Since March of 2020 American businesses have been challenged with unprecedented and unique obstacles. A fairly robust economic engine shut down overnight, shelves were bare and supply chains were interrupted at an alarming...more
Spotlight -
Burr & Forman Represents Coastal Carolina University in Title IX Defense Verdict -
Jim Gilliam and Hunter Freeman successfully represented Coastal Carolina University in a five-day federal jury trial...more
4/1/2021
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Cyberbullying ,
Disciplinary Proceedings ,
Employee Retention ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Infectious Diseases ,
Inspection Rights ,
Labor Reform ,
National Interest Waiver ,
OSHA ,
Restaurant Industry ,
Sexual Assault ,
Title IX ,
Travel Ban ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety
A tenured professor at Erskine College in Due West claimed the institution breached its employment contract with him as set forth in the faculty manual. The trial court overruled the jury verdict in the professor’s favor, but...more
11/9/2020
/ Breach of Contract ,
Contract Disputes ,
Contract Terms ,
Employee Handbooks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Policies and Procedures ,
Teachers ,
Tenure
In a recent case involving multiple issues—Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, constructive discharge, and state law claims among them— the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers South Carolina employers)...more
In 1832, South Carolina adopted common-law marriage by way of a court decision, holding the union was a matter of civil contract that didn’t require a ceremony. Rather, two people were married when they agreed and intended to...more
My articles usually analyze a particular case and the impact of the court's decision on the relationship between employers and employees. With the release of a number of decisions addressing employment at will earlier this...more
Two years ago, we wrote about a noncompete decision in which a special referee found a business seller had breached a sales agreement by violating both a noncompete covenant and an exclusive sales provision contained in the...more
10/23/2018
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Breach of Contract ,
Buyers ,
Damages ,
Exclusivity Clauses ,
Lost Profits ,
Manufacturers ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Petition for Review ,
Popular ,
Public Policy ,
Purchase Agreement ,
Referees ,
Request for Proposals ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Reversal ,
SC Supreme Court ,
Sellers ,
Selling a Business ,
Service Contracts ,
Terms and Conditions
In 2016 we wrote about a non-compete decision where special referee found that a seller of a business had breached a sales agreement by violating both a non-compete covenant and an exclusive sales provision contained in the...more
9/17/2018
/ Appeals ,
Attorney's Fees ,
Breach of Contract ,
Damages ,
Employment Contract ,
Exclusivity Clauses ,
Lost Profits ,
Non-Compete Agreements ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Purchase Agreement ,
Remand ,
Request for Proposals ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Reversal ,
Selling a Business
We’ve often written about the need to have clearly written policies that, once in place, are followed. If a dispute arises and there is any ambiguity in the policies and how the employer interpreted or used them, juries more...more
8/16/2018
/ Appeals ,
Breach of Contract ,
Colleges ,
Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing ,
Directed Verdicts ,
Early Retirement ,
Emergency Response ,
Emotional Distress Damages ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Policies ,
Evidence ,
Filing Grievances ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict (JNOV) ,
Professors ,
Reversal ,
Student Athletes ,
Tenure ,
Wrongful Termination
For the second time this term of court, the United States Supreme Court on the final day of the term addressed a First Amendment issue. In the first case, Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission, the Court...more
6/29/2018
/ Appeals ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Fair Share Contribution ,
First Amendment ,
Janus v AFSCME ,
Non-Union ,
Payroll Deductions ,
Public Sector Unions ,
Reversal ,
SCOTUS ,
Stare Decisis ,
Union Dues
South Carolina employers, particularly along the coastal regions, are faced every year with the question – “what do we do when a hurricane is upon us?” The real question is does the employer have a plan in place that has been...more
In a much watched union election at Boeing’s North Charleston, South Carolina facility, the International Association of Machinist won a secret ballot election in a “micro unit”. The vote included 169 workers, 104 or 61.5%...more
The South Carolina Human Affairs Law has, in its history, had very few amendments, but during the most recent legislative term, the South Carolina Legislature passed and on May 17, 2018, the Governor signed the South Carolina...more
We are about midway through the 2017-18 term of the U.S. Supreme Court. One case the Court has already decided and another it refused to take up provide some insight on how the Court has handled employment cases it has been...more
5/11/2018
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Automotive Industry ,
Car Dealerships ,
Congressional Intent ,
Department of Labor (DOL) ,
Exempt-Employees ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) ,
Human Resources Professionals ,
Leave of Absence ,
Legislative History ,
Navarro v Encino Motorcars ,
Over-Time ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal ,
Salespersons ,
SCOTUS ,
Service Advisors ,
Statutory Construction Test ,
Wage and Hour
At-will employment is the normal employer-employee relationship in South Carolina. In 2004, the state legislature passed a law stating that handbooks that took certain reasonable steps did not create a contractual exception...more
4/24/2018
/ Appeals ,
At-Will Employment ,
Building Codes ,
Construction Industry ,
Construction Permits ,
Directed Verdicts ,
Former Employee ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Medical Leave ,
Public Policy ,
Public Safety ,
Retaliation ,
SC Supreme Court ,
Stop Work Orders ,
Wrongful Termination
In 2-1 decision by a three-judge panel, the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all South Carolina employers) reversed a decision to grant summary judgment—meaning the trial court had found there was no...more
2/22/2018
/ Appeals ,
Burden of Proof ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Equal Pay ,
Equal Pay Act ,
Former Employee ,
Gender Discrimination ,
Gender-Based Pay Discrimination ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Popular ,
Reversal ,
State Agencies ,
State Constitutions ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wage and Hour
Many readers know that statutory protections passed by state legislatures and Congress are often written to favor the rights of employees. One such statute is South Carolina’s workers’ compensation law. The law requires...more
Attorneys who represent employees beginning to explore the use of nontraditional causes of action against employers. Courts and employers are seeing more defamation, conspiracy, and intentional infliction of emotional...more
A continuing point of contention in employment law revolves around who is an employee versus who is an independent contractor. The issue seems to come up often in wage and hour cases and workers’ compensation or unemployment...more
9/29/2017
/ 1099s ,
Appeals ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Health Insurance ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Independent Contractors ,
Misclassification ,
Right to Control ,
Subcontractors ,
W-2 ,
Wage and Hour ,
Workers' Compensation Claim ,
Workplace Injury
The U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals (whose rulings apply to all South Carolina employers) recently decided a religious accommodation case in which a jury awarded a former employee more than half a million dollars. The Equal...more
8/8/2017
/ Appeals ,
Back Pay ,
Biometric Information ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Collateral Source Rule ,
Compensatory Damages ,
Constructive Discharge ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Duty to Mitigate ,
Employee Benefits ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Litigation Fees & Costs ,
Lost Wages ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Punitive Damages ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Retirement Plan ,
Title VII
Over the years, we have written a number of articles about the importance of making sure your employment documents contain clear, understandable language. One of our federal district judges was recently faced with an...more
6/29/2017
/ Breach of Contract ,
Breach of Duty ,
Employment Contract ,
Fiduciary Duty ,
Intellectual Property Agreements ,
Software Developers ,
Startups ,
Technology Sector ,
The Copyright Act ,
Tortious Interference ,
Unjust Enrichment ,
Unmemorialized Agreements ,
Unpaid Wages ,
Work-For-Hire ,
Written Agreements
Lately, we’ve been seeing more cases in which public-sector employees accuse their governmental employer of violating the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Such claims can arise in many ways, but with the...more
6/12/2017
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Appeals ,
Code of Conduct ,
Compelling Governmental Interest ,
Facebook ,
Firemen ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Hiring & Firing ,
NLRB ,
Public Concern ,
Public Sector ,
Retaliation ,
Social Media Policy ,
Summary Judgment ,
Wrongful Termination
Employee disabilities are becoming a common issue that employers must address. Short- and long-term disability plans employers often make available to employees, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the varying...more
4/27/2017
/ Administrative Appeals ,
Administrative Hearings ,
American Medical Association ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Disability Benefits ,
Partial Disability ,
Permanent Disability ,
Rebuttable Presumptions ,
Return-to-Work Agreements ,
Reversal ,
SC Supreme Court ,
Substantial Evidence Standard ,
Workers' Compensation Claim
Many of you already know about Boeing workers soundly rejecting the Machinist Union’s effort to represent approximately 2,800 employees at Boeing’s Charleston facility. Seventy-four percent of voting employees desired to keep...more
Employees and their counsel have been very aggressive in attempting to couch employment claims as state-law matters and filing claims in state court instead of federal court to try to avoid the federal judiciary. For various...more
3/1/2017
/ At-Will Employment ,
Boeing ,
Breach of Contract ,
Defamation ,
Defense Strategies ,
Dismissals ,
Employment Contract ,
Exclusive Remedy ,
Failure To State A Claim ,
Federal v State Law Application ,
Implied Contract ,
Motion to Amend ,
OSHA ,
Public Policy ,
State Labor Laws ,
State Law Claims ,
Whistleblowers ,
Workplace Safety ,
Wrongful Termination