Seyfarth Synopsis: California voters gave the green light to recreational use of marijuana with the passage of Prop 64. Marijuana users may have felt like they struck Acapulco Gold, but a review of the law on drug testing in the workplace may turn out to be a buzzkill.
When can an employer drug test its employees?
Last November, California
Continue Reading Marijuana at Work: Testing of (and for) Mary Jane
Seyfarth Synopsis: Social media information—pictures, status updates, location markers, “likes,” groups, and associated friends, all from the owner’s perspective and documented in real time—can be a goldmine of information to defend employment lawsuits. Read on for thoughts on how to extract and refine this information, and what limits to observe in using it.
Social media and discovery is an
Continue Reading What’s Not to Like? Using Social Media In Employment Litigation
Seyfarth Synopsis: Hernandez v. Sprouts Farmers Market, Inc., a case stemming from a phishing scam, emphasizes the need for California employers to implement comprehensive data protection and data breach notification policies and practices for personal employee information under the CDPA.
A story of a company suffering a data breach tops newspaper headlines almost daily. So how can you stay
Continue Reading Phishing: Data Breach Is “Chalkdust Torture”
We all know that social media and privacy issues in the workplace can be a bone-chilling proposition. Before you go snooping into your employees’ social media accounts to see whether it’s filled with tricks or tweets, please be sure to review our frightfully informative 2015-2016 Edition of the Social Media Privacy Legislation Desktop Reference. Without it, one never knows what
Continue Reading Social Media Nightmares? New Desktop Reference Scares Them Away!
By Chantelle Egan and Laura Maechtlen
Drug testing implicates the California right to privacy, which is enshrined in our Constitution. Therefore, employers must be careful when drug testing is a component of their onboarding process.
The General Rule
A private employer in California can require a job applicant to pass a pre-employment drug test as a condition of employment, regardless
Continue Reading Onboarding Series: Pre-employment Drug Testing: Don’t Fail To Have A Compliant Program
Isn’t it true that nationwide employers can interview and hire employees for their California offices so long as they follow federal hiring laws? In a nutshell, no way. Hiring in California presents a host of nuanced, state-specific rules that often add up to “don’ts.” We list a few for you below.
Don’t Oversell
Question: We really would like to
Continue Reading Don’t Hire A Lawsuit: Five “Don’ts” When Hiring Employees in California
Wouldn’t we like to know if a potential applicant has ever criticized a former employer, or whether their online presence gives evidence of illegal activity or violent, discriminatory or unethical behavior? Or just poor judgment? What if they belong to political groups, like the Tea Party or the ACLU?
What is so wrong with learning information like that? The answer
Continue Reading She Posted What? Employers Face Increased Legal Scrutiny For Using Social Media in Hiring Decisions
Picture this scenario: you run a private residential facility for abused children. Late one night, one of your computers is used to access pornographic web-sites and other inappropriate material in violation of several well-publicized workplace policies. After further investigation, you learn that the inappropriate computer usage occurred on several occasions, but was limited to that one computer, which is located
Continue Reading To Film at Work, or Not to Film at Work — Is that the Question?
Drug use in California can cause headaches for employers. Balancing employee privacy interests against safety concerns forces employers to make tough choices with little guidance. Legal drug testing of existing employees is so limited that most drug use won’t be detected until after an accident. With increasing support for legal medical marijuana, many employers have struggled to determine how to
Continue Reading Just Say No! Protection for Workplace Medical Marijuana Use Up in Smoke