Who won this case: Can you send a waiver through e-mail?
June 10, 2008 by Sam NarisiPosted in: In this week's e-newsletter, Latest News & Views, Security and law
As more and more communication goes digital, what HR documents still need to be pushed through paper? Here’s a recent, real-life case addressing that question.
The facts:
A company sent an e-mail to all its employees detailing a new arbitration agreement for age discrimination claims. Employees weren’t asked to sign a paper document, or do anything else to acknowledge they got it. A year later, an employee sued for age discrimination, claiming he never saw the document.
The employer said:
The agreement was sent to all employees, and posted to the company intranet. Everyone should have had the chance to see it.
Who won the case?
Answer: The employee.
Why: The court ruled that sending an e-mail without following through didn’t give them sufficient enough notice about the agreement.
What’s the lesson? Despite the ease of sending the document through e-mail, things would have been a lot simpler if the company had just given it to them on paper.
Cite: Campbell v. General Dynamics Government Systems Corp.
View all the Latest StoriesTags: ADA, arbitration agreement, e-mail, waiver
August 26th, 2008 at 3:23 pm
We notify our employees of any policy changes through our email and our website and all of our policy is available online for anyone to view. However, we know plenty of employees just don’t pay attention to the information that we send, so periodically we require sign-off on paper that identifies all policy updates since the last sign off, and includes instructions for getting copies of all current policies. Even with the easy access to this information, I am amazed how often I receive questions like “what does our policy say about…”