Can an employer adopt a grooming policy that requires male workers who have contact with customers to be clean-shaven and have trimmed hair? Maybe … but this might amount to religious discrimination, according to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. The worker in this case was a technician at a Jiffy Lube service station. He was a Rastafarian and his religion did not permit him to shave or cut his hair. The company told him that if

The family of a patient who died in a nursing home could sue the nurses who took care of her – even though the patient’s contract with the home said that the home couldn’t be sued and any complaints had to go to arbitration instead. The family claimed that three nurses ignored warning signs of the patient’s heart problem, and she died as a result. The contract said that the family couldn’t sue the home. However,

All of us are affected by the economic recession, but you should know that certain estate planning techniques become much more valuable when asset prices plunge – so this is a good time to take advantage of them. Some of the best estate planning strategies involve giving a partial interest in your assets to your heirs now, while retaining effective control over the assets. The idea is to get these partial interests out of your estate

“Binding mediation” – a hybrid of mediation and arbitration – is catching on as an alternative to a full-blown court trial. In arbitration, a private arbitrator acts as a judge and issues a binding decision. In mediation, a mediator or “go-between” tries to resolve the dispute by working with both sides, but can’t force an outcome. Binding mediation is a combination of the two: A mediator brings the parties together and tries to negotiate a compromise,

Did you elect to take Social Security benefits before your full retirement age? If you did and are now looking for extra income, there may be an answer. Once you reach full retirement age, you can pay back the money you have received and reapply for full retirement benefits. Although you can collect Social Security benefits between age 62 and your full retirement age, if you do, your benefits will be lower. For example, if you

A new federal law signed by President Obama will make it easier to sue an employer for wage discrimination. The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act is named after Lilly Ledbetter, who worked as a plant manager for Goodyear Tire but realized only after some years had passed that she was getting paid less than her male counterparts. When she sued for wage discrimination, the U.S. Supreme Court threw the case out, saying she had filed it

A large Boston jury verdict in the case of a woman who died from an infection while undergoing cancer treatment illustrates a growing trend across the country toward lawsuits against health-care providers for causing (or not preventing) such infections. Nationally, more than 2 million people each year develop serious infections while they’re in the hospital being treated for something else. And about 90,000 of them die as a result. In addition, another 1.4 million people each