NU Online News Service, June 11, 12:00 p.m. EDT
Issues surrounding the use of medical marijuana and social media are on a growing list of emerging employment practices liability topics, experts say.
Seth Brickman, a senior underwriter at Windsor, Conn.-based Business Risk Partners, which manages EPL products for Lloyd's and QBE, said employment-related medical marijuana issues are "likely to explode over the next three-to-five years."
As of January of this year, there were 14 states that had legalized medical marijuana, he said. "There are more and more states in line to have ballot initiatives for medical marijuana, never mind California, which has an upcoming ballot initiative to legalize it [for recreational use], and tax it and sell it like alcohol," he added.
In the employment practices context, questions can arise over whether employers have an obligation to accommodate medical use, he explained. State laws vary, with some "stating clearly" that employers have no legal obligation to meet the needs of medical marijuana use "within the workplace," Mr. Brickman said.
Other laws are far less clear–and also unclear is the extent to which employers have to accommodate medical marijuana use "outside of work," he said, referring to a case where an employee cleared to use medical marijuana was fired for a positive drug test result even though he used it outside of work.
Joni Mason, EPLI product manager for Chartis in New York, sees the use of social media and social networking sites to screen job applicants as another looming exposure for employers in future years.
"I think that is going to become a big issue. We're just starting to see a couple of lawsuits," she said, explaining that when employers screen employees by viewing such sites, "they need to be really careful because all of the same [employee] protections apply."
For example, "there are a lot of things you wouldn't ask during [a job] interview, like somebody's religion or marital status," she said. But "if an employer goes onto someone's Facebook page that's not protected, they can see the person's race. It might [even] say the person's religion or marital status," she noted.
(Immigration issues and the hottest EPL topic, wage-and-hour actions, as well as insurance coverage availability, will be discussed fully in the June 21 edition of National Underwriter's print magazine next week.)
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.