My boss is telling my mother (her old coworker, no longer working at the same company) about my work performance including personal internal Company reviews.

Answer:
Your employer is risking a defamation law suit. Your employer is protected by a qualified immunity from law suits in commenting concerning your job performance to other employees at the company that need to know. However no such immunity exists when. your employer discusses job performance to folks outside of the company. Most employers will respond to questions concerning your job performance with your dates of employment and job title and nothing else for fear of being sued for defamation.
Of course truth is always a defense to defamation. Thus is your employer can prove their statements were true, they will not be held liable. Speak to a good employment lawyer.

My gm told my coworker that I was pregnant without my consent. Now that coworker has been telling everyone that I’m faking my pregnancy just for benefits. He also makes sick comments about women and me and my family. He and the gm are best friends. I once talked to her about the harassment he caused towards another girl and she replied I can’t force him to like her. The same girl left the job.

Answer:

It is time to play chess with your employer not checkers, meaning that you need to think strategically. You probably need to make a written complaint to Human Resources at this point detailing the behavior of your coworker, and asking them to investigate the issue. A good employment attorney can help you use the right words in your complaint and what action those should trigger the employer to take.

Your employer’s Human Resources Department may try to cover up or blame you. Remember Human Resources is not your friend. The job of HR is to recruit good talent, help set payroll and protect the employer from employee lawsuits. If HR believes the best move is to fire you, they will fire you. You need someone on your side.

Let’s pretend for a moment HR protects you and fires your coworker. You have made an enemy of your supervisor who will seek to fire you. You need coaching on how to deal with this.

I was laid off from a start up yesterday without warning, I got PTO and I have friends telling me I should ask for severance on top of that, and in addition I am a disabled US combat veteran (disclosed to them) and was told I was not laid off for my performance, but that my role will not be filled. They have series A funding and are adding roles to the company at the moment. I've signed nothing, they've sent me nothing in writing, everything was done via a Google meet call that was not recorded. Can I send an email to them that will be successful in peacefully resolving this without any escalation to EEOC or Right to Sue?

Answer:

I negotiate severance packages for my clients all the time.
There is nothing stopping you from trying to negotiate something for yourself. Remember you owe you former employer nothing. They let you go then were less than truthful concerning the reason.

You might benefit from speaking to an experienced employment attorney. They should know the buttons to push to obtain a better settlement than. you can for yourself.

Consider the following scenario:

Person A is employed by a large company and has the usual "everything you do while employed by us is owned by us" in their employment contract.

Person B is self-employed and creates intellectual property (here let's assume software) in the natural course of their business.

They both work from the same home and use a shared home internet connection (for which only one of them, let's assume person A, is the official account holder).

Is there a risk that person A's employer can attempt to attach themselves to person B's business or the intellectual property created by person B's business?

For example, if B uploads intellectual property to a third-party service using the same IP address that A uses, can A's employer use that fact as evidence that B's intellectual property might have been created by A or with A's involvement?

How does the law look at this situation?

Answer:

I would not be too worried about Company A making a claim over company B's intellectual property because your wife sent something over the shared home network. I would more concerned if your Company A and your wife's company B were competitors or in the same line of business. If that is so, you could open yourself up to trade secret or confidentiality legal actions.

I have been a lawyer in Silicon Valley for over 25 years. There are certain companies that rigorously defend their trade secrets and will sue former employees in the flimsiest of cases. After you have spent thousands of dollars defending yourself they settle with you for an apology having taught you "a lesson".

If your employer believes you may have leaked trade secrets I could see them filing a law suit connected to the shared home network. You are a computer expert. So you know the solution to this better than I do. Interesting question. Thank you.

I have an 18 year old son that casually mentioned to me that his manager at a worldwide fast/fresh food chain has been changing his clock in/out times to make it look like he only worked until 11pm. Apparently this is widespread in the district and is affecting mostly young high school aged employees.
He and all his coworkers claim this and he showed me email notifications showing when his manager docked his time each day after he left work.

Answer:

This is wage theft. I have over thirty years experience as an employment lawyer. I have filed class actions in federal and state court. Here are your options:

You can have your son and their friends go to the Labor Commissioner together and file a complaint. The advantage: no attorney's fees and the Labor Commissioner has police powers that a private attorney does not.

The disadvantages: Labor Commissioner cases only go back three years, a class action in Superior Court will go back four years. A good class action attorney will load the complaint with causes of action that the Labor Commissioner normally leaves out.

Do not let a class action attorney tell you this is an easy case. Wage and hour law has attracted many attorneys recently who will take any case and are looking for a quick settlement. They make promises like your son will make thousands of dollars for being the class representative, knowing that the courts usually award between $2500 and $7500. (and the courts are becoming more conservative because of attorneys making outrageous promises to clients)

The restaurant should owe your son and fellow students double the minimum wage, paystub and time card penalties, 17200 action plus a 203 penalty.

Based on my experience and decisions in the appellate courts, off the clock cases are some of the hardest to prove on a class wide basis.

I have a teen age son also so this one resonates with me. Get advice from a good attorney.

I was laid off on Jan 25th, by March I had multiple job offers, accepted 2 job offers (started H1b transfer with both)

Company A ( desi consulting firm) started transfer process first and took forever to submit the documents with USCIS they finally submitted on March 30

Company B started transfer process late but they diligently worked on my case with regular updates sent packet in timely manner.

I finally chose Company B and started working from March 30, today I received H1b transfer approval also with company B

I also emailed as below to company A last week

“Thanks for the update. But, due to the delay in H-1B transfer processing from company A & as per the legal opinion I had to accept another another job offer, and start working immediately to stop my 60-day grace period clock.

So, I will not be able to join company A this time, sorry about the inconvenience.”

And they have been constantly calling me saying they have already paid legal fee for my H1b transfer case, If I don’t pay them they will take legal action

Can they file case against me? Can they take legal action?

Answer: 

You need to hire a attorney to have them back off. Unless you signed contract with them the only obligation may have would be one under restitution. However since company B actually processed the H1b I doubt their case would go anywhere.

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