Law Review
Assignment: Legal Risk and Opportunity in Employment
The following three Legal Encounters involve NewCorp, your employer. You are required to provide a brief answer to the questions asked at the end of each encounter. Your boss expects a substantive answer, not simply a recommendation to refer matters to an attorney. The majority of businesses in the U.S. do not have staff counsel, and your boss does not want to spend money getting advice until after you provide an assessment. In your answer, identify what legal principles support your decision. All encounters can be supported from legal principles found in the readings for this week, including cases and statutes. Each answer must be limited to 250 words. Put all three in a single attachment.
Legal Encounter 1:
Newcorp hired Pat Grey as manager of real property for Newcorp in Vermont, responsible for activities related to maintaining leased office space. In that role, Pat supervised 51 employees and lower-level supervisors, and dealt with tenants who leased commercial space. For the job, Pat relocated from another city 300 miles away, moving his spouse and children, selling and buying a home, and dealing with a spouse having to quit her job to seek employment in the new state.
After Pat had been on the job for three months, his boss explained that things did not seem to be working out, and said that Pat would be discharged with 30 days severance pay. Pat was surprised because his employer gave no indication of any problem on the job. Newcorp’s Personnel Manual, which had been provided to Pat upon his acceptance of employment, outlined the process for dealing with unsatisfactory employees:
Notice of Unsatisfactory Performance/Corrective Action Plan
If the job performance of an employee is unsatisfactory, the employee will be notified of the deficiency and placed on a Corrective Action Plan (CAP). If the employee performance does not improve to a satisfactory level...
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