SimplyHR | Employment & Labor Blog 

In Muzaffar v. Aurora Health Care Southern Lakes, Inc., 2013 WL 6199233 (E.D. Wis. Nov. 27, 2013), the federal district court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin held that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act (“EMTALA”) anti-retaliation provision applied to protect a private, non-employed physician with staff privileges at a hospital from retaliation by the hospital for reporting patient transfers that he believed violated EMTALA.

On this blog, we have previously written about employee handbooks and arbitration clauses in the employment setting. However, the Missouri Court of Appeals recently weighed in on what happens when you combine the two by inserting an arbitration clause in an employee handbook. The results were not good for the employer.

There are two schools of thought on employee handbooks. The kitchen sink approach is to throw in everything that could be useful and defer the decision on actually enforcing particular provisions until the need arises. Arbitration clauses often fall in that category. The other – and better – view is to treat the handbook as a guiding document that sets rules not only for the employees but the employer as well.