How does the United States Supreme Court ruling on employer retaliation impact Kansas and Missouri employers?

The common wisdom is two recent decisions further enable and protect employees who feel they are being retaliated by their employers....according to the New York Times.

These cases involve the Federal government, while a separate case involves the Cracker Barrel chain.... so the rulings have both public and private employment implications.

The lesson: get with your attorney to determine how to deal with terminations BEFORE you make any such decisions.

Employees' total lack of loyalty costs them more than $2.3 million

In seemingly a victory for employers, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that without a non-compete agreement the law provides a remedy for damages where current and former employees misappropriate trade secrets of an employer and compete with their current employers. The Court upheld a $2.3 million award by a Missouri jury against the employees.

Tim to tighten up your confidentiality agreements, confidentiality policies, create reminders that the same exist in the company on a periodic basis and improve your safekeeping of this information....and if you do it does appear the judicial system will support your claims for damages!

At Will Employee Has A Wrongful Discharge Claim

In a recent Missouri case (Dunn v. Enterprise Rent-A-Car Company(Mo.App.E.D. 2005)) a Missouri Court ruled an at-will employee could have a wrongful discharge case on a public policy exception. The reason apparently was because the employee reported to management that a surcharge on daily rental customers and other issues that he raised and was discharged.....the Court ruled the employee's reporting such "illegal" business practices violated public policy. The Court ruled employee's are encouraged to report suspected wrongdoing. OK...I agree with this point if it is clearly criminal.....yet the Court ruled the company did not violate SEC rules in this instance and could only find the employee reasonably believed they could have.....I am struggling with thinking that an employee could have a cause of action because he believes an illegal issues "may" be at occurring....should the Court's give this type of control to the employees? I do not condone illegalities, but here, it appears nothing illegal occurred....

Company Waivers in Using Company Automobiles

How about using a company vehicle waiver to point out to employees that company cars are only to be used for company business? Taken with a formal safety guideline as is pointed out in an article in the May edition of the Construction Executive, the need to have the employees acknowledge the company's desire to making safety a serious and priority issue for the company can not be overlooked. The author suggests contacting your insurance agent for vehicle usage policies. Instead, seek our your local employment attorney...avoid standardized, stock policies provided by your insurance agent.