Next week, Matthew D. Besser will be presenting to the Northern District of Ohio Federal Bar Association’s Annual Labor & Employment Seminar. Besser will be sitting on a panel discussing the use of social media in federal employment law cases along with a member of the defense bar and the Honorable Judge James S. Gwin. The seminar will take place at the Carl B. Stokes United States Courthouse in Cleveland.
The use of social media in employment cases has become a hot topic over the past few years. As Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social media sites become more and more a part of our lives, it is becoming more and more frequent for critical evidence in employment discrimination and harassment cases to come from social media websites.
Unfortunately for many employees, sometimes their posts on Facebook or other social media sites come back to haunt them. For example, there have been many cases where employees taking sick leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act, workers’ compensation laws, or disability laws have been fired for posting something on Facebook that leads the employer to believe—rightly or wrongly—that the employee is “faking it.” These cases involving leave “abuse” may be one of the most common ways employees get into trouble with social media, but it is far from the only way. In general, Ohio employees are almost always better off not posting details about their employment on social media. The upcoming Federal Bar Association Labor & Employment Seminar in Cleveland will discuss some of these topics, as well as others involving social media in Ohio employment law cases.
Besser is a frequent presenter on issues of social media in employment law litigation and at trial. Earlier this year, he spoke on the same topic to a group of more than 500 employment law attorneys at the Ohio State Bar Association’s Midwest Labor & Employment Conference in Columbus. A list of Besser’s recent presentations can be found here.
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