THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, November 2, 1995 TAG: 9511020413
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LON WAGNER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 56 lines
Virginia is a pro-business state. At least, that's what the commonwealth's governor says.
But that wasn't apparent from listening to the speakers Wednesday at Norfolk law firm Kaufman & Canoles' 12th annual employment law update seminar.
After sitting through the morning sessions of the day-long seminar, Cornelius Smith of Lips Propellers in Chesapeake said dryly, ``I'm surprised we can work at all.''
He was one of 160 representatives of Hampton Roads' businesses in attendance.
The seminar focused on employers' rights. Kaufman & Canoles is a Norfolk firm that specializes in defending businesses when workers make claims such as discrimination, wrongful dismissal and invasion of privacy.
That made for an interesting friction at lunchtime when Richmond lawyer David R. Simonsen Jr. spoke. Simonsen specializes in suing businesses on behalf of workers. Burt H. Whitt, chairman of the Labor Relations and Employment Law section of Kaufman & Canoles, introduced Simonsen to the crowd.
``He sues people like you,'' Whitt said.
Standing behind the podium in front of a room full of potential adversaries, Simonsen used examples to show the employers how easy it is for them to step into a legal trap. He said, for instance, that an employer who wants to fire a worker could reduce the possibility of a lawsuit by instead demoting the worker, or offering a transfer or a pay cut.
But even with all the workplace laws, Simonsen said intangibles often figure into whether he will take a workers' case.
``It all boils down to this,'' he said. ``Mean people get sued. Nice people don't get sued as much. If I call you up and you say, `I don't like you, you're a lawyer so you're a jerk,' I like to sue jerks. I don't like to sue nice people.''
The best defense against a potential lawsuit, Simonsen said, is to treat workers fairly and honestly. An employee should always be told why he or she is being fired, rather than using the hard-line stand that a business can fire any worker for any reason.
The seminar featured other discussions, including employee evaluations, policies for time off due to health problems and documenting troubles with workers.
Just as workers are often warned not to consider their e-mail and voice-mail as private, Whitt cautioned executives and managers to be wary of internal memos.
``A big source of evidence for employees who sue employers is going back and getting files that are in e-mail, in phone mail, in memos on computers,'' he said. ``There's some very damaging stuff usually in there.'' by CNB