Free Legal Environment Essay Sample

In situation A, there was no violation on the employer’s part, but there was a violation on the employee’s claims. According to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, all employees are eligible for leave up to a maximum period of 12 weeks during which they will not be paid (Bagley & Savage, 2009). In this regard, the employee had only consumed 11 weeks out of the legally allowed 12 weeks; hence, he was still eligible to resume working. There are four situation in which the employee is entitled for leave. These include situations when there is birth of a child, when there is placement of a foster care child under the employee’s care, when the spouse or child of the employee requires significant care, and when there is an occurrence of a serious medical situation that warrants attention or incapacitates the employee (Bagley & Savage, 2009). Again, there was no violation on the side of the employee because he requested for permission to take care of his wife after she gave premature birth to twins. Indeed, in the event the couple had other children or other commitments that the wife was normally performing, she would be in a position to do so; hence, the help.

Nevertheless, there is a violation on the employee’s claims because the under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, the employee is not required to receive any form of payment. Hence, he should not be demanding to be paid his withheld salary for 11 weeks. According to the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, “to be legible for a family leave, the employee must have worked at the place of employment for at least twelve months and have completed at least 1,250 hours of service to the employer during that twelve month period” (Bagley & Savage, 2009, p.496). Hence, the employee had already worked for the required period of time in order to be guaranteed leave. Additionally, the decision to reinstate the employee to his previous position at the same rate of pay adequately conforms to the provisions of the Family and Medical Leave Act. The legislation requires the employee to restore the employee to the same position or another position that provides the same benefits in terms of pay and other terms when the leave period expires (Bagley & Savage, 2009). Therefore, there was completely no violation on the employer’s part; however, the employee seemed to be unaware of the conditions.

In this situation, there was a violation of the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967. The goal of any work environment should be to enhance healthy competition and performance among employees regardless of their age, sex or gender. The Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 provides protection to employees and new job applicants who are above 40 years or older from acts of discrimination, especially those arising from promotion, hiring, compensation, discharge from duty, denial/approval of specific privileges, and institution of terms and conditions (Gallo, 2008). In this regard, it was not right for the employee to be denied promotion on the basis that he was older. This is an act of discrimination and company X should be held liable for its action. Furthermore, the decision to choose an alternative employee whose performance ranking was classified as ‘average’ instead of the older employee whose ranking was classified as ‘above average’ further points out to the existence of ulterior motives, which amounts to a classical act of discrimination. Initially, the age limited targeted by the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 was between 45 and 65 years; however, significant revisions were made to the Act consequently reducing the lower age limit to 40 years, while increasing the upper limit with certain exceptions (Gallo, 2008).

Moreover, Gallo (2008) remarks that the Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 stipulates that benefits, promotions, training opportunities, and job assignments should not be given to younger employees and denied to older employees based on their age. This implies that in the event there is any form of denial for the older employee then a reasonable justification must be provided by the employee, for example, evidence of declining health status. Hence, in the absence of such form of justification, this will be classified as an act of discrimination in the work place environment. The fact that the older employee’s age was 68 years, the employer could probably have perceived that the older employee had already worked for the company for over 42 years; hence, he had enjoyed the company’s benefits for a significant amount of time. The Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1967 is applicable to a private company which has a significant workforce. Additionally, by giving the 68 year old employee the promotion, this would be considered a reward for the years he has served the company.

In situation C, in as much as the employer is partly justified on the grounds of hardship, there is some extent of violation based on provisions of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. According to the provisions “the employer must make reasonable accommodation for a qualified individual to perform the job, unless this would result in undue hardship for the employer” (Caruth & Gail, 1997, p.30). In this regard, if the controls for two of the four elevators are lowered by four inches, this will significantly change the way other employees access the elevators. The position also requires the employee to be in a position to move around all the offices in the entire seven floors. This will be another difficulty because it will require that the two lifts be reserved at certain times or else the worker may not be able to perform her duties satisfactorily. Furthermore, if the two lifts are reserved for the employee, this will have an impact on other staff members who may need to access certain wings of the building. For example, lift A could be leading to wing C, while life B leads to wing B. Hence, in the event a worker wants to access wing C, she/he may be forced to use the lift to wing B then use the corridors to access wing B. This will be undue difficulty for the company.

Additionally, the employer was also partly justified because he probably intended to protect the performance levels of other employees. According to the American with Disabilities of 1990 “employers are not required to lower performance standards to accommodate an individual if the standards are job related and uniformly applied to all employees” (p.30). In this regard, the need to change the controls of the elevators may not necessarily apply to all employees in the business setting, which may affect the way they accomplish work. On the other hand, the company should have provided a business reason to justify why they turned down the employee. According to the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990, “the selection criteria that screen-out or tend to screen applicants on the basis of disability must be job related and consistent with business necessity” (p.30). The employer did not provide sufficient explanation to the employer by pointing out to business related reasons why they turned him down. 

 

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