Sometimes, it’s tempting to offer a disgruntled employee a quick cash settlement in exchange for her signature on a liability release. If a few thousand dollars will avoid an expensive lawsuit, it’s worth it, right? Maybe, maybe not ...

Sometimes, employees who think they are about to be fired for poor performance will try to take pre-emptive action by quitting and then suing. Courts are pretty strict when it comes to “constructive discharge” ...

The American Family Association (AFA) ended a five-month boycott of Oakbrook-based McDonald’s after a company executive resigned his seat on the board of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce.

If some of your employees work under an employment contract that sets salary and other terms, be careful about changing anything. While you may need to cut salaries during tough economic times, doing so without getting a written modification is risky.

Don’t be shy about restricting employees from stealing customers when they leave. Your best bet is to include specific language and examples of the sort of solicitation you want to ban.

Carl McAloose, the former Florida Gulf Coast University athletic director, said it only took him “about five seconds” to decide to resign after he heard the university had agreed to settle with Holly Vaughn, former women’s golf coach, and Jaye Flood, former women’s volleyball coach.

Dulzia Burchette, a black former saleswoman for Abercrombie & Fitch, is suing the company, claiming racial discrimination and harassment. Burchette says she was harassed when she came to work at the company’s Fifth Avenue store with blonde highlights in her hair.

Q. Recently, an employee left our company to join a competitor. When we took a look at his computer, we found deleted e-mails and files indicating he downloaded some valuable information about our customers. We suspect he transferred it to our competitor. He was an at-will employee and we had no employment agreement with him. Is there anything we can do about this?

Good news: Employees who allege they were fired for blowing the whistle on their employers for activities that violated the federal Sarbanes-Oxley Act can’t also sue under Colorado’s common-law public-policy exception to at-will employment.

Mary Barone had worked for United Airlines since 1995. In 2005, she was promoted to manager of business process administration in Denver. Eventually, Barone sued for discrimination and retaliation, alleging constructive discharge—essentially that she had no choice but to resign.

Companies that self-administer their ERISA benefits plans, take note: Because your benefits decisions carry an implied conflict of interest (since rejecting a request for benefits such as retirement or payment of a medical bill means spending fewer company assets), courts expect your decisions to be transparent and based on good documentation.

Two dozen civil rights groups signed a letter calling for the resignation of Johnston County Sheriff Steve Bizzell, following an article in the Raleigh News & Observer in which Bizzell lamented the influx of “drunk Mexicans” who “rape, rob and murder” American citizens and are “breeding like rabbits” in his county.

In 2003, Kathleen Teare joined Re/Max of Georgia in Alpharetta as a senior vice president. She was the only female senior executive in the company. Shortly after she came on board, several female employees began complaining to Teare about inappropriate behavior by Ken Moe, the company’s comptroller ...

Former Tampa Police Department (TPD) Capt. Marion Serious Lewis forfeited his law enforcement job when he ran to unseat Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio in 2007, a Florida appeals court has ruled. The city sought to enforce Tampa’s “resign to run” statute ...

Employees who become disabled, request accommodations that never materialize and then resign may end up getting unemployment compensation. But if disabled employees fail to request accommodations, they’re out of luck ...