In an ongoing class action wage and hour lawsuit, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. may be given a break, despite breaking employment law by having its employees work overtime and skip breaks without pay. Filed in Minnesota court in 2002, the lawsuit alleges break and wage violations and represents about 100,000 current…
Articles Posted in Employment Issues
Tennessee Highway Patrol Faces Sexual Harassment Lawsuit for Retaliation and Sex Discrimination of Employee
Nashville circuit court received Friday a sexual harassment lawsuit against Tennessee Highway Patrol from Martha Sanders, a woman who conducts sexual harassment training for THP, and her attorney. This harassment lawsuit follows an investigation earlier this year into charges of sexual harassment against the Tennessee agency. The present lawsuit claims…
Tennessee Sexual Harassment Suit before Supreme Court Expected to Expand Retaliation Protections for All Workers
The U.S. Supreme Court, whose 2008-09 term began last week, announced this week its sympathy for a Nashville, Tennessee employee who filed a Title VII anti-retaliation lawsuit (workplace anti-discrimination protections) when her employer fired her allegedly for testifying about her sexual harassment by her boss. The Court hinted that it…
Unpaid Wages and Unrecorded Hours Subject of Local Nashville, TN Car Wash Workers’ Wage and Hour Lawsuit
Wage and hour law is back in Tennessee legal news after car wash workers at local Shur-Brite locations filed a wage-based federal lawsuit filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act against the Nashville company in May for unpaid wage from the company’s unfair timecard practices. As of July 4, over…
Tennessee Age Discrimination cases rising
After the past few years the state of Tennessee and my office has seen more age discrimination cases. There is some debate as to why. The most commonly given reason I hear for the rise in job related age discrimination is that the work force is simply getting older. Whatever…
Two Big Qui Tam Cases Settle This Week, Reveal Nature of False Claims Lawsuits
Amendments to The False Claims Act in 1986 as well as Tennessee’s own Tennessee Medicaid False Claims Act (TMFCA) allow qualified whistleblowers to earn a portion of the government’s recoveries (called “qui tam provisions“) when whistleblowers, known as “relators,” appropriately report their company’s defrauding the government. Two examples of False…
Tennessee Workplace and Indirect Discrimination
There’s a certain conception of workplace discrimination that I’d like to correct in this week’s Tennessee Law Blog. Too often Tennessee workers whom HHP partner Attorney Rick Piliponis and I have met with do not realized that they were being discriminated against, though they were passed over for promotions or…
False Claims Act Recovers $2 Billion in 2007 Fiscal Year
This last fiscal year (10/01/06 – 09/30/07), federal False Claims lawsuits (which I’ve previously written about here, here, and elsewhere) recovered over $2 billion in taxes through settlements and judgments, according to figures released last week by the U.S. Department of Justice. Of this amount, $1.45 billion was recovered by…
Tennessee Mornings Follow-Up: TN Non-Compete Contracts
Leaving the Tennessee Mornings studio earlier today, I realized there were still a few points that I wasn’t able to cover on-air concerning Tennessee non-compete contracts. Unfortunately, I still don’t have the time right now to go into most of them. Besides, each contract is unique. Instead, what I would…
Tennessee Company Faces False Claims Act Lawsuit
This coming from The City Paper, a former Tennessee executive for Iasis Healthcare, one of Tennessee’s largest health care companies, has blown the whistle in a False Claims lawsuit. Jerre Frazier worked for Iasis in Franklin, Tennessee for four years, becoming vice president for ethics and compliance and as its…