Kentucky Personal Injury Lawyer Blog

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution is part of the Bill of Rights. The amendment prohibits, in part, making laws that infringe on the freedom of speech and religion. Recently, in 2006, the First Amendment rights of a fellow blogger were placed in jeopardy. A blogger, Mr. Nickolas, who writes on Kentucky news and polictics, in one article criticized the former Governor Ernie Fletcher. This article was sited by a New York Times article which was discussing Mr. Fletcher's indictment on charges of political corruption. The next day, the state reconfigured its web capabilities and put in software that filtered and blocked all access to blogs on state computers. Mr. Nickolas sued, claiming his First Amendments rights were being violated and that it was unconstitutional to block access to his blogs when there were other sites that reported the exact same information but they were not blocked as well. He felt that his free speech was being targeted. The case eventually settled in 2008 and Mr. Nickolas won. The writer of this article also goes on to show an example of when a state was able to block certain content without violating First Amendment rights. If you have had a similar situation at work, you should contact a discrimination lawyer like Andrew S. Alitowski to discuss your case.

Continue reading " Kentucky Freedom of Speech " »

One of the most basic safety tips that can be given to any driver is on how to become a better and safer driver by understanding the car’s blind spots. A blind spot is an area of the road that you cannot see while driving and looking forward that you need help with by utilizing your mirrors correctly
Unfortunately, most drivers in Louisville, Kentucky do not understand how to set up their mirrors correctly. This is something so simple that is often over looked and not correctly taught to new drivers.

The most basic rule is that if you are ever driving behind a car and that driver in the car in front of you can see you directly behind him/her with his/her side view mirrors, then you know that the car in front has his/her side view mirrors positioned completely wrong and that he/she cannot see his/her blind spots.

Continue reading " Car Safety Tips by Local Louisville Attorney " »

If you are an employee in downtown Louisville, you should speak to an overtime attorney to see if you are being paid correctly pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The FLSA is what governs an employer to pay an employee the correct wages and salary.

If you work at the ball park, or at a restaurant or even in an office, you should be getting overtime if you are working more than 40 hours per week. Also, depending on your job, the going to the job, or the waiting for a phone call from your employer or the eating at your desk while working, may add up to hours of time that you can claim you are entitled to get paid for that might put you over the 40 hours per work week.

Continue reading " Louisville Overtime Laws " »

Religious discrimination unfortunately takes place every day all throughout the country. For example, recently in Washington, DC, a young high school track and field star who is of the Muslim faith was told that she had to remove her running outfit in that it consisted of a head covering that was not allowed per the track and field rules. The young girl, did not compete in the event and is suing the event for interfering with her religious beliefs.

In Seatle, Washington recently a young woman was working at a Best Western where she had been wearing a scarf, called a hijab, for religious reasons. Her boss told her that the scarf was not part of the new uniforms and she had to take it off. The young woman said she would not, that it was her religious freedom to wear it. Her boss disagreed and said you either take it off or you are going to be fired. She did not take it off and she was fired. She has since sued in Federal Court for religious discrimination and the case is still pending.

Continue reading " Religious Discrimination in Kentucky " »

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a Federal law that grants an employee up to 12 weeks of unpaid time off from work if certain conditions are met.

In order to prevail on an interference claim of FMLA, you must be able to establish that 1) you are an eligible employee defined under FMLA, that the defendant employer is defined under FMLA, that you were entitled to leave under FMLA, 4) that you gave your employer notice of intention to take the leave, and 5) that your employer denied FMLA benefits to which you were entitled. If the above 5 criteria were met, then you have a strong FMLA case and you should speak to a FMLA lawyer at the Law Offices of Andrew S. Alitowski.

Continue reading " Kentucky Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) " »

Sexual harassment in the workplace has evolved over the years. In the past, sexual harassment occurred when the boss said “sleep with me, or you don’t get the job”. Nowadays, it occurs via email, text, iming, or even on your Facebook web pages.

If you are out on a business trip with your boss and he texts you at 2am asking where are you? Why aren’t you downstairs at the bar drinking with him? That is sexual harassment. If a boss sends you pictures of himself, that you did not ask for and have nothing to do with work, to your phone or email. That is sexual harassment. And please do not think that it only goes one way. Sexual harassment can be a female supervisor harassing a male employee or it can even be of two people of the same sex.

Continue reading " Kentucky Sexual Harassment in the year 2009 " »

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) states that pregnancy discrimination filings are at an all time high. In 2007, the number of pregnancy discrimination filings were up 14 percent to 5,587. Also, the EEOC’s call center received over 20,000 calls regarding pregnancy discrimination; an all time high.

One activist group, MomsRising.org (http://www.momsrising.org/) is making it its mission to do anything and everything to help mothers in the work place. It has about 130,000 members. This website has a lot of helpful information for pregnant mothers and mothers with young children.

Recently in Kentucky, a woman was working at a Motel 6 since 1998 in housekeeping and laundry. She worked her way up and in 2005 was a general manager of a Motel 6. In that year, she became pregnant and notified her manager. And just 2 days later, she was fired. A co-worker overheard the manager say to others that she was being fired because she would not be able to do her job while pregnant.

Continue reading " Kentucky Pregnancy Discrimination Information " »