Florida Employment Law: Employees Should Check into Potential Claims

September 24, 2010, 3:30PM. By Heidi Turner

Miami, FLFor many people dealing with violations of Florida labor law, the prospect of filing a lawsuit seems like more effort than it may be worth. But J. Benton Stewart II, an attorney at Stewart Law, P.L.L.C., says victims deserve to be compensated for their losses, and compensation from a Florida labor lawsuit could result in higher awards than the plaintiff expects. Furthermore, Florida employment law covers a wide variety of workplace incidents, protecting employees from being victimized by their employer.

Employment law covers events that occur in the workplace, such as workplace injuries, violence or accidents. Employment law also regulates wages and hours and prohibits discrimination based on a set of protected traits.

What employment law does not regulate is rudeness.

"The courts will not regulate civility in the workplace—meaning manners, rudeness or bullying," Stewart says. "If someone is being rude using only language and is not discriminatory in that rudeness, that is not actionable. If there is physical contact with the bullying, that may be actionable."

One area that can result in court action is retaliation: when the employer takes away something from an employee because the employee has complained about working conditions or hazards in the workplace. It is illegal for an employer to retaliate against an employee by docking her pay, demoting her, or denying the employee hours because she made an attempt to protect her rights.

This is also true in whistleblower/qui tam cases, where an employee reports illegal activities on the part of an employer. Employees who know about an employer's illegal activity could be held liable if they do not report that activity. If they report the activity, they are usually protected by state and federal law from any retaliation on the part of the employer. Furthermore, the whistleblower could receive a portion of any money recovered by a federal lawsuit.

Sometimes, the cost of a lawsuit deters potential claimants from speaking with an attorney. After all, the fees associated with recovering $500 worth of wages may seem overwhelming. Stewart says that in employment lawsuits, the employer is usually responsible for the employee's attorney's fees and costs if the employee wins the lawsuit and the employer is proven to have violated state or federal law.

"If an employee was illegally denied his last two weeks' wages, that may only be about $500," Stewart says. "If you worked for that, you're entitled to it. You should file a claim because the lawyer will be paid separately from you. The other thing is that the employee's recovery can be more than the claim both as a penalty to the employer and for the employee's loss of use of the money.

"The courts try to make the employee whole for damages caused by wrongfully withholding benefits. So, the employee might have been late with rent because he didn't receive that $500, or been late paying some bills or missed out on interest he would have made on that money if it had been paid on time. The court takes that into account."