Can an employer require its employees to be clean shaven if workers wear facial hair for religious reasons? The situation gets even more complicated when workplace safety is involved.

A federal court has ruled the District of Columbia can’t force its firefighters to be clean shaven.

The court ruled firefighters who wear beards for religious reasons are exempt from the District’s no-beards policy under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

The court said the District failed to prove its argument that beards stand in the way of good respirator fits. Firefighters use respirators to breathe when fires create a lack of oxygen.

The issue surrounds the firefighters’ use of self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs).

There are two types: Those with positive pressure have been shown to protect against any leakage that might be caused by facial hair.

However, questions remain about leakage with negative-pressure SCBAs.

The court ruled the District didn’t show why firefighters with beards could not be redeployed elsewhere when negative-pressure respirators were required.

As it stands now, the ruling is the opposite of what’s required by OSHA: “The [respirator fit] test shall not be conducted if there is any hair growth between the skin and the facepiece sealing surface, such as stubble beard growth, beard, mustache or sideburns which cross the respirator sealing surface.”

However, OSHA regulations don’t cover public employees.

Cite: Potter v. District of Columbia, U.S. Court of Appeals, DC Circuit, No. 07-7163, 3/6/09.

Henry Velez suffered from a rare medical condition that made him unable to sweat. Despite that problem, he worked in manual labor for most of his life. He had one work restriction: He needed to take breaks to cool down.

While working for Agro Distribution, he spent about two years without any problems — his manager allowed him to take breaks as needed.

Then every employee in Velez’s position was assigned a new duty — the unpleasant task of unloading dirty, empty barrels that had been used to feed cattle. Velez told his boss his condition prevented him from helping.

The manager wouldn’t hear of it — after all, he’d been performing similar work for two years. What was different now?

Velez filed a complaint with the EEOC, alleging the company violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The agency thought he had a case.

However, the EEOC handled the matter in a way that was less than objective, according to the company. When an investigator came to the facility, she insulted managers, scoffed at their answers to questions and attempted to rephrase their statements to favor Velez.

Afterward, the company claimed it tried to contact the EEOC to offer a settlement, but the agency never responded.

Eventually, the issue ended up in court. The judge agreed with the company that Velez wasn’t protected by the ADA. And, the court ruled, the EEOC “failed to conciliate in good faith.”

The final decision: The case was tossed, and the EEOC was forced to pay Agro’s legal fees.

Cite: EEOC v. Agro Distribution LLC.

While working at the North Carolina Department of Transportation, Elsie Hinton was warned by her boss four times about napping during work hours.

The fifth time she was caught, she got fired.

Now she’s filing a complaint demanding the DOT reinstate her, the Charlotte Observer reports.

Hinton says she suffers from sleep apnea, which prevents her from getting continual rest at night. She uses medical equipment to help her sleep, but claims it had been malfunctioning.

The DOT maintains it shouldn’t have to use taxpayer money to pay an employee to sleep.

Does Hinton have a case?

Maybe. Some courts have agreed that sleep apnea is a disability as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act, and that allowing periodic rest breaks could be a reasonable accommodation for employees in some positions.

What do you think about the outcome of this case? Let us know in the comments section below.

Eileen Karre was the manager of the university’s Babcock Dairy Store for 20 years. She was fired last July for violating food safety and quality rules.

Documents say she allegedly sold expired ice cream and failed to enforce store cleanliness, according to The Badger Herald.

Karre says many of the stated reasons for her firing were the faults of other employees or the ice cream production plant.

University documents also allege Karre made two Asian student employees wear name tags because they looked similar and she couldn’t tell them apart.

Karre said, “They look alike, and I’m bad with names anyway. It had nothing to do with their nationality. I just couldn’t tell them apart.”

She also claims she made all employees wear name tags.

Karre says she tasted all the supposedly outdated ice creams personally to tell if they were expired. She says she did have workers throw out some expired sherbets, but that the ice creams were good.

The university has declined comment on Karre’s claims because of the pending investigation.

James Citta has sued the Seaside Park, NJ, Police Department claiming harassment.

Citta claims he was told he would never be promoted because of his weight. He underwent gastric bypass surgery in 2001 to lose weight, but he claims the harassment continued.

He also says he was retaliated against for issuing parking tickets to firefighters and lifeguards and that a doctored photo showing him in a Nazi uniform was distributed at a Borough Council meeting.

Citta went on disability leave in spring 2007. He was granted permanent disability effective Jan. 1, 2008. Press accounts haven’t stated the reason for the disability coverage.

Given Citta’s weight, his attempt to address the problem, the claims about the doctored photos and disability coverage, this case is already complicated.

But wait, there’s more.

Citta was named a defendant in many of the 14 excessive force lawsuits filed against the Seaside Park Police Department between 2005 and 2007. The borough’s insurance carrier has settled 12 of those lawsuits for more than $2.7 million according to the Asbury Park Press.

Citta was use-of-force training officer for the department. He was in charge of instructing police to follow state guidelines on how to use force to subdue subjects and ensuring excessive force wasn’t used.

So, when you have a sticky HR situation, just remember this case and be glad you don’t have to be one of those who try to untangle it.

In this tough economy, it’s hardly unusual for people to look for second jobs to make ends meet. Example: A teacher advertised online that she was looking for extra work because her bills were piling up. Unfortunately, her ad was on the “casual encounters” section of a popular Web site. And her school computer was involved.

Update: The Columbus Dispatch has now reported that teacher, Amber Carter has resigned from her teaching position and pled not guilty to a misdemeanor charge of prostitution. Prosecutors are still reviewing a charge of unauthorized use of a computer that the sheriff’s office filed against Carter. HR Blunders’ original post on this story continues below.

Now, fourth-grade teacher Amber Carter has been charged with prostitution. She’s admitted she posted an ad on Craigslist and used a school computer to send an undercover officer e-mails arranging a meeting, according to the Logan County sheriff’s office.

And until her case moves further along in the legal system, she is still collecting her teacher’s salary of $56,000, even though the Bellefontaine, OH, school district has placed her on administrative leave.

Detectives say it appears Carter used her school computer to meet men and women and charge them $50 or $100 for various sex acts.

The investigation started when the local sheriff’s office received an anonymous e-mail saying a local woman was advertising sex services online, according to The Columbus Dispatch.

An undercover officer posed as an interested customer and exchanged 24 e-mails with Carter.

In an e-mail sent on a Monday at 9:07 a.m., well after school had begun for the day, she offered sex and suggested a time.

The next day, Carter took a half-day of sick leave and left work early. She was arrested shortly after noon.

The Dispatch obtained a recording of Carter’s meeting with the undercover officer. She took $50 in exchange for sex. (Caution: The recording contains explicit content.)

Work computer seized

Besides the prostitution charge, which is a misdemeanor, Carter faces a fifth-degree felony count of unauthorized use of property. Detectives have seized her school computer.

She has a spotless 13-year record with Bellefontaine schools. The district superintendent is quoted as saying he’d like to fire her now “but constitutional rights and due process come into play so the lawyers are proceeding properly.”

School district lawyers have suggested to Carter that she resign, but she hasn’t.

Was this an isolated incident for Carter? Sgt. Ryan Furlong doesn’t think so. He suspects Carter has been doing this for a while because “she was calm, cool and collected in that hotel parking lot. Not nervous at all. This wasn’t her first time.”

Certainly, this is an extreme case of an employee in financial trouble looking for an extra source of employment. Does your company have a policy about second jobs? What would happen if one of your employees used a company computer for a side business — even one that’s not illegal? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Hospital technician Tracey Parks had taken three sick days in one year. Then she received written notice from the Cooper Health System in Camden, NJ, that she would be dismissed if she missed work again. Her absences were because either she or her asthmatic son was sick.

Then one morning, she had to call her supervisor to say she would be unable to come to work. Parks’ 4-year-old niece had been dropped off at her doorstep the night before because the child’s mother was homeless and couldn’t take care of her. No one else was available to care for the child.

Cooper fired her. She appealed a six-week unemployment disqualification which is imposed in cases of employee misconduct.

A state appeals court ruled Parks should not have been barred from collecting state unemployment benefits for the six weeks. The judge said all of Parks’ absences were justified by family emergencies.

What do you think of this case? Let us know in the Comments Box below.

Few companies these days can afford unproductive employees. What would happen if HR found an employee who sat in his office all day doing nothing and got paid a full-time salary?

For starters, the person might be given something to do, or the position might be eliminated.

But that’s not the case for Randall Hinton, an employee of New York state’s government.

He sits at a desk doing little else for eight hours a day and is paid $93,803.

Hinton, a Native American, says he’s being discriminated against because of his national origin and retaliated against for having sued the state years ago. He’s filed a lawsuit against the state.

His job has been director of investigations for the state Insurance Fund since February 2002. However, he claims he hasn’t investigated anything or directed any other employees’ investigations because his superiors are blackballing him.

Hinton sued Gov. George Pataki’s administration 10 years ago, alleging discrimination, according to the Times Union. At the time, he was chief of investigations at the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and refused to leave his post to make room for a Republican appointee.

An official claims friction developed between Hinton and the DEC because he wanted to go to the police academy to become a sworn DEC officer, but hadn’t taken required civil service tests.

As part of a settlement, Hinton was guaranteed state employment as a director of investigations. He was moved from DEC to the Insurance Fund.

Hinton claims he hasn’t been given meaningful work because some leftover members of Pataki’s team still control the Insurance Fund in Democratic Gov. David Paterson’s administration. His former boss says those in charge told him not to let Hinton handle anything of substance.

Hinton was assigned to supervise a few customer service representatives. He complained that the task wasn’t appropriate for the director of investigations. Those employees were regrouped, and now Hinton’s only official duty is to sign one person’s time sheet every two weeks.

The Insurance Fund did recently offer Hinton oversight of private detective agencies hired by the fund. But Hinton dismissed the offer because he didn’t want to do contract assurance and work for an administrator who was in a entry-level management post.

E-mail set him off

The Times Union reports some of his former colleagues say Hinton was obsessed with becoming a cop. Hinton says he attempted to become an environmental conservation officer because that would allow him to retire to his tribe as a law enforcer.

If Hinton has been sitting around for seven years now without much to do, what caused him to take action now?

In November he got an e-mail from his manager that said the Insurance Fund wanted to recognize “the significant contributions and considerable role of Native Americans” and that Gov. Paterson had issued a proclamation for Native American Month.

Hinton says he wants his dignity back. For now, though, he doesn’t know how he’d get through his “work” day without his iPod.

Let us know what you think about this story in the Comments Box below.

Kevin McNeil has sued his former employer, Concrete Supply of Iowa. Besides claiming he was fired for pointing out the smoking violation, McNeil also says he suffered from racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation by his former employer.

The lawsuit claims that, 15 days after the state’s no-smoking law took effect, he confronted a co-worker smoking in the company break room. McNeil claims he told the co-worker smoking in the room was illegal and asked him to smoke outside. Then McNeil filed a complaint with the state health department, according to the Chicago Tribune.

The lawsuit claims the co-worker who was accused of smoking in the break room and a witness were interviewed. McNeil was fired three days later for allegedly “promoting violence in the workplace.”

McNeil also claims he was subjected to racial slurs and that the company did nothing after he complained several times. He cites one incident in which an employee — the same one accused of smoking in the break room — brought in a homemade toy monkey with a noose around its neck, and that he was told he should “get over it.”

The company denies all the charges.

McNeil’s attorney calls this an important public policy case that reminds employers that an employee who notes a co-worker’s illegal behavior shouldn’t be fired.

Why are employees reluctant to speak up about improprieties where they work? Retaliation is feared, as a municipal employee in Florida is claiming in a lawsuit.

Danilo Benedit, a procurement supervisor for the city of Coral Gables, wore a wire to help police investigate the city manager’s cover-up of questionable credit card charges.

Now he’s filed a lawsuit claiming the city violated the Florida whistle-blower laws that protect government employees who report illegal activities.

Benedit hasn’t been fired from his job, but he claims he’s been subjected to an increasingly hostile work environment, according to the Miami Herald.

His lawsuit lists a five-month delay in his performance evaluation and receiving his first negative one ever as retaliatory acts against him.

Benedit also claims he’s been ostracized by co-workers and has been unable to complete his job functions because they are keeping critical information from him.

The lawsuit alleges the city posted an ad for his job position.

City Commissioner Ralph Cabrera says Benedit’s job was downgraded from a director’s position to an officer position similar to what had been done in another department. He added that Benedit was allowed to apply for the new position.

Cover-up investigated

Last year, after City Manager David Brown’s credit card expenses were criticized in a local weekly paper, Brown asked Benedit to help backdate receipts that would show he reimbursed the city for two questionable charges months before he really did.

Brown was charged with a civil violation of public records laws. He resigned his city position under pressure.

Brown also asked Benedit to falsify documents related to a city project and to award a contract to a firm that wasn’t the lowest bidder.

Benedit claims his problems at work come from fellow employees who are still loyal to Brown.