Our Blog: Employment Law

Add Your Voice to the Call to End Unemployment Discrimination in Illinois

As appalling as it may be, a shocking number of employers these days are publishing job listings with the caveat that the unemployed need not apply.  This unemployment discrimination is so backwards and plain old wrong that I have a hard time wrapping my mind around it.  We are …

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Vote Yes for SB 128 – Healthy Workplace Act – Senator Sandoval

This bill would provide for paid sick leave for Illinois workers.

Requires an employer to provide an employee up to 7 sick days with pay during each 12-month period. Provides that an employee may use the sick days care for physical or mental illness, injury, medical condition, professional medical diagnosis or care, …

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Unjustified “For Cause” Termination Leads to Significant Jury Award in Workplace Defamation Claim

The Appellate Court for the First District of Illinois recently upheld a jury verdict awarding the plaintiff $2 million dollars in compensatory damages and $6 million dollars in punitive damages for a workplace defamation claim.  Leyshon v. Diehl Controls North America, Inc., 2010 WL 5480668 (Ill. App. 1st …

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Having trouble getting private health insurance because of a pre-existing condition?  You’re certainly not alone.  It is estimated that 15.9 percent of Americans are uninsured, many for precisely the same reason.  While President Obama’s health care legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, explicitly prohibits denying an individual health insurance because of pre-existing conditions or a history of high …

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July 1, 2010 Marks a Day of Hope for Uninsured Americans with Preexisting Medical Conditions

Under the national health care reform bill signed into law by President Obama earlier this year, insurance companies will no longer be allowed to refuse to sell health insurance coverage or refuse to renew health insurance coverage because of an individual’s preexisting medical condition. However, this …

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What Employees Need to Know

The Baseline: Employee Rights Under COBRA, Generally

The Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (“COBRA”) requires employers with 20 or more employees who offer health benefits to provide continued coverage to “qualified beneficiaries” for up to 18 months after a “qualifying event;” however, the employee must pay the entire premium. A “qualified beneficiary” is an individual …

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The Vanishing Earned Bonus [Part I] – And How to Get it Back!

Every year, around this time we start to get calls from employees who have not only lost their jobs but have also been denied their year-end bonus, which so many families depend on in budgeting their lives.  Employers use all kinds of tricks to withhold what employees rightly feel …

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