The Employee Handbook - An HR Podcast by 2 Lawyers
"The Employee Handbook - An HR Podcast", hosted by attorneys Arta Wildeboer and Ryan Ellis, offers expert insights into human resources issues and their legal implications, providing valuable guidance for navigating the complex intersection of HR practices and employment law. This informative series is essential for HR professionals and business managers seeking to understand and prevent legal challenges in the workplace.
The Employee Handbook - An HR Podcast by 2 Lawyers
Trouble at the Old Axe Factory or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Zoloft
Ever wondered how to navigate the maze of employer responsibilities and employee rights, especially when it comes to mental health and work injuries? This episode promises to unravel the complexities with a blend of humor and practical advice. We illustrate the crucial concepts of actual and constructive notice in workplace injuries.
Our deep dive into California’s stringent workers' compensation laws is a must-listen for employers. We discuss the dire consequences of failing to report incidents promptly, including state intervention and asset seizure.
Honesty and swift action are the keys to compliance, and we explain why providing the DWC-1 form and notice of rights within one day of an injury report is non-negotiable. Beyond the legalities, we emphasize the significance of conducting thorough investigations, maintaining up-to-date employee handbooks, and hiring competent HR personnel. These proactive steps protect not only your business but also foster a fair and safe work environment.
We also tackle the crucial topics of mental health and sexual harassment in the workplace, shedding light on the employer’s role in providing support without admitting liability.
Preventing retaliation and meticulously documenting adverse actions are vital to safeguarding against claims and ensuring a fair workplace. Through engaging discussion and thoughtful insights, we equip you with practical advice to navigate these challenging aspects of employment law. Join us for a balanced mix of light-hearted banter and serious conversation, all designed to keep you informed and entertained while reminding you that our content is strictly for entertainment purposes.
Welcome back everybody to an unexpected surprise episode that we were just supposed to be doing anyway, but got too lazy to do. Uh, bane's Boy Handbook featuring Ryan Ellis. Yo, yo and uh, yes, urban youth, ryan Ellis, it was funny.
Speaker 2:I was thinking, trying to think of a funny quip to say, which I obviously didn't do, but I think our intro music should be that song from 1994. Damn, it feels good to be a gangster. No, close, chumbawamba as I get knocked down. Oh, that's a good one, why? I just feel like employment law is getting knocked down and getting back up again and then for some reason being held down, despite the song saying you can't be held down forever. That's a very strained metaphor.
Speaker 1:I don't understand it. Hopefully our listeners will be able to you know they'll have something like maybe they'll play this recording backwards.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe either the listeners can understand it or the editor can just cut it. One of the two, matt, it's up to you Okay.
Speaker 1:So today what we're going to talk about is kind of a more of like a philosophical thing, because I couldn't really find much on this in terms of actual cases and it's not something that really gets litigated a lot, but it was something I've been thinking about a lot, which is what the employer's duty is to their employees when employees complain about mental health problems and the retaliation that might come from that, and how difficult it is for both employees and employers to deal with a situation like this in terms of work comp. So yeah, I think what we're going to dive into is first kind of go over a little bit about what you're supposed to do as an employer and then just dive into some examples area of your office, probably behind a door or a fridge or a shelving unit or some vacuums.
Speaker 2:Those posters are your rights and I don't know if other people listening hi, mom, how many of you have ever either noticed those posters in your workplace? I know California they're required. Other states may not be, but those posters have very important information, despite them being hidden away in the dark crevices of an office in most office places.
Speaker 1:One thing that they don't have, which people will testify to all the time because they're lying on their boss, is wage and hour information. A lot of it doesn't say like what minimum wages and stuff like that. It's a lot of like federal discrimination stuff. But, um, they always testify like oh, did you notice that? Uh, there was wage information on? Oh, yes, of course I noticed that. Well, there's none on there, so yeah, um, that's just a little fun thing if you happen to walk into a trial that that's?
Speaker 2:uh, that's covered in univision. That's on tv. Uh, you can check back in uh, 2021, 2022. What year is that? That's that's covered in Univision. That's on TV. You can check back in 2021, 2022. What year is that? That's all we're going to say about it. Ok, there's a blank there. You got to fill it in. People say that the posters were never there, when in fact, the video showed that they were, and your face can only get so red, apparently injuries will believe it or not, the jurors don't care.
Speaker 1:That's one thing that I would like to say. Like a lot of the stuff you know in depositions if you're making a mistake or somebody is lying or something like that, they say they're going to bring it up later in court. The juries aren't paying attention anyway. I just want to point that out. And it's an absolute crapshoot to go to trial, whatever anybody wants to tell you.
Speaker 2:But we digress, but we anybody wants to tell you but, but we digress, but we digress back to posters that are required to be on the wall. No, so there's really a duty. And again, we speak specifically about california law, unless we state otherwise. Um, I find that california law is the most restrictive when it comes to employer conduct and more favorable, or most favorable, to employer employees, excuse me, out of all the states I'm licensed in. But remember, this is where we put in our jingle of like we are not your lawyers, although we'd like to be. We are not. This is all for entertainment purposes only. This is not legal advice. Don't trade stocks on this information. Don't go do something based on this information without specifically speaking with us, blah, blah. All the caveats and disclaimers out of the way. So I guess the low-hanging fruit here is what do we do as an employee or employer when you're hurt on the job?
Speaker 1:I guess I'll start with the employer side. Well, let's do it as an example. Let's say, ryan, you're the employer or the foreman on a construction site and some guy walks in with a axe sticking out of his head but makes no mention of it. And he's clearly got an axe in his head and it's clearly bleeding and he's not talking about it. But there's an axe in his head and, um, it's axe day at work and, uh, this is probably a work-related incident because, um, you work at a juggling factory and it's an axe juggling day.
Speaker 2:so I'm a foreman at an axe juggling factory.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've been there. Yeah well, it's a juggling factory and today is axe day.
Speaker 2:I don't know. Oh, we're making access. So yesterday was rolling bins, tomorrow is the flaming things and then today.
Speaker 1:Today's actually exactly the reason I bring up the fact that he doesn't, uh, mention anything about the axe in his head that's causing him to bleed is the difference between actual and constructive notice, and so, axe you will actually. Let me actually sorry. This is horrible. I'm so sorry to the people who wrote those nice reviews about us on iTunes. We're really letting you down and I'm blaming Ryan. Today I'll take it.
Speaker 2:So, ryan, can you tell me the difference to me? And says hey, I got hit with an axe, I'm bleeding, I need some help. You, as the foreman, are the employer. You're representative of the employer, you're the management, you are on actual notice of this person's injury. If the aforementioned axe-headed employee walks by you in the break room and says you know, hi forces coffee, has a casual conversation with you, I'm trying not to laugh here, but this is so crazy and the imagery is great.
Speaker 1:It's necessary.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so going back to so we have actual notice. Going back to constructive notice, if you know the foreman's sitting there in the break room just kind of planning his next moves and then all of a sudden this guy walks in, or this person walks in with an axe in their head, you know waves high, you know bleeding. The foreman kind of looks at the person sipping the coffee, thinking well, hey, that's an axe, and the employee just kind of waves, makes coffee and leaves, doesn't say anything. That foreman is on constructive notice, like new or should have known kind of comes into play here. Yeah, because if you were, the foreman is on constructive notice, like new or should have known kind of comes into play here.
Speaker 1:Yeah Cause, if you were the foreman, obviously you know it's ax day at work and you know those are the axes that you guys practice or juggling with, so you're going to be in. That knowledge is going to be imputed on you.
Speaker 2:Is that the correct word that we're using here? I guess imputed on you, it's a big word, it is Well it's like seven letters or six whatever.
Speaker 1:It is a big word, though, and it's a good one to use and it's like a good chat.
Speaker 2:Gpt word yeah a very good one, but no. So yes, imputed, and that goes to constructive known or should have known.
Speaker 1:And so it really goes down to if you've had actual or constructive notice, what do you do when you receive the notice?
Speaker 1:Yes, and this is something very important for employers, because what the state doesn't want is employers trying to shirk their responsibility to pay for insurance to help their workers in case they're injured and then also to use the insurance, because a lot of employers are worried about their insurance rates going up. So if somebody goes to the hospital with an injury like a broken leg, one of the questions that they ask you at the hospital many times during intake is did this injury occur at work? And they do that because they know a lot of employers want to avoid having, you know, a certain amount of injuries on their record for OSHA violations and insurance and things like that. So that's why there is such an emphasis by the state that the employer must inform the employee of their rights under workers' compensation law, including the right to get medical treatment, what benefits that they could have, and to tell them that they can file a claim for their injury that happened at work and it'll be covered, right.
Speaker 2:And to add on to that, if you're the foreman, you don't want to be the person that gets called in to be deposed. Whether in work comp or employment, you don't want to be in there deposing. Well, wait, you saw employee A walking around with an axe in his head or her head or its head. Yes, well, you didn't say anything. Well, well, no, I, he didn't say, or she didn't say it was a problem, so I just thought it was fine. Like that doesn't work. Yeah, yeah, that doesn't work. Uh, as much as the foreman or that person, the manager, whoever is trying to help, whether it's himself, herself itself or the company, they are hurting everybody because, again, again, the employer has insurance for this or should have insurance for this. So that's something that needs to be reported. And to add on to I don't know if you mentioned it admitting liability Did we talk about that?
Speaker 1:No, no, yeah, I think we should go in that in a second, because one thing that I wanted to mention is, if you don't have insurance as an employer, what happens in California is that there's a state fund that then will cover the injury and what will happen is then the state will come after you as an employer for the money which you don't want. You know that's a microscope that you don't want to be under because the state doesn't care. The state will. They have time.
Speaker 1:They have money, they have money's they have money, yeah, money, they have patience and they will just come after you. Um the state, uh, if they sue you will take your house, no problem, to make you sell your assets. Uh, most attorneys private attorneys are not going to go through that process, um, unless you really got a lot to go after. But, um the state, even for small businesses, will come right after you and the other thing you have to do is report it to your insurance company.
Speaker 1:if you're the employer, again, a lot of people want to avoid having to pay higher premiums, and having all these injuries could make it more difficult to get a bond if you're, say, like a contractor or something like that. So there's plenty of reasons to want to avoid making these claims. But just don't do it. Don't avoid it. Just go through the process and the thing is, you've already paid for it. If you're paying for the insurance and it's out of your hands, there's nothing you can do to change things. There's nothing you can do to influence the process once it's in the insurance company's hands, and just let them do their thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is another example of lying, especially in California. Lying just makes it worse, Ignoring it just makes it worse. There's no aside from the person who was going to work with an ax in their head being an amazing employee. That person should definitely get an employee of the month, If not a second gold watch when they retire. I have a metaphorical ax in my head, I'm sorry, different podcast.
Speaker 2:that was a good one um, but it just gets worse. Um, so again, by for some reason not reporting that accident in the ax, injury in the head, let's say if you reported it on day one you could have got the person to an urgent care or something to get some stitches. I don't know, they're still functioning, it's probably not that bad anyway because there's an ax in their head. But again, if that ax stays in there and they forget about it and they lay down and it gets worse again, all of that injury will be somehow attributed to the employer, whether it's an employment, pi, personal injury law, workers comp, something. It will just get worse. So again, speaking of specifically to California I know other states do it as well Give them the form.
Speaker 2:It's a form, look, here's a claim form. You're supposed to give it to them within one day of getting actual or constructive notice. It's a DWC-1 form here in California. It gives them kind of hey, here's your process, here's what you need to do. And then you also give them another kind of packet of information it might be a pamphlet, depending on where you are A notice of rights that the employer has says hey, employee with ax in their head, you have rights, including the right to receive medical treatment benefits and the right to file a claim.
Speaker 2:You know this is required in California. As well as just giving them the basic notice. And then, just to be smart, if, in addition to employers saying, ok, well, I have to comply with my obligations to employees, here's your forms, employee, whether you decide to file a claim or not, I'm protected, here you go. You should file one anyway. Here you go. I'm going to call my insurance carrier, my work comp insurance person. I'm going to say, hey, wherever company you are that provides insurance, I have an employee who has an ax in their head. Don't know how it happened, and I'm going to investigate that, which is asterisk, that's coming later in this podcast. But putting them on notice within a certain amount of time California, I believe, is five days making sure that if you report in that time frame, that the insurance will have to cover it as long as you have insurance for the work comp side, and then, after that, we want to make sure, as employers, we're documenting everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, and it's something that's easy to forget to document stuff, but it's just so obvious that you need to do it in a case like this that really, really I don't have a lot of sympathy for people who forget to document this stuff, because if you send somebody to the hospital, just write it down. All you have to do is write down what happened, who it happened to, what day, what time and what you did. That's something that you're going to need for the process of reporting to your insurance company and it's just normal everyday processes that a business needs to engage in, which is documenting incidents all the time, because if you get asked about it and you don't want to have to explain why you didn't document it because it's just going to make you look bad and it's so easy Like look, every business is busy.
Speaker 2:Every business, especially nowadays, is trying to cut corners and make their workers work a little bit more. Their products get a little farther. Their materials trying to cut corners and make their workers work a little bit more. Their products get a little farther. Their materials last a little longer. Yes, we're trying to stretch. Everybody in California and possibly around the country are stretching. We get that.
Speaker 2:But if it's going to take you five minutes to report an incident or to document an incident, to take a picture with your cell phone that everybody has, or to check the video camera footage or tell IT to not delete certain footage, if it takes five or ten minutes, do it, because again, you need to do it regardless. But it's only going to take five or ten minutes to document the initial incident. You make some notes quickly as to what happened, what the foreman saw, then you set a schedule up to follow up and to do your investigation. But just do it. How hard is it to again document something that will save you so much time and hassle? It takes you five minutes now to save you a lifetime of depositions and legal issues, both on the personal injury and employment side, as well as possibly the workers' compensation side. So just do it. That's our advice. Just Nike that and just do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you need to get medical records, workplace safety logs, any of that kind of stuff that needs to be reviewed, put it in the investigation notes and you have 75 days in California for presumptive injuries to investigate the claim and help determine the validity for the insurance company.
Speaker 1:I was just gonna say insurance companies covering you on possibly a lot of money $100,000, $75,000 on injuries is not unknown. So just do the work to help protect yourself unknown. So just do the work to help protect yourself. Yeah, and don't treat the employee like an enemy, you know. Follow up with them, see how they're doing, because that makes a huge difference in the way that your company is going to be run and that the employees treat their work and treat their relationship with their employer, because if they see that you don't care when they get injured, they're not going to work for you, you and that's going to cause even more injuries and more mishaps and, uh, it's really gonna put a strain on your business.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yep, let's um, let's put a pin in that one, because I think what?
Speaker 1:about medical care, though. Do you have to send to the hospital? What is your duty as the employer? Like, if you see the guy with the axe in his head, can you just be like hey man, you know, you got some blood on your shirt. Uh, you know. Do you need some Tylenol? Or? Um, do you have a more?
Speaker 2:no requirement at all. You see injuries, you're like, you point at them, you give them the haha laugh that Nelson gave them in the Simpsons and then you walk away. That's it. If there's a door, you close it. There's a lock, you lock it, that's it no, just kidding absolutely.
Speaker 2:Hopefully, before this point of this joke, which again is poor, that everybody listening understands that obviously you have an immediate right, as a duty, as an employer, to make sure that the employee receives immediate medical attention services. Yeah, emergency services. Call an ambulance, call 911. Again, depending on what's happening, if it's a serious injury, life-threatening injury, call 911, period. You don't want to be in trouble for two things, you know. You say, hey, there's an accident, let me just pull that out for you. Don't do it, just call somebody or follow your internal procedures and policies and practices based on whatever the injury is. And if it's something else, like maybe it's a non-axe related injury, maybe it's an emotional injury, maybe it's a soreness, maybe it's stiffness, maybe it's a cut, maybe it's a bruise, contusion, something like that, there's going to be a different way to go about it. You're going to say here's the forms of how to report a claim, but also here's some information about our medical doctors and providers in our network that you can go to and seek help from a licensed physician for evaluation and treatment.
Speaker 1:And remember this information should be in your handbook. All your employees already should have information about your work comp doctor that you use, if it's Concentra, if it's one of those services or what your plan and policy is. It shouldn't be something that you're rushing around looking for. If you have a company that deals with fiscal labor and stuff like that, make sure that this is ready to go.
Speaker 2:If there's only a way for an employer to convey this information to an employee, like on a poster or something, again it should all be on the poster California again, specifically, I staple a packet of stuff up there. I make sure employees have everything they need. It's not something you want to screw around with, because, again, lying about it, ignoring it, letting it fester especially for wounds it all gets worse. So just again, do the right thing, do what you're obligated to do under the law and get all the information that you have and can give to the employee. Give that to them.
Speaker 1:Okay, I think it's time we took a quick break. We want to go in next talking about less obvious injuries, ones that don't manifest physically like axes in the head, and talk a little bit about retaliation and and what it really means to be able to have reasonable accommodations and what those reasonable accommodations are supposed to allow you to do as an employee. So stick around, we'll be back in a couple minutes and I'm opening my dragon box with your other hand and we're back. This is Arda over here at the Employee Handbook Podcast with my partner, ryan Ellis. Hello hello.
Speaker 1:I want to shout out our sponsors, law Office of Ryan Ellis and Law Office of Arda Wildeborg. Our sponsors, law Office of Ryan Ellis and Law Office of Art Wildeborg, two completely unaffiliated to this podcast, other than advertising law firms. That are great. That are great. Yeah, you should just hire them and pay them all your money, all the money. So we want to backtrack, because what happens is we go on this pretend five minute break and then we talk about all the stuff that we forgot to talk about in the first segment. So this is where we do that and we want to talk a little bit more about investigating injury.
Speaker 2:Well, it's funny because, just to address your first point, there is that it's like you study all day or all week and you prepare for this podcast recording and I do all my research, but then, like the mic goes on, the camera goes on, the lights get all bright and Hollywoodish and then I just I'm just so excited that I lose my train of thought and I just say whatever comes to, comes to mind. So, as I mentioned earlier, let's take that pin out of investigation and you know, discuss it now, um, anyway.
Speaker 1:So we want to talk about investigations and also, uh the um, proportionality of investigation. So which? By which I mean the bigger the injury, the bigger your, the bigger the injury, the bigger your company, the bigger the work site, the bigger this, the bigger the investigation has to be, the more responsibility is going to be put on the employer, by the employee, by the insurance company, by the government, by everybody, to do a thorough investigation so people know why the injury was caused, who's responsible and possibly remedial things in the future, et cetera, et cetera.
Speaker 2:And remember, too, for coming from our like advice perspective or our podcast discussion perspective. When you're at trial or when you're you've been sued as an employer and your attorney comes to you who you need to hire because you're hopefully a corporate entity or some sort of formal entity, anyway, the your attorney comes to you and says, hey, a client, employer, why didn't you do this? Why didn't you do that? Give me all your notes from your investigation. It's a hindsight, 2020 view on what you should have done back when all of this happened. So remember, if you say, oh, I don't need to do X, I don't need to do Y, but then later on the attorney is going to ask you why didn't you talk to the employee? Why didn't you save your video camera footage? Why didn't you interview his coworkers? Why didn't you check the ax building, the ax making machine for defects? Why didn't you shut down the process for a day? Because somebody almost got killed axe in their head? We don't need to shut down the line because they're fine to send them to the doctor, but you might want to do that Because, again, liability issues aside, you need to investigate.
Speaker 2:And again, the bigger the injury, the bigger the investigation. Yeah, well, definitely optics, but the bigger the investigation is more of an epithet for like well, wait a second, if somebody gets a scratch on their finger, you don't need to spend 20 hours investigating and interviewing 50 people, but if someone has an ax in their head you best shut down those operations and interview everybody. Save cameras. I mean maybe hire a news crew to come in and videotape it for you, I don't know. But really really do the work, because again you're going to be asked later A big injury, you're going to get sued, you're going to have to deal with insurance one of the two and they one of the two and they want to see documentation, they want to see what happened and the sooner you do that investigation in relation to the incident or the injury, the better the evidence will seem or will be in regards to accuracy and admissibility.
Speaker 1:Also, one thing that I didn't think of until right now was dual liability for work comp and personal injury. That is something that is very nuance filled I almost said nougat filled.
Speaker 2:Not snicker bar.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because my jack-in-the-box is not here yet. I'm still starting. So something that's a little bit more nuance filled. Is I completely lost my train of thought, Brian?
Speaker 2:help me out here. Yeah, you're talking about the dual liability between.
Speaker 1:That's right dual liability. So here's an interesting situation. Let's say you have an employee who's sitting at work. They're at their desk typing away and the ceiling tiles above them fall on their head. Obviously that's an injury that occurred at work and you, as the employer, have to go through the process. Here's the DWC1 form Go report the injury, call my insurance company, yada yada yada.
Speaker 1:But let's say you're renting and you are not the owner of the building. Then there's a possibility that the employee could also sue the building. But what if you do own the building? So you're the employer and the building owner? You do own the building, so you're the employer and the building owner. Can they sue you for a personal injury? In this case? Yes, they can. In California there is an exception that if the employer say owns the building, their role as the owner of the building is not the same as their role as employer. So the employee can actually sue the company as the building owner and operator of the building and not just as the employee as their employer. So they are not barred from bringing another personal injury suit in that case. That is a very rare carve out example that I use, but it's actually a real life example. So something to keep in mind about kind of dual liability, personal injury and work comp.
Speaker 2:Right, and that hits the point specifically as to why you need to do a thorough and good investigation, because the more documentation you have and the more investigation you performed before evidence gets lost or before employees quit, or before witnesses may not remember, or before your video camera footage is automatically deleted it's going to save you the hassle of possibly being liable for something that you're not liable for. So that just kind of hits on it a little bit harder there. The other thing, too, to think about is the bigger the company, the bigger your company is, the more, I guess, the more chance you have an HR department which would help with this, but also the more chance you have, or the more need you have for hiring your internal or external general counsel. You want to make sure that you have something, whether it will, first of all, the name of the podcast Employment Handbook, employee Handbook. You need to have that in order. You have your policies and procedures in order, which should cover all of these things, all of these things. But if you have general counsel or you have a good HR department or both, you have someone or some people to talk to about these issues, to be able to find a good action plan and have more boots on the ground, so to speak, to help investigate, to help deal with the issue and to help really get the documentation in order to make sure you're fully and that you fully investigate and you're fully protected. We say this all the time and I say that because I don't know if we do or not. But we're going to now, which is, you want to be proactive.
Speaker 2:Don't be reactive If someone gets hurt and then the next day you do your employee handbook, you hire an attorney, you get insurance, hire an HR person and then you have all these policies, procedures. It doesn't help anybody and it will actually make it worse for you Because, again, you didn't have anything at the time that it happened. So I want to make sure you're proactive here. Hire a general counsel, put him or her or they on retainer, make sure you have someone you can ask questions to and, again, it's not expensive. You don't have to pay an attorney if they're not doing any work for you. Just have something or somebody to go to if you have an issue beyond your handbook and your HR and your procedures and policies, and your HR and your procedures and policies.
Speaker 2:So just to highlight on the investigation a little bit more, if I can try to stop ranting here, is that you want to conduct your investigation in good faith. You want to conduct that good faith investigation, gathering information about how this injury happened, maybe, if there's witnesses, identifying who those witnesses are and getting their statements Again in a temporal nature to the incident, if possible, just because, again, people forget things. Things change. The human mind doesn't work as well on remembering things as time goes by, reviewing documents, if any, that could help maybe figure out what happened or why it happened, whether that's workplace safety logs, video camera footage, video camera footage I don't know other things that could have happened that you may have in the company or in your workplace that would help with the investigation, finding out how it happened and also, like you, want to make sure that the claim is valid. There was that. What is the example of? Was it Wendy's? Where an employee at Wendy's cut off their thumb and put it in the chili and served the chili?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's right yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you had the issue of the thumb being cut off in the back room, but also the person who had the thumb in their soup or chili or whatever it was. You got all these issues. So again it happens and people sometimes desperate not saying they're good or bad people because we don't know them, but desperate people do desperate things and you want to make sure that when you conduct your investigation, you have enough information to determine not only what happened but also to prevent that in the future and to make sure it's even valid.
Speaker 1:And for companies that are worried about false claims because there's a lot of a lot of companies, of course, are going to be worried about fraud, with fraudulent claims on their work Leave that up to the insurance company.
Speaker 1:One thing that the insurance company will do quite often and I talked to a good friend of mine who is a work comp defense lawyer is hire private investigators to watch the employee. That's something that you always hear about, you know in PI and like, oh yeah, you know, they probably got somebody taking pictures of you, etc. Etc. Well, in work comp, guess what they do. So don't feel the need to be like a vigilante and check out whether or not your employee is actually injured and do that kind of stuff. That's all kind of stuff that's going to get you just in more trouble and it's not worth it. Remember, the insurance company took over this already. They took over the investigation. They took over responsibility. You've paid for this already. You have nothing to do with it anymore.
Speaker 2:Just do the part that you're supposed to do and get in and get out. Yeah, and just to add, there's I know specifically of a few large entities here in California that have departments that specifically are in place to determine whether or not you have defrauded them for work comp. They will investigate you at the. So, since it's at the employer level, so let's say the law, our law firm has a this department. If an employee gets hurt on the job, this department will essentially watch them. They'll investigate them internally at work, externally, you know, kind of outside, without violating privacy laws, and just keep an eye on this person to determine whether or not they're being fake or not. And you'd be surprised at the stories I hear about Facebook posts and people going to events and even showing up to work events, which again to me is a little ridiculous Claim. You're injured and show up and you're not injured all of a sudden, but anyway. So be aware that there's policies in place, there's procedures in place. Just again, no-transcript.
Speaker 1:It's just better to rip the band-aid off and do it the right way the first time yeah, I mean, the entire system is set up to make sure that ripping the band-aid off is going to be not as bad as going through the meat grinder with them. When, when you do stuff like tell your employee not to tell the hospital that the injury happened at work, don't report the injury all those kinds of things Fire the employee for reporting the injury or threaten to fire them for reporting the injury, which are things that you don't want to do either, and also in your documentation, and also in your documentation, if the investigation allows, maybe carefully write notes about what was done to prevent this happening in the future. That's something that you want to, of course, discuss with your attorney, because you don't want to accidentally become liable for something and admitting to it. So be very careful. When you're producing documentation for more serious injuries, make sure you do so in conjunction with your attorney.
Speaker 2:Well, actually, this is a good plug for our sponsors, ryan Ellis Law and the Law Offices of Ardable DeBoer. Great things, great things. And so this is one of those. Like you press the DJ button, there you go, and this is where, if you have a situation where this happens to you or you don't know what to do, you're, you're in shambles because someone just reported an injury at work and you're thinking, oh my gosh, what do I do?
Speaker 2:I heard this on a podcast somewhere. What was it? Oh yeah, it was those two cool guys, ryan and arda. Yeah, this is where you call us. This is where we can actually help you in real life, in real time with the situation. So this is a good plug for the sponsors, ryan and Arda. If you have a workplace issue, whether it's handbook related, whether it's injury related, call us, we will help. You got two different sides of the coin here. You got two perspectives. We'll make sure that whatever you need or question-wise and answer-wise is taken care of and provide you with the right advice to do the right thing, to not get screwed later by either a lawsuit or insurance or both.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and remember you're not getting screwed by the employee, you're getting screwed by yourself. These things are an inevitability that's going to happen in your business. The attitude that you need to develop is one of a business owner who's looking out for the interest of the business, not a person who's getting pissy at somebody for filing a claim and making their insurance go up. This is just something that always happens as a business owner.
Speaker 2:It's just real life. People get hurt, things happen. That's not necessarily their fault. That's why workers' comp, specifically, is a no-fault system.
Speaker 1:And what I also want to talk about is, uh, just quickly, the employer's duty or employee's duty.
Speaker 2:Why I?
Speaker 1:always do that.
Speaker 1:It just keeps throwing us up, it's so close, I'm just I'm gonna go in the car and cry for about three hours after this podcast because of all the mistakes, right, um, but what I want to talk about is the employee has to come and tell you that they're injured. Obviously, if they're having an injury, that is something that caused them a concussion or causes them to pass out. Or you have constructive notice because you see that an axe hit them in the face at work. Obviously that's something that they're not going to have to come directly notify you of, of like, hey, that axe you just saw me hit me in the face, just hit me in the face. So you know they have to report injuries as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:Again, cumulative trauma injuries don't really follow that. Cumulative trauma is something that's not like an acute injury, like an axe suddenly hitting you in the face. It's something over time, something like carpal tunnel from typing or back injuries from lifting repeatedly. The employer is still obligated to process the claim if the connection is established much, much later. Again, timeliness is very important. Employees they're generally required 30 days to report the injury once they're aware of it and they can get denied their claim if there's no valid reason for the delay.
Speaker 2:See something, say something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's basically good faith. Most likely their claim is going to be accepted by the insurance company out of safety. But a lot of claims get denied. So just make sure that you know, as an employer, when the injury happened. Again, documentation, so if a report gets made too late you can supply the insurance company with that information.
Speaker 2:Right, right, right Agreed and then just kind of during the last kind of point on investigation here is that while you're investigating the issue and the incident, you want to maintain communication with the employee, the injured person, again to the extent you can, relating to applicable law, if they're on leave or if they've taken some sort of work protected leave or communication protected leave. Don't call them and contact that person then, but you want to make sure throughout the investigation that you're maintaining open communication with the injured employee, making sure that the employee or the injured person is aware of the process, of what's going on if you need information, if they ask for information, and providing any necessary things to them if asked upon. But again, one, do not violate laws for non-communication if the person's on a protected leave. And two, maybe more importantly and I'm surprised I have to give this advice but don't talk about it around the office.
Speaker 2:If Arda got hurt because he got hit with an ax in the office and you know work comp related or person related or employment related in any way, and Arda has to take some leave because he had an accident, I should not be going around my office and telling people what happened when Bob asked me at the water cooler. Hey, what happened to Arda? You know it looked bad. I shouldn't be gossiping about that. When somebody comes around and says, hey, ryan, I have a question about what happened to his head, I shouldn't be asking about that Unless that person is part of my investigation and that communication is part of that investigation, which, again, is made clear and should probably be, probably probably be recorded. There should be no communication. Don't gossip about it, because again, what that does makes it worse. Yeah, and again.
Speaker 1:All of this stuff later on in a lawsuit is not going to look good when you have employees testifying that you guys have loose lips when it comes to discussing employee health matters yes okay, so we're going to take another break right now so we can have like a natural pause in the podcast, and then we're going to talk about it right now, so we can have like a natural pause in the podcast and then we're going to talk about it.
Speaker 2:It's so natural we talk about it. It's so natural, yeah.
Speaker 1:That's totally not awkward at all, because you know we prepared so much to do this. Okay, Anyway, this is the end of the segment. Next segment we're going to talk about like emotional injuries and stuff like that. So goodbye, and we are back to the employee handbook Podcast with Arda and Ryan. Shout out to our sponsors. Law Office of Ryan Ellis. No, that's not your name Ryan Ellis Law Corporation, who do I sign the check for you.
Speaker 2:Google my name. I'm like number 50 on the list. There's a hockey player with my name. There's a NASCAR drive I just got. I love my name, but I didn't get the good Google results.
Speaker 1:No, it's not that great as Ardo Wildeboer. Anything I've ever done like my academic decathlon record is still up on like page two of Google. I placed second in LA County in the 1999-2000 academic decathlon. I think it was just the county results. I got second place. It was pretty good that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even my imdb.
Speaker 1:I'm 13th like I mean, come on, how many ryan ellis's are there?
Speaker 2:that? Are you really think it's a common name?
Speaker 1:I think it's pretty common. There's another, there's another, ryan ellis, attorney, uh, over here in la, who's always uh advertising on billboards. Ryan ellis, yeah, on billboards.
Speaker 2:I swear to god I still don't get phone calls from those.
Speaker 1:Hmm yeah, I mean, I call that guy all the time when you don't pick up just look at it hey man other guys don't pick it up. Can you talk? Uh, anyway, um, we're still doing a podcast here, apparently. Um, and my jack-in-the-box is still not here. What's going on?
Speaker 2:um, so. So let's get back in good transition into uh about injuries at work.
Speaker 1:Um, since after hearing there's other ryan ellis's and that you don't think my name is very common you kind of talk about with any certain specificity. You got it.
Speaker 2:That's how to pronounce it so Ryan what I want to ask you.
Speaker 1:In California, does the law make any distinction for workers' compensation related duties for physical and non-physical injuries? No, it does not. Okay. So would that mean stress, depression, anxiety and those types of things would potentially be covered by work comp.
Speaker 2:Potentially yes, and that just depends on the origination of the injury.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so let's say there is a connection to be made to work from the stress and depression. Then you can file a claim. Is that correct? That's correct, okay. So this is kind of where it becomes difficult and the reason that we brought up the the ax thing was the ax thing is so obvious, it's so well, I mean, to most people. I guess you know, if there's an ax in your head, you know it's not supposed to be there. But if somebody comes into the office and, let's say, kind of commiserates with their manager about difficulty completing a project or something like that, and just saying, oh man, I'm so stressed out about finishing this stuff I can't sleep, and stuff like that, ryan, do you think that's something that triggers liability in the employee to have to give them a DCW-1 form?
Speaker 2:In the employer.
Speaker 2:Yes, I only made a joke about that because you posted, you talked about it. No, absolutely. If an employee comes up to you, whether you're a manager, a supervisor, someone in any kind of control over that employee, or you hear about it, you want to make sure that if they're complaining about work injuries and again, this job makes me depressed this job does this. I feel like I can't concentrate because all I think about is this job Again, safer the better. Give them the form, give them the rights, give them an option, point them to the board in the break room that says, hey, this is what you need to do if you feel like you're injured Because, again, non-physical claims, non-axe in the head claims, they're still injuries.
Speaker 2:That doesn't mean, especially nowadays we've talked about this in previous podcasts especially nowadays when you have injuries or a lot of more focus on the mental health side of life, which, as professionals and non-professionals, we know that that is a humongous toll on someone. We all deal with it. So there's no reason to ignore it. There's no reason, as an employer, should say, well, hey, they say they were depressed. Nah, it's probably not from work. We're good. No, give them the form.
Speaker 1:And even just, it's very difficult to ask them outright are you depressed? I mean, first of all, they're not a doctor, so they can't tell you specifically yes, I have, you know, they can't self-diagnose if they haven't been diagnosed before. And tell you I'm depressed and give you like the same level of liability you would have if a doctor told you they were depressed. But at that point, something has been triggered that you should probably give the form, and the reason I was thinking about this was in relation to sexual harassment claims. About this was in relation to sexual harassment claims. That's really what sparked it for me, because, let's say, you have an employee who complains about sexual harassment at work, right? So obviously this is a situation that's very difficult for the employer.
Speaker 1:The last thing you want, as an employer, is one of your employees being sexually harassed. Okay, number one. Of course you don't want them being sexually harassed. Okay, number one, of course you don't want them being sexually harassed, because you don't want people being abused, harassed and feeling like this.
Speaker 1:But I mean, listen, the reason we're listening to this podcast and the reason we're making this podcast is because people care about money and getting sued. So that is something that you really have to think about like shit. I don't want to get sued and I don't want to be liable for, say, one of my managers harassing one of my employees and you don't want to admit ever that that happened and that you're liable as an employer. So as an employer, kind of like in a rock and a hard place. Because what do you do? Do you offer now psychological treatment to the person who's claiming to be sexually harassed? If A, ryan, let me ask you in the situation A that you don't believe them or B, even if you do believe them, you're so scared of a lawsuit that you don't want to impute liability on yourself because you're admitting oh hey, she's going through some emotional problems, so we have to offer her some sort of psychiatric treatment.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the answer is yes. I mean, you want to offer that person treatment, one to protect your own behind, given that if you don't provide that treatment, there's an additional claim, potentially for failure to prevent, for mitigation of damages or failing to provide work comp information or treatment information, based on just your duty to again provide that option and at the end of the day, the insurance company might deny that claim. But again, that's not your problem. Your problem as an employer is giving them that information. Hey, look, I know you've dealt with this. You've said X, Y, Z happened.
Speaker 2:Whether it happened or not is not important, but you're dealing with the stress, this anxiety, this depression, why this happened to me. You know the night terrors, all of that stuff. You need to see a doctor. If you want to, or don't say you need to see a doctor, If you need to see a doctor, here you go. This is all the information you need. Please, if you need any help, you let us know, We'll help you with it. And now that we kind of touched on admissibility or that admitting liability thing, which is by giving your employee that hey, you said you were sexually harassed. Now you're saying you're depressed. Here's some forms because you need to get treatment. You're not admitting liability, You're just meeting your obligation under the law. And again, if you provide that information, you're protected because again you provided it. You don't have to drive the person to the doctor, you don't have to force them to take leave, but you gave them the information. But if you don't provide it, you're in even deeper trouble. So you have to provide it.
Speaker 1:Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I was just going to say, like, in terms of the deeper trouble, this is something like I don't know if you're going to get a lawsuit for failing to provide or failing to offer work comp benefits to somebody who is sexually harassed. I mean, of course, the lawsuit is going to come for the sexual harassment. It's going to be, like you said, like an add on claim. It's not something that we see argued a lot, uh, to make sure she was okay, you didn't check on her, you didn't do all the things that you're required to do by law and that could play um well to a jury that the company is being um, uh, what's the word? Negligent? Negligent, yeah, negligent, but um in the legal sense, but also just um, uh, callous, which is what the the jury is going to think. They're worried more about the emotional callousness that they will then turn into negligence. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And again, that just goes back to my original point, which is don't make it worse. If you're going to get sued, you're going to get sued, period. This is California, especially here. This is California. You're most likely going to get sued. Aside from being the third or fourth largest economy in the world, I don't know why people work in California or do business in California You're going to get sued.
Speaker 2:If someone is sexually harassed and you don't resolve it timely, professionally, appropriately, you're going to get sued. Sometimes you'll get sued even if you do that, just because this is California. But again, it goes down not only to a an a like business acumen or legal requirement. It goes down to like human decency. And if you see someone that's hurt, you see someone that's suffering for whatever reason everybody's different you should really provide them the form. And this is the same advice I give to clients that come to me and ask me what to do. I tell them to give them the form. Don't make it worse.
Speaker 2:We can't go back in time, but we can try to prevent things in the future. And again, like Arda said, you don't want a plaintiff's attorney to go in front of a jury and say this person was sexually harassed. You're going to determine whether or not it happened, but remember they were sexually harassed on day one, day one through 400 or whatever. This person experienced mental anguish, trauma, anxiety, depression, can't sleep, can't do this, can't do that, and the employer did nothing Instead of investigating, instead of providing the forms for to go see a doctor, instead of providing any sort of solace or medical treatment. My client suffered. You don't want to hear that, because that's where you get the bad stuff. You get big damages, you get big verdicts, you get punitive damages. We don't want that. You want to prevent it. And again it could have been prevented by just doing the right thing.
Speaker 1:I think what triggered this whole discussion in my head was I was sitting in a deposition where my client was getting deposed by the opposing counsel and opposing counsel said well, if it was so bad, why didn't you seek medical treatment or psychiatric treatment? This was somebody who makes. I think she was making $16 an hour. Who makes I think she was making $16 an hour. The average price in LA for a non-insurance taking psychiatrist like on the cheap end, is $250.
Speaker 1:So during the break I asked opposing counsel let me do the math real quick how she thought my client was gonna afford $250 an hour treatment when she makes $15 an hour. She would have to work approximately 17 hours to have one hour of treatment. So they will try to turn it around on you, the defense attorneys. I'm saying, if you sue for harassment and bring something like that up like mental anguish or distress, if you sue for harassment and bring something like that up like mental anguish or distress, but you can easily turn it around on them and see how the company would have liability for not providing mental psychiatric care to their employees if they were harmed at work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so just do it. Physical damage, physical injury is easy. Right, they're bleeding, you need to just. Generally, I think most people say, oh my gosh, you're bleeding, let's fix that. However, they do it. That's just, that's just human nature.
Speaker 1:If you can, walk by a bleeding person and not react or want to help them, then you're a bad person in my opinion.
Speaker 2:But I say that kind of a preface as to these non-physical, possibly mental or emotional injuries that you can't see. But that's why there's a suicide helpline, that's why there's drug abuse helplines, because a lot of issues that you can't see or that physical manifestations of and people aren't going to want to talk about it. But if, for some reason, you know, they say, hey look, I'm having some trouble. Or hey look, you know, whatever I've been late a few times, it's because of X, I can't sleep.
Speaker 1:Speaking about moral stuff, we want to talk about retaliation here because that is kind of a moral related issue. Of course it's a business thing, because you don't want to. If you feel like somebody has faked an injury or something like that or is taking advantage of the system and putting a lot of pressure on your business and taking away resources from your business, you want to get rid of that person. You're looking at that person as sort of a leech and what do you want to do when they come back from leave? You want to get rid of this SOB right away. Let's talk about if you can do that and, if you can, how you do it the right way. So, number one there's anti-retaliation protections in California labor code something or other. 132a is the big one. If you want to remember that, write it down somebody. So you have to.
Speaker 2:Well that one specifically prevents retaliation related to workers' comp plans?
Speaker 1:Yes, and so retaliation in this case means what? Any adverse actions. What are adverse actions? Adverse actions are something like termination, demotion, reduction in hours, schedule change, anything that makes their life appreciably more difficult.
Speaker 2:Those are all retaliation.
Speaker 1:And so those are things that you don't want to do. And well, I think, Ryan, what do you see with employers complaining to you about wanting to get rid of employees who are placing these extra burdens on them? What do you tell them?
Speaker 2:Well, I tell them not to do anything. I tell them to document everything and not take any action until we have a reasonable amount of time, until there's a separation of any causal nexus between whatever that person complained about and any sort of adverse employment action. For example, if there's a sexual harassment allegation between a manager and an employee, the employee complains, a manager has sexually harassed him or her and they, you know whatever. They put somebody on. Leave. You, do an invest pending an investigation. Your investigation comes back. Somebody's right, somebody's wrong, nobody's right, nobody's wrong, doesn't matter. There's a conclusion to the investigation.
Speaker 2:You think, as an employer, I'm going to fire one of those two employees. One, you don't want to hire, you don't want to fire the manager because, well, it's a manager. One, it's hard. And two is that that person might not have done anything wrong, depending on your investigation. Two is, if you don't fire that manager, then you might have additional issues with the person that claims sexual harassment. Three, and more importantly, is you can't fire the person who complained, because if you fire the person who complained, the first thing they're going to say is wait a second. I complained about sexual harassment. They investigated whatever the result was found, and now I'm fired. You retaliate against me. You're only firing me because of my um, my complaint to HR, whoever about this harassment?
Speaker 2:Now, every, every employer is different and every employer has uh, policies and procedures of how to work up the case and how to document things to file. You know write-ups, pips, whatever. But if you're an employer like most of our clients or at least my clients who come to me too late and I say, well, let's see the employee's file, you say they're not good at their job, you want to fire them. Let me see their file here. And they give me a file and there's nothing in it, like absolutely nothing in it. So Like absolutely nothing in it.
Speaker 2:So not only can you not fire that person because there's no causal nexus between, or there would be a causal nexus between, their complaint and you terminating them, but there shift. Do not ship them to the what is it the worst location or factory you have. Don't do that. Don't take anything away from them. Just don't do it, because again that's going to make your life worse, going to have a bad time about retaliation. Or somebody complains about harassment, or someone thinks they've been discriminated against, or someone thinks they've had some sort of incident at work. Treat that person like you would want to be treated. And again, that's something that never happens, because employers not only are cheap, but they either don't have the right policies, don't do the right thing or they just kind of take a. This person is looking for money attitude, and that's not the right thing to do, so just don't do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and thinking that you've won the case before a case even starts, thinking just, oh well, I don't care, they don't have any evidence, I'm going to win. Well, you're still going to have to pay a ton of money and you're still going to have to go through the whole process of the lawsuit potentially. So that's not something that is fun or cheap. And so, yeah, always just keep that stuff in mind. A lot of this stuff too. This is all done and taken care of through hiring. You want to hire people that are good employees, that you can trust, that you feel will compliment your company, and the larger your company gets, the harder that is to do. But again, we're not talking about how it should be, we're talking about how it is.
Speaker 2:And also, obviously, it's going to cost a lot of money going through litigation. We stress that every time that it's cheaper to do it the right way. But it also goes down to not only the people you hire but the employment practices you have at your company, the handbook that you have at your company, the documenting of things that should or shouldn't happen, putting people on performance plans, holding people accountable. If you don't hold people accountable, you'll always get bit in the butt about it every single time, because somebody's going to come back and say something. And then, well, you said I got demoted because I didn't stand in line for seven minutes every day, but the other people don't have to do that. Why not? Because I complained about harassment? You'll always lose that argument because there's no facts to support it. You can have 10 freaking witnesses come up and talk about how that's not what happened, but the person who complains about it will always have a reason or always have a way out of it. You will always lose as an employer and I say lose, as in the factual argument, not necessarily the case. So just again, follow your procedures. Hold people accountable for their job every single time. Whether you like to or not, that's literally what your job is.
Speaker 2:If you're HR and enforce the policies and procedures, if you do that and you have an adequate file whether good or bad for an employee, then you get to a point where, hey, someone complains about harassment. That might be a lie Not saying it is but your investigation will find that out and if you ever have to terminate that employee, you have a documentation to support it. Because then that gets you away from the legal argument, which is there's no causal nexus between the complaint whatever it is, harassment, discrimination, whatever they're complaining about and the termination. Because if you do fire that person and you don't have a file, they're going to say that every single time I complained, I was harassed. I complained because I was discriminated against. Whatever Adverse employment action happened, it's just because I complained. Because I was discriminated against Whatever Adverse employment action happened, it's just because I complained.
Speaker 1:And you know what. I remember a case or a company that you told me about, that you're advising, who had a lawsuit, unfortunately, for pregnancy discrimination because they failed to document her lateness. This is an employee that before she went on pregnancy leave, from what I remember, was constantly late. It was never documented. She got pregnant, went on leave, came back from her pregnancy leave, continued to be late all the time and got fired for it. But then she came and sued for pregnancy discrimination because she had a reasonable claim for pregnancy discrimination, even though she was actually fired for lateness because they didn't have any documentation of the lateness.
Speaker 2:Yep, and imagine that trying to be be that employer right? Imagine you're in front of a jury. Well, yeah, she was late 55 times within X amount of time, and so we fired her. Okay, then the plaintiff's attorney comes up. You know, they tighten their tie or they button up their dress, whatever they do, I don't know. They get up to the stand and they ask so, mr Employer or Mrs Employer or whoever employer, give me one piece of evidence from your file where this person was late. You're like, oh, I don't have anything. And guess what happens? The jury thinks you're an idiot, and then they look at you and everything you say after that doesn't matter. And then they discredit you and then you lose.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and even if you do have something, let's say, you bring in the time part and show oh look, 907, 912. Well, did you do anything about it? No, well, do you have any type of document that shows that you have a problem with this tardiness? No, is it in your handbook? No, so you are basically at the mercy of the plaintiff's attorney at that point.
Speaker 2:Yep, agreed, agreed. And so the rule of thumb here is don't retaliate document. And if you make a logical business decision based on your files, you can do that. But again, the closer in time to any complaint of harassment, discrimination, the more likely you're going to get a letter from a lawyer saying, hey, we need to see your files, and which is again a precursor to a lawsuit. You don't want that. Do the right thing see your files, and which is again a precursor to a lawsuit.
Speaker 1:You don't want that. You do the right thing. Um, and quickly, I just want to go over what uh also happens to be a responsibility of the employer from, uh, let's say, an employee coming back from medical leave. Uh, sometimes they require reasonable accommodations to be able to do their job, and I just want to go over the do their job part, because reasonable accommodations mean that you can do your job the way that you could if you were not injured, and at the same pace and speed as basically everybody else. So if you still can't do your job, let's say within two hours of everybody else, even with the accommodations you've been given, then you are not, I mean, I guess, performing up to your responsibility as an employee and you could be fired.
Speaker 2:Right, it's not an accommodation at that point, right. So like if you needed, like, a different keyboard for your computer to type because you can't bend your wrists the same way due to an injury you sustained at work or just in general. You know things change, you need a new keyboard and you demand that you get this keyboard. They give you a keyboard. It doesn't help you One. It's not an accommodation to. You're just failing to do your job. So, yes, the reasonable accommodation.
Speaker 2:I think we might have spoke about in a previous podcast. But reasonable accommodation is a big issue because there's a dichotomy between well, the employee is asking for x, let's say it's a ramp for somebody who lost their leg in an industrial accident, so they need a ramp so their wheelchair can go up the steps into the building. Now, how much does that ramp cost? Do you need railings? Is it ADA compliant?
Speaker 2:All these things come into play, which gets into a bigger argument of well, is it a reasonable accommodation that's necessary One Versus how much does it cost and is it really related to that person's work? And that's a really in-depth conversation that I'm hitting very, very 10,000, 30,000 feet level at. But what I think is trying to get to here is make sure that if you're requesting reasonable accommodation to return to work let's say it's a new keyboard, let's say it's a new chair, let's say it's another 10-minute break in the morning, another 10-minute break in the afternoon or a longer lunch, whatever you're asking to be able to do your job. You can use that because you're asking for it, but don't use later on Well, I still couldn't do my job because then not only are you not, uh, not utilizing the reasonable accommodation you asked for, but you're just failing at your job.
Speaker 1:And that again, if you don't do your job with the accommodation accommodation, then you can absolutely suffer the consequences of it and up to and including termination yeah, just um going and and saying that you have uh some sort of uh injury or something like that that makes it difficult to do your job is not gonna uh completely protect you from being fired ever. Um anyway, so that's perfect timing. Lily, um, our jack-in-the-box just got dropped off and um, we are gonna wrap up for today. So I want to thank ryan for uh coming up today, uh to my office and hanging out yeah, of course I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 2:I love making the trip. Um, that's all sarcasm. Uh, traffic sucks. California driving sucks. Um, waking up early in the morning although I do it anyway because I have children Sucks, anyway. No, it's great to be here. Hopefully we'll get you guys some more podcasts here shortly. We're going to try to be more regular with this and if you have any issues or things you want us to think about, discuss, research, talk about, shoot us an email. We've gotten a few of them. Thank you, those are on the future episodes coming up and we look forward to talking to everybody soon.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, one thing Some listener very nicely pointed out that in one of our previous episodes we've mentioned about getting temporary disability payments, and if you're getting disability payments, you cannot also collect I think unemployment insurance at the same time. I can't remember exactly what it was. All I know is you can't double dip. That's all you need to know. Hire a work comp attorney.
Speaker 2:You know who you are, you know you're a very nice lady.
Speaker 1:Thank you for your message and good luck. Everyone, Come send us money and hire us. We both have kids and need to pay for them.
Speaker 2:See you everybody, Thank you.
