Discipline

Serious misconduct such as violence, theft, harassment, safety violations, or gross insubordination typically justifies immediate termination without progressive steps. Policies should reserve the right to skip steps based on the severity of the offense.

Documentation should include the specific behavior or performance issue, the policy or standard violated, prior warnings or counseling, the employee's response, corrective actions required, and consequences of continued issues. Consistency across employees is essential.

Risks include discrimination claims if discipline is applied inconsistently across protected groups, retaliation claims if discipline follows protected activity, wrongful discharge claims, and defamation claims from communications about the discipline.

Yes, allowing employees to provide their perspective demonstrates fairness and creates a more complete record. Employee responses should be documented and considered, even if the employer ultimately proceeds with the disciplinary action.

Fair use is a defense that permits limited use of copyrighted material without permission. Courts consider four factors: the purpose and character of use (commercial vs. educational, transformative vs. copying), the nature of the copyrighted work, the amount used, and the effect on the market. Fair use is highly fact-specific.

For works created today by individual authors, copyright lasts for the life of the author plus 70 years. Works made for hire and anonymous/pseudonymous works are protected for 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter. Older works may have different terms.

Yes, software code is protected by copyright as a literary work. Both source code and object code can be registered. However, copyright protects the expression of ideas, not the underlying functionality—patent protection may be more appropriate for novel methods and processes implemented in software.

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