Business Attorney | Law Office of Maritza S. Nelson, LLC

  • Home
    • COVID-19
  • Who We Serve
  • Practice Areas and Fees
    • General Counsel Service
    • Business Law >
      • Business Formation and Governance
      • Contract Drafting and Review
      • Business Purchases and Sales
    • Intellectual Property >
      • Copyright Law
      • Trademark Law
    • Employment Law
    • Nonprofit Law >
      • Non-Profit Formation and Governance
      • Tax Exempt Status
      • Non-Profit General Counsel Service
  • Attorneys
    • Maritza S. Nelson
    • Sarah Pollyea
  • Adding Value
    • Legal Audit Checklist
    • Legal Dictionary
    • 7 Common Legal Mistakes
    • Succession and Emergency Planning Worksheet
    • Business Contracts: Review Checklist
    • Webinars >
      • HR 101: Managing the Growing Pains That Come With Growing Your Business
      • Hiring Independent Contractors
      • Legal Audit and Risk Assessment
      • Structuring a Social Enterprise
  • Blog
  • Scheduling
    • Prospective Client Scheduling
    • Existing and Former Client Scheduling
    • Networking Scheduling
  • Contact
  • Home
    • COVID-19
  • Who We Serve
  • Practice Areas and Fees
    • General Counsel Service
    • Business Law >
      • Business Formation and Governance
      • Contract Drafting and Review
      • Business Purchases and Sales
    • Intellectual Property >
      • Copyright Law
      • Trademark Law
    • Employment Law
    • Nonprofit Law >
      • Non-Profit Formation and Governance
      • Tax Exempt Status
      • Non-Profit General Counsel Service
  • Attorneys
    • Maritza S. Nelson
    • Sarah Pollyea
  • Adding Value
    • Legal Audit Checklist
    • Legal Dictionary
    • 7 Common Legal Mistakes
    • Succession and Emergency Planning Worksheet
    • Business Contracts: Review Checklist
    • Webinars >
      • HR 101: Managing the Growing Pains That Come With Growing Your Business
      • Hiring Independent Contractors
      • Legal Audit and Risk Assessment
      • Structuring a Social Enterprise
  • Blog
  • Scheduling
    • Prospective Client Scheduling
    • Existing and Former Client Scheduling
    • Networking Scheduling
  • Contact
Don't miss out on new blog posts, webinar announcements, and other valuable content for serious entrepreneurs! Join now and get our Legal Audit Checklist.
Join the List

Ohio’s New Employment Law Uniformity Act

2/9/2021

0 Comments

 
Picture
In the midst of an ongoing pandemic and all of the questions it’s raised for employers, especially small business employers,* you may have missed a new Ohio employment law that’s about to take effect. The governor recently signed the ​​Employment Law Uniformity Act into law. As an employer, what do you need to know about this new law? What steps should you take to protect your business or nonprofit in light of these changes?

Bringing Employment Discrimination Lawsuits
The new law will shorten the time employees have to bring claims of workplace discrimination. Previously, the statute of limitations for these cases was 6 years. The new law shortens this to just 2 years. It also requires employees to file their claims with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission (“OCRC”) and obtain what is known as a “right to sue” letter before filing a case in court. Previously, filing a charge with the OCRC was effectively optional. As a result, if you had multiple employees making similar allegations of discrimination, you could find your business facing multiple cases in different venues. With the new law, the OCRC can consolidate these cases together, potentially streamlining the process and resolving claims before expensive litigation is filed.

Defending Hostile Work Environment Claims
As an employer, if you “allow” or fail to prevent harassment or discrimination in your workplace, both you and your business or nonprofit can be named in a subsequent lawsuit. Essentially, the argument is that as the employer, you allowed a hostile work environment to exist. Under the new law, employers, you won’t be responsible for hostile work environment claims if the employer can prove:
  1. The employer had a robust anti-discrimination policy;
  2. The employer properly trained the employees on appropriate workplace behavior and complaint procedures;
  3. The employer exercised reasonable control in preventing or correcting harassment in the workplace; and
  4. The employee failed to take advantage of the employer’s complaint procedures or other preventive or corrective opportunities.

Minimizing the Risk of Personal Liability
Ohio’s Fair Employment Practices Act (O.R.C. 4112.02) prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap, age, or ancestry. The law defined “employer” as any person who employed four (4) or more people and “any person acting directly or indirectly in the interest of an employer.” As a result, the Ohio Supreme Court held that “individual supervisors and managers [were] accountable for their own discriminatory conduct occurring in the workplace environment.” Genaro v. Cent. Transport, Inc, 68 Ohio St. 3d 293, 300 (1999). In other words, if an employee claimed discrimination, the employee could sue both the employer and their supervisor or manager.

Owners of the business are often counted as “employees” for purposes of reaching the 4 or more threshold.

Under the new law, merely being a supervisor or manager should not be enough to find yourself named in a discrimination lawsuit. However, supervisors and managers will still be personally liable in certain situations:
  1. Acting outside the scope of one’s employment: If a supervisor or manager engages in harassing or discriminatory behavior outside of work or even outside the bounds of their job description, they can still be held personally liable for that behavior.
  2. Retaliation: If an employee can show that their supervisor or manager retaliated against them for complaining of harassment or discrimination, the supervisor or manager can still face personal liability.
  3. Engaging in the discriminatory practice: Supervisors and managers can still be held liable for their individual actions, even if the supervisor or manager argues that the actions were within the scope of their employment.

As a smaller employer, you can still face personal liability for a discrimination or harassment claim, particularly when you are both the owner and the supervisor or manager. And if you employ others as supervisors or managers, both your company and those individuals can be held jointly and severally liable, meaning that the plaintiff-employee can collect the entire amount of any judgment from the company, the supervisor/manager, or both of you. (In practice, this means that the plaintiff-employee will collect from whomever it is easier to collect from, which is often the employer because of its “deeper pockets.”)

Key Takeaways
  1. Update your document retention policy. Given this update to Ohio’s employment laws, you may consider shortening your retention of personnel files from 6 years to 3.
  2. If you haven’t done so recently, now is a great time to review and update your non-discrimination and anti-harassment policies. Especially in smaller, closely-knit environments, your policy should carefully and thoughtfully address relationships both in and outside of the workplace and how those relationships can impact the work environment.
  3. Having a non-discrimination policy isn’t enough. You also need to take steps to train your employees on the policy and the kinds of behavior you won’t tolerate. Don’t just assume that as a “small” employer, everyone on your team simply knows better.
  4. If (when) an issues arises, follow the procedures you put into place for investigating and addressing complaints. Document the process! (Did we mention that simply having a policy isn’t enough?)
  5. Retaliation against an employee for complaining of harassment or discrimination will cause more problems than the complaint itself. Almost any change in the employee’s working conditions can potentially be construed as retaliation. This is why it’s so important to consult with legal counsel both during your investigation and when deciding what actions to take as a result of that investigation.
_____
* More Firm guidance is available here. You can also check out pandemic-related employer resources from the CDC, EEOC, and NFIB.
The new Employment Law Uniformity Act takes effect April 12, 2021. If you
​have questions about your employment policies,
SCHEDULE A CONSULTATION
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    May 2019
    December 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    February 2015
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014

    Categories

    All
    Benefit Corp (B Corp)
    Business Formation
    Business Law
    Confidentiality Agreements
    Contracts
    Copyright
    Corporation
    COVID 19
    COVID-19
    Employment Law
    Firm Announcements
    General Legal Advice
    Hiring An Attorney
    HR Policies
    Independent Contractors
    Intellectual Property
    Investors
    Limited Liability Company (LLC)
    Low Profit Limited Liability Company (L3C)
    Motivation
    Non Profit
    Partnership
    Privacy Policy
    S Corp
    Securities Laws
    Small Business
    Social Enterprise
    Sole Proprietorship
    Trademarks
    Trade Secrets

    RSS Feed

Services

General Counsel Service
Business Law
Intellectual Property
Employment Law

Non-Profit Law

About

Who We Serve
Bio​
Adding Value
Webinars
Blog
Contact
​
Scheduling

Legal

The information contained on this website is not legal advice or legal opinion and should not be relied upon. Furthermore, nothing contained in this website is intended to create or establish, and does not constitute, an attorney-client relationship. 

Document Retention Policy 
Privacy Policy
​Client Communications Policy

Subscribe to the mailing list to receive useful tips for entrepreneurs and business owners.
Join Mailing List
Copyright © 2021. | 4200 Regent Street, Suite 200, Columbus, OH 43219 | 614.944.5171 | info@msnlawoffice.com
Photos courtesy of Unsplash. Icons courtesy of Canva.
Photo used under Creative Commons from jseliger2