Employment Law Issues

Please respond to each question set in the order in which it appears below, inserting the number of the question set as a heading or in the first line of the response to that set.

QUESTION SET ONE

Rest & Rehab, Inc. operates a chain of residential care facilities. Many of the residents have severe dementia and require significant assistance with daily living activities. As the newly appointed Human Resource director, you’ve learned that Rest & Rehab has never asked applicants or newly hired employees about prior arrests or convictions because it believes that gathering that information could be unlawful. Nor does it ask for references because it’s confident about its ability to evaluate candidates for employment. The CEO asks you for your opinion about these practices.

In light of the course reading and using the IRAC format,

  1. Identify and describe the liability issues that could arise out of Rest & Rehab’s current practices.
  2. Second, identify and describe the rule or test the courts use to analyze such issues. To receive points for this part of the question, you must reference a case in the course reading in which the rule/test was applied. Be sure to identify the case by its full name and give the page on which it appears in the course reading.
  3. Third, discuss how the court applied the rule to the salient or most important facts in that case (the court’s analysis.)
  4. Finally, analyze our fact pattern, i.e., apply the rule to our fact pattern and describe the conclusion that you anticipate a court would reach based on the law and our facts.
  5. If additional information would be helpful to your analysis, explain how and why it would impact the analysis.
  6. What changes would you recommend to the CEO to conform Rest & Rehab’s practices to the law that you discussed above?

QUESTION SET TWO

Aware that its direct care workers do a lot of lifting, Rest & Rehab wants to reduce the likelihood of lifting-related injuries and workers compensation claims. To that end, it asks all job applicants to consent to genetic tests designed to screen for likelihood of lifting-related injuries. In light of its business rationale, the company feels that it is on solid legal ground.

In light of the course reading,

1. Does this practice raise any legal issues? If so, identify and describe them.
2. Identify and describe the applicable laws and how they impact this practice.
3. What course of action would you suggest that Rest & Rehab take in connection with the practice described in question set two?

QUESTION SET THREE

You’ve also learned that Rest & Rehab employs a number of people who, based on their accents and names, appear to be from other countries. Rest & Rehab never asked any of them at any point during or after the hiring process for information related to their authorization to work in the US because it believed that doing so would violate Title VII.

In light of the course reading,

1. Does this hiring practice raise any legal issues? If so, identify and describe them.
2. Identify and describe the applicable federal law.
3. What specific additional procedures should Rest & Rehab put in place in order to conform to the applicable federal law?