. The ever growing number of new and revised employment and employee benefit laws, such as the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”), COBRA, the Americans with Disabilities Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (“ERISA”), and the Pension Protection Act, as well as the strong resurgence of union activity, necessitates that employment practice issues, such as hiring, managing, and discharging employees, and employee benefits plans receive particular attention. Proactive, practical advice on these matters is necessary for business and legal reasons.
HDJN’s experienced attorneys in the labor & employment and employee benefits section provide a wide range of services to employers. These services include advice on maintaining a union-free workplace, compliance with all employment statutes such as the FMLA, Fair Labor Standards Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, compliance issues with qualified and non-qualified retirement plans as well as health and welfare benefit, liability and compliance assessments, policy and procedure development and expert review and advice on issues such as pay practices, drug testing, smoking rules, issues involving contagious diseases and terminations. HDJN also regularly assists companies in noncompetition matters and handling of employment agreements from their drafting to their termination and enforcement. Finally, HDJN regularly provides training and education to employers on the spectrum of labor and employment issues.
HDJN’s attorneys routinely represent clients in federal and state courts and before state and federal regulatory agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Department of Labor. We have successfully defended all types of claims, including employment discrimination, wrongful discharge, breach of contract and employment related tort claims.
Examples of recent projects include:
• Successfully defending a healthcare provider in federal court case involving alleged employment discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act.
• Successfully defending an employer in a case involving allegations of conspiracy, defamation, and wrongful discharge.
• Successfully representing a healthcare provider in obtaining the dismissal of a wrongful discharge suit in state court.
• Securing the return of unearned compensation from a former employee of a healthcare provider through litigation.
• Assisting a healthcare provider to determine whether it was required under the Family Medical Leave Act to provide an employee with a new job when the employee’s former job was eliminated.
• Providing advice to a healthcare provider about the documentation it could request from an employee’s physician under the Americans with Disabilities Act and its obligation to make a reasonable accommodation.
• Responding on behalf of a healthcare provider to an EEOC Charge of Discrimination and in a hearing to contest state unemployment benefits for an employee who was discharged for cause.