E13: Employees Most Likely to Litigate

In this spirited episode, host Thom Jennings and his sister, resident expert Kathleen Jennings, discuss a document written by Attorney Martin Steckel about the employee that is most likely to sue their employer.

Podcast Episode Transcript

Narrator (00:04):
You are listening to Cover Your Assets, a podcast that discusses the timely and significant legal issues faced by employers. Kathleen Jennings is an attorney who has over 30 years of experience in advising employers as to their legal responsibilities and has written extensively about employment law. Inner popular Cover Your Assets blog. If your business has employees you cannot afford not to have your assets covered.

Thom Jennings (00:32):
Hello everybody. Welcome to the Cover Your Assets podcast, the premier and number one rated Labor and employment law podcast that we do. That is my sister and resident expert Kathleen Jennings. Do. That's that We're number one, because this is the only Labor and employment law podcast that we do. But frankly, it's still the greatest. Don't you think they're sis

Kathleen Jennings (01:00):
You know, it's, it's as great as the fact that you are my favorite brother <laugh>. It's my favorite podcast and you are my favorite brother.

Thom Jennings (01:08):
Well, very nice. Well last week we kind of teased this topic out and we've gotta, we've gotta thank somebody for this one, cuz this is not entirely original content. Of course, we'll have some commentary and hopefully some colorful stories that go along with it. But Kathleen, why don't you introduce the topic, who is most likely to sue you? And of course, where we were able to garner this information from.

Kathleen Jennings (01:35):
This information comes to us from one of my law partners, Marty Stle, who put together some of this information based upon his years and years of experience, as well as his in-depth knowledge of a lot of different things. Marty knows a lot about a lot of different things. He's just, he's one of those people that is interested in learning and one of the things he likes to learn about is what would make somebody most likely to sue you, because that's the kind of information that our clients really could use. It's, it has some value for them.

Thom Jennings (02:16):
And of, and let's just, let's just say it. We don't have to, but Marty, if, if you and I were indeed Jewish, we could say he is a mench. Right? Just a just an all around good dude.

Kathleen Jennings (02:25):
He is a mench. He is a mench. And, and let's not forget that he does come from Western New York, Western New York. He is a fellow Western New Yorker. Yes. Grew up an East Bloomfield, New York on a farm. And if you ever catch Marty, he can tell you some very colorful stories of his life on the farm. I think one that I remember involves riding hogs.

Thom Jennings (02:54):
Riding hogs. Well, that could be taken a couple of different ways cuz out here in Oakfield, New York, lots of people ride hogs, but that is just another word for Harley Davidson motorcycle.

Kathleen Jennings (03:05):
These would be the four legged hogs that sooner or later become pork.

Thom Jennings (03:10):
Nice. All right. Well, with that being said, we have our topic introduced. And again we're talking about who is most likely to sue you. And we are speaking about businesses being sued by employees or I guess even potential employees as, as the case may be. I mean, you can be sued by a potential employee, not just one that you've hired.

Kathleen Jennings (03:32):
Absolutely. You can be sued by an applicant. And, and that's where, you know, last, well, two podcasts ago, we talked about interview questions. And part of the interview process is to help you weed out not only the people that are, are not right for the job, but also hopefully people that are gonna cause you more problems down the line because they are possibly going to sue you, or they're just going to be that employee that takes up an unusual amount of time as for an HR person, it's, it's that guy that just always has a complaint about something or is complaining about other employees or we'll go through kind of the list of things that you wanna look for so that you can avoid having that guy in your workplace

Thom Jennings (04:31):
Or gal

Kathleen Jennings (04:33):
Or gal. But I mean, you know,

Thom Jennings (04:37):
Oh, you know, you know, no. All right. We're not gonna go there anyhow. And, and I think one of the important things that we should mention is that if you have an employee like this, it does not mean that they're going to sue, but you wanna be proactive. So there may be, you may need to start documenting things and if, if there is eventually litigation involved, documentation is key, correct?

Kathleen Jennings (05:04):
Documentation is key when you're dealing with any employee. And I think it's also important to remember that even if you have that person, how about that? We'll say that person in the workplace that is causing problems, or you see as someone who could potentially sue you. You want to treat them the same way that you treat the other employees in the workplace. You wanna be consistent in how you treat everybody, whether someone is a pain in your rear end or whether they're a model employee. Although obviously you wanna treat your excellent employees somewhat differently than your poor employees. But that's a whole other issue that we could talk about in another podcast.

Thom Jennings (05:51):
Look at you teasing out another topic. All right, so let's, let's go through this list that that Marty prepared for us. Number one not likely to be a good or longer term employee. So how do you determine if that, what type of employee this is? They make their complaints through the system, make the system work for them, and are more likely to accept the company's resolution to a problem? What, what, what, what would flush that out for

Kathleen Jennings (06:20):
Me? That's your, that's, that's your, that's a good sign. The kind of employee who takes their complaints through the system and respects and honors the way that their complaints are resolved by the system tend to be the kinds of employees that also respect the system. They're, they're going along with the system. They know what the system is. If they have an issue, they bring it the correct way. So those are, those are employees. That's a, that's a good sign.

Thom Jennings (06:51):
That's a good sign. But it, but the next ones we have the employees that these are the bad signs.

Kathleen Jennings (06:59):
Bad signs, yes.

Thom Jennings (07:00):
Bad signs. They're more likely to be shorter term or less desirable. So, in other words, the bottom third of performers, I assume in any organization you don't necessarily wanna rank people, but there's different ways that you can rank employees based on the top third, the Midland, and of course the bottom third. And I think, I mean, is it safe to say that even if you don't have, let's say, an actual scoring system, if you were to ask coworkers or supervisors that they would be able to identify the, the bottom third of the pack,

Kathleen Jennings (07:38):
I would hope that your supervisors would be able to tell you how their employees rank in terms of performance. There's a, a number of different factors you'd wanna look at. Obviously, job performance, attendance, people that come to work every day, motivation attitude, those types of things. Supervisors, immediate supervisors ought to be able to assess the folks that work for them and, and tell you which of those employees are really good performers, which are not such good performers based on those various factors. Yeah. Someone who has a lot of absenteeism for no good reason you know, is probably gonna be down in that bottom third. Whereas somebody who comes to work every day gets there on time. That's, that's someone that you wanna value.

Thom Jennings (08:37):
All right? And here's, here's another one on the list of more likely to be a problem employee that could lead to litigation. And we know these employees, the chronic complainers, it's always something, always something,

Kathleen Jennings (08:52):
Always something. They're the, they're the boxsters. They're the complainers. Something's always not right. And it's, and, and we can actually probably move down the list. Not only is are things not right, but it's never their fault. Nothing is ever their fault.

Thom Jennings (09:13):
Yeah. And, and you know, I'm gonna we're gonna, we're gonna break our, sort of our, our tradition in terms of waiting till the end of the podcast for some stories, cuz I wanna interject a few. And we, we,

Kathleen Jennings (09:24):
You have stories from work, Thom,

Thom Jennings (09:26):
I have plenty of stories. See you, you, you have a boring work history,

Kathleen Jennings (09:30):
Don't you share one with us,

Thom Jennings (09:31):
<Laugh>, I have this, I will chronic a plainer. I worked with someone who was indeed a chronic complainer. Just love to complain about everything. My favorite complaint that they made is that now we were, we were teachers at a educational facility and one of our tasks was to clean the restrooms, which, let's be honest, nobody wants to clean the restroom. And if you're a teacher, you definitely don't want to clean the restroom. Anyhow. we all had complained chronically, I guess in, in some way or another about having to clean the restroom. But this particular employee actually went to the MSDS sheets, which is the material safety and data sheets, and determined that one of the bathroom cleaning supplies required from her interpretation, like a full body suit to be able to use. So she, she got all the employees together and not me, cuz I left by this point. I heard from a, you know, some people that I used to work with that this had happened and presented it to management stating that if they didn't have the proper materials to use this particular form of cleaning solution, which we had been using for years, that they would all report the fact that we are using this caus of chemical to get rid of the do-do stains in the restroom. Now, what do you think eventually happened to that employee?

Kathleen Jennings (10:57):
That employee sounds like the employee most likely to be voted the union steward in a unionized environment, actually

Thom Jennings (11:04):
<Laugh>,

Kathleen Jennings (11:06):
So No, no, that's my guess. Am I wrong?

Thom Jennings (11:08):
Yeah, they eventually got fired. They got fired because, because they they did, they did wind up they did wind up having a workman's comp claim. And then they just, they stopped providing the necessary paperwork to continue to continue employment. So they just eventually let them go.

Kathleen Jennings (11:24):
I, I think they missed their calling.

Thom Jennings (11:25):
Yes, yes. They were fantastically chronic complainer. Anyhow

Kathleen Jennings (11:31):
Well, I I actually have a story, Thom.

Thom Jennings (11:33):
Well, let's hear it.

Kathleen Jennings (11:34):
It, it has, it's has nothing to do with my employment, but it does have to do with the case that I defended. And there was a woman who sued her company and she sued the company for harassment. So during her deposition, I asked her to give me all of the examples of harassment that she had experienced in the workplace. And she looked at me with a straight face and she said that her supervisor had stood in her doorway and he had belched,

Thom Jennings (12:11):
Belched

Kathleen Jennings (12:14):
Belched. Like that was it.

Thom Jennings (12:16):
You just belched.

Kathleen Jennings (12:18):
You just belched.

Thom Jennings (12:19):
And I mean, I could literally, I could literally belch right now cuz I've got a, I've got a soda. Should we do that or is that just, if anyone's listening, they'd probably just go, that's so classless. Let's try it.

Kathleen Jennings (12:30):
Go for it. Cuz you, you can vel on command. We know that.

Kathleen Jennings (12:36):
So now I'm gonna complain that you're harassing me during our podcast.

Thom Jennings (12:42):
Ah, but I am not standing in a doorway.

Kathleen Jennings (12:45):
That's true. This is true. Or you're definitely not standing in my doorway. But that was her complaint. Yes. And needless to say, we did get that case thrown out on summary

Thom Jennings (12:56):
Judgment, so it kind of ran outta gas.

Kathleen Jennings (13:00):
Oh, very nice, Thom. Thank you. Very nice.

Thom Jennings (13:03):
Thank you. I appreciate it. Yes. All right. So let's look at some of the some of the other stuff here may already know the weight of the courthouse Barton rights. So work workman's competition, litigation, you know, maybe somebody that's a chronic workman's comp person. Now I, now here's a question for you. Obvi, I obviously can't discriminate and against somebody on the basis of the fact that they've had multiple workman's comp claims, but how, I mean, is there a way that an employer can find out, other than say through the grapevine that there's a sort of a chronic sewer

Kathleen Jennings (13:41):
With regard to actual lawsuits? Because all federal court dockets are online now, and a lot of state court dockets are online. You can actually find out pretty easily if somebody has filed some kind of lawsuit. Now, workers' comp is different because they're all, they're all state runs, state systems. I don't think those dockets are, are publicly available. But certainly for lawsuits, you can run a check if you want to. Some employers will run a, a background check. So in addition to criminal history, you could look for litigation history.

Thom Jennings (14:21):
I, I mean, I mean, is that, is that something you can use as far as determining whether or not you're gonna hire an potential employee or, I mean, I, I can't see where that would be considered discrimination.

Kathleen Jennings (14:33):
I would say if you find that information and you have better candidates for the job, I would go with one of the better candidates

Thom Jennings (14:44):
Spoken like an attorney. That was fantastic. <Laugh>,

Kathleen Jennings (14:49):
Just saying

Thom Jennings (14:50):
You, you know this, there's a, there's a first here. I mean we, we, we belched on air. I think this is, I think this is great podcasting. I mean, we're, we're we, if there's some kind of podcast awards for Labor and Employment law podcasts, this is gonna be the episode that we're gonna, we're gonna put up there to be, to be nominated and we're gonna win.

Kathleen Jennings (15:12):
I, I don't know. I mean I'm, I'm still kind of partial to the sex police, myself,

Thom Jennings (15:17):
The, the sex police. And now check this out. Are you ready? Listen to this sound bite.

Kathleen Jennings (15:22):
Sure.

Thom Jennings (15:23):
Are we ready?

Speaker 4 (15:26):
The Sex police door store search to control the floor. You know what they're looking for. Someone's always keeping score every time you tip the or Love isn't fun no more mother isn't fun. No more.

Thom Jennings (15:41):
You

Kathleen Jennings (15:41):
Can't use that then you'll have to pay royalties.

Thom Jennings (15:43):
No, well, I, I used only enough of it that we wouldn't get sued by Todd Rore, but yes, that was, that was that has been cuted up for a little while. I've been waiting for the opportunity to use it. And that was going back in our archives. The sex police was mentioned during our workplace romance episode. So that has nothing to do with our topic today, other than the fact that all topics are indeed related. So let's get back to this particular,

Kathleen Jennings (16:07):
They're related to the work life, Thom

Thom Jennings (16:09):
And labor and employment law, right?

Kathleen Jennings (16:12):
Labor and employment law. And in the end, it's all about covering your assets.

Thom Jennings (16:17):
Covering your assets. Alright, so let's look, let's kinda recap what we have so far. The employee most likely to sue is going to be your bottom third chronic complainer. There's somebody that has sued former employers, they've been involved in litigation, and there are ways, I guess, of finding those types of things out. So as our legal expert and attorney Kathleen Jennings advised it should be part of the information that maybe you seek out. It can't be the only information you use in, in determining whether you're gonna hire an employee or not. But hey, you know what you gotta do on that one. So let's look at this one. And I always find this, I always find this a, an interesting topic. An an individual who does not accept criticism well, even constructive criticism, and who tends to blame others for any of their problems and does not accept responsibility for their own difficulties. That sounds like me.

Kathleen Jennings (17:21):
Well, I'm not gonna comment on that. Thom, have you sued any of your employers?

Thom Jennings (17:28):
Yeah, actually I sued one.

Kathleen Jennings (17:31):
Okay, well,

Thom Jennings (17:31):
But, you know, but you know, the thing was is that, would you Yeah, but nothing, nothing was my fault in that situation.

Kathleen Jennings (17:38):
<Laugh>, and that's the employee. See, the employee who can't accept constructive criticism is never going to improve their job performance. And they're going to blame issues or problems on something else. Like, well, it can't be me, so you must be picking on me because of my sex, because of my race, because of my disability, because of anything other than the fact that I screwed up today at work.

Thom Jennings (18:10):
Yeah. And I mean, let's be fair, most people don't, don't like criticism, but on some level, we all have to learn to accept it to a degree, as long as it's fair. So, you know, for instance, if you come to work late every day and your boss says you're coming to work late every day, that's not constructive criticism. That's just, that's just state and facts. So those are the types of things that I guess you have to take into consideration. But I think as Marty puts in here, you know, there, there's people, these are also the kind of employees that, that look for a conspiracy. It's almost like they're, you know, we, we, we talk about conspiracies. It's kind of a big thing in the news. You know, you have all these different conspiratorial theories that are on the, the internet. And unfortunately, I think when people start to go down that path, they just start to look for ways to support their particular conspiracy.

Thom Jennings (19:02):
That can be on a national level, that can be at an employee level. They could say, oh, well, you know, I noticed that the last three people that were terminated all were this sex or this gender or this race, you know, whatever. And so I guess that's something that you have to be very careful of. And I think those conspiracies, the theories, boy that's a tough word to, to spit out. They kind of, they kind of like, it's, it's, it's what we used to call water cooler talk. You know, you, you sort of hear about it in the workplace. So as an employer, you should be cognizant of the types of things that people are saying about your workplace.

Kathleen Jennings (19:41):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And you know, now it's a little tougher having water cooler talks because a lot of people are still working remotely, but employees still talk with one another. Yes. And a good HR person will have their head to the ground and, and try to pick up on any kind of disturbing conspiracy theories or, or things like that.

Thom Jennings (20:05):
All right. Number four, this is one I think we've kind of talked about a little bit. And, and are we, we able to put this, these this material into our show notes?

Kathleen Jennings (20:15):
No,

Thom Jennings (20:16):
Really none of it?

Kathleen Jennings (20:19):
I don't think so. I don't have permission.

Thom Jennings (20:21):
Oh, well we're gonna ask, we'll see. Well hopefully we can, we can get permission to put some of this information in the show notes. So number four is someone who is a marginal employee, fearful for their job, whose complaint coincides with a discipline or other realization that things are not going well. We, I, we really have talked about handling, I think this was the episode of handling employee terminations with dignity or something along those lines. You can sort of smell,

Kathleen Jennings (20:49):
I think we've,

Thom Jennings (20:50):
When you're gonna get terminated, right? I mean there's, there's sort of a feeling in the air. I, I guess I would liken it too, if you were outside on a day where you're just about to have a thunderstorm that's coming in and there's just this feeling in the air, and I don't know, real or perceived. If an employee thinks that they're about to get terminated, flight or fight, and many of 'em are gonna fight.

Kathleen Jennings (21:12):
Beautiful. That's a beautiful, beautiful way of putting it, Thom.

Thom Jennings (21:16):
Thank you. It was beautiful.

Kathleen Jennings (21:18):
Yes. But yes, we have, we have talked about these people cuz these are the people that are going to use complaints of discrimination or harassment as a shield from termination, A shield, because then they're going to hide behind, actually, they'll hide behind the shield of retaliation once they make the complaint.

Thom Jennings (21:41):
Well, this could also be, I mean I've, I've worked with people that have, you know, suddenly become injured and, you know, you, you get into the workman's comp realm and now it's really, it's become so much more difficult to terminate somebody that's has a workman's comp claim because then, you know, it looks like you're firing 'em cuz they just put in a claim. So I think that's a big, it

Kathleen Jennings (22:03):
Depends on what state you're in.

Thom Jennings (22:04):
Well, in New York I'm in, I am in the only state in the United States that ends in the letter K. Yeah. Which is the same letter as your first name.

Kathleen Jennings (22:15):
K Wow. Wow.

Thom Jennings (22:17):
What a coincidence.

Kathleen Jennings (22:19):
It is a coincidence, an odd coincidence.

Thom Jennings (22:22):
But coincidence starts with C

Kathleen Jennings (22:25):
Anyway,

Thom Jennings (22:27):
Number five, what

Kathleen Jennings (22:28):
About the next one, Thom?

Thom Jennings (22:29):
Number five. Someone who does not want to be working anyway and maybe looking for an excuse to quit. So again, sort of somebody that you know, there's that that that criminal that that does something just so they can get caught. You know, maybe a guy that's homeless is looking for a way to, to get arrested so that they go spend the weekend in jail and get some food and things that they want. Sometimes and you know, this is always the scenario. I mean, this is a fairly common scenario, at least that I've seen. You talk to somebody and you go, Hey man, what, you know, what happened? Well, I quit. Well, they said they fired you. No, no man, I quit <laugh>, you know, when you, when you kind of know that the employee got fired, because nobody likes to say, you know, I got fired unless they're vengeful and they go, ah, you know, I was spiteful or whatever, spiteful and vengeful. But I, I mean you could see this situation, you know, that says have exaggerated claims of what happened to them and, and when they quit and then their spouse and gets angry and encourages litigation. Now I'm a spouse and I get angry when people treat my spouse improperly. So I get that. I know, you know.

Kathleen Jennings (23:39):
Well, and there's also, I have an example and I think I've, I've brought this one up before where I had a, a case where a woman, she didn't wanna work anymore for whatever reason, and she quit her job and her husband got mad at her for quitting her job. Cuz now they have one less income. So she told her husband that she quit her job because her female supervisor was sexually harassing her and trying to change her into a lesbian. This is her allegation, not mine. And so now that she's got that out there with the husband, she, you know, he's the one that says, well, if she's doing all this to you, you better sue. So now next thing you know, she's pursuing this in court because she can't take it back and it's all false. It's all made up. But she had to cover herself with her husband and save face and ends up in litigation with these allegations.

Thom Jennings (24:36):
Yeah. Well, a lie breeds more lies, breeds more lies. So that's, it's unfortunate. I mean, and there's, and there's not a whole heck of a lot you can do to defend against that, but I'm sure that at some point they probably sense that this was a problem employee and, you know, just got a little bit outta hand. But, but I don't know. I wasn't there. But that's just my guess. So next one is number six on our list. Someone who is always making veiled or not so veiled threats about going to call a lawyer about this or that problem. And

Kathleen Jennings (25:11):
I that sounds like you too.

Thom Jennings (25:14):
You too is an Irish band that is famous for the song Sunday, bloody Sunday. That is not

Kathleen Jennings (25:20):
Me. I think it sounds like you, my brother who's always threatening to get his lawyer sister involved in situations,

Thom Jennings (25:30):
Which is a thinly veiled threat. Cause you very rarely get involved. <Laugh>, let's just put that outs out there. Well,

Kathleen Jennings (25:37):
That's, that's true.

Thom Jennings (25:38):
I might see now I make a statement. This is the statement that myself that I'd make. I'd be like, well, you know, I do have a sister who's an attorney. In fact, she is a labor and employment law attorney. Oh, see, now that's, that carries a little bit more weight than Oh really? What kind of attorney is she? Oh, she's a personal injury lawyer. It's like, yeah, we're not scared of them, but as opposed to my, my son who would say, you do know that I have an aunt who is a labor and employment law attorney. So yeah, we throw that out there and you know how many times that has been effective in resolving our problems.

Kathleen Jennings (26:21):
You tell Thom

Thom Jennings (26:21):
None <laugh> it's never,

Kathleen Jennings (26:25):
It's, I really thought I had more power than that. But thanks, thanks for thanks for making my day with that.

Thom Jennings (26:33):
We were, you know what we, with those situations that came up, we were like those guys that, you know, we, we, we, we don't have anything in our poker hands and we're we're bluffing. And then the, their bosses just go, yeah, whatever. Sue us. Go ahead. So anyhow, we got one left here. This has been a very, yeah, we didn't, this has been a very spirited episode.

Kathleen Jennings (26:53):
It has, we've

Thom Jennings (26:55):
Very spirit. We've had a belch, we've had a sex police drop in as far as the music. And now number seven, anyone who drops you a note or begins the discussion of the complaint by saying, it doesn't bother me so much because I can handle it, but I wanna make sure that nobody else around here has to go through what I had to put up with. Yes. Let's call this the, the benevolent plaintiff. Yeah. We should, we should, we should talk to Marty. And if he does rewrite this, the benevolent plaintiff, Hey,

Kathleen Jennings (27:29):
Look, thank you. Right.

Thom Jennings (27:30):
You know what? I'm not suing you because I'm worried about me and whatever potential financial game that I have, in fact, I'm going to give all the money to charity. My concern is what about everyone that comes after me that's touching

Kathleen Jennings (27:47):
It is touching very benevolent and be not really benevolent, but it's, it's a nice show of benevolence. We'll say that.

Thom Jennings (27:59):
Yeah. I mean, and I, I can hear this type of conversation to probably happen with an HR person. You know, they, they'll, when somebody comes in and complains and goes, Hey, you know, I don't wanna be a complainer, but I'm gonna complain. And evidently if I didn't wanna be a complainer, I'd just not complain, but I'm gonna complain anyway. And I'm not complaining cuz of cuz of me. I'm complaining because I'm worried about the greater good of this company. And that's that's a warning sign to say, yeah, we need you outta here.

Kathleen Jennings (28:34):
That's a warning sign to say, I need to get a witness in the office with me right now. And I need to document what this conversation is because this is somebody who, even though they claim they are not complaining on their own behalf, since they are the person there complaining, you need to take it down as their complaint and act accordingly. So if they're coming in and saying, you know, it doesn't bother me so much that Thom Bels in my door and tells dirty jokes every day. But I think other people might be bothered by it, you're gonna have to deal with that as a complaint and, and act accordingly. And you're gonna have to probably have a sit down with Thom about his behavior in the workplace.

Thom Jennings (29:26):
Alright? And maybe a reasonable accommodation may be that you give him some antacids. That's a whole nother, that's a whole nother topic for another day. Anti acids in the workplace. We haven't done that episode yet.

Kathleen Jennings (29:39):
Yeah. That would depend upon what Thom tells you about why he is belching in the doorway. Yeah,

Thom Jennings (29:47):
Absolutely. Well listen special thanks to to Marty. Hopefully he listens to this episode and doesn't go, what the heck were you guys thinking on that day? And but it, it's some good stuff here. In all seriousness, it is a very serious topic. We've, we've, we've had some quips and tried to make light of it just to keep everything entertaining. But to those of you that own businesses or that are HR professionals, again, going back to the business or, or the beginning of the podcast, y the employees that are, are not likely to sue you are the ones that they, they file the rules that go through the system. If they do have a complaint, they're around for a while. You know who these employees are. That's not to say that a good long-term employee can't have a bad situation that could potentially end up in litigation, but we can say it's less likely.

Thom Jennings (30:40):
Look out for the habitual complainers and those types of situations. And, and you can sort of get the sense of that type of per employee as, as they begin to do the things that they do. And again, document, document, document. Make sure you're not having conversations with them alone. And I guess that's, and that should pretty much cover everything in terms of this particular topic, which again, I think is a very important one because if, if you're talking about covering your assets, like you said, best way to lose money is through a bunch of lawsuits. Cuz win or lose, you're still probably gonna lose money.

Kathleen Jennings (31:20):
Absolutely. I would say also, Thom, I would point out that the way to discover some of these traits is through a good interview technique, asking the right questions, listening to the answers. And that will give you an idea of, particularly when you ask people about maybe past supervisors they liked or past supervisors they didn't like, or past work situations that, that they could have handled better or something. Asking people those kinds of questions and then listening to their answers will give you an idea potentially of what kind of employee this person is.

Thom Jennings (32:01):
Absolutely. All right, well again, a great episode. So let's let's finish it off with your contact information.

Kathleen Jennings (32:10):
You can always shoot me an email at kj j wim law.com

Thom Jennings (32:16):
And of course you can send questions, comments topic suggestions, all that kind of good stuff there. And please, if you're listening to the podcast and enjoying it, share it, review it, do what you can. We've we've seen a steady, steady increase in listenership.

Kathleen Jennings (32:35):
Excellent.

Thom Jennings (32:36):
So we're not going the wrong way after this episode. It's, it's to the stars. But anyhow, on behalf of myself, your host Thom Jennings and my sister, it, see now I, I can't even close cuz my sister, see we do this by Zoom. Okay. And she's giving me a, a sister look <laugh>, like just, she, she did the old rolling rise going, oh, there he goes again. And I was, and I was using the radio voice too, so you were kind of giving me that face.

Kathleen Jennings (33:06):
Well, and, and you know, Thom, what that does is that kind of tells me how you react to authority <laugh>. And so I've, I've learned some, some good information about you if I ever needed to consider hiring you as an employee.

Thom Jennings (33:22):
Yeah. And, and I will tell you, once my supervisor had a previous supervisor bought me in the office and said, you know, Thom, you never accept criticism. And I said, you know what? You're right. Anyhow, I'm that joke. We will say thank you and we'll see you next time on the Cover Your Assets podcast. And again, special thanks out to fellow Western New Yorker, Marty for that for that great stuff today. And hopefully we'll be who knows, maybe someday we'll get 'em on the podcast. Strange.

Kathleen Jennings (33:54):
Maybe we

Thom Jennings (33:55):
Will ranger. Things have happened. All right, till next time, this your host Thom Jennings and our resident expert Kathleen Jennings, who is not giving me a face this time. We'll see you next time on the Cover Your Assets, the Labor and Employment Law Podcast.

Podcast Disclaimer

The Cover Your Assets-The Labor and Employment Law Podcast is produced by Thom Jennings of the Caronia Media Group. For more details, you can contact him at thom@caroniamediagroup.com.

The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and not for the purpose of providing legal advice. You should contact your attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular issue or problem. Use of and access to this podcast or any of the e-mail links contained within the site do not create an attorney-client relationship between Kathleen J. Jennings. The opinions expressed at or through this site are the opinions of the individual hosts and guests.