Is it illegal for my employer to force me to lie/mislead a customer over the phone as to what type of Nurse I am and/or what my capabilities are? My employer (a major health insurance company) wants me to routinely lie to members as to what type of RN I am. I was hired to be a telehealth &quot;Advice Line Nurse&quot; providing assessments, triage and basic educational services to members over the phone. Once I quit my previous job to take the new job, I was told that I would be expected to occasionally support other Nursing departments (ie. Case Management) in a support role when they were busy. I now spend a considerable amount of my day in this &quot;support role&quot; and I am supposed to mislead the customer into thinking that I am a Case Management RN. I have no desire to be a Case Management RN and have no training or experience as a Case Management RN. I am often put in a position of failure because the member wants or legitimately needs Case Management services that I cannot provide but I will get in trouble if I let them know that I am not a Case Management Nurse. My employer even has the phone systems set up in a way that the contact phone# info left for the customer to try and reach Case Management doesn't even go to the Case Management department... its simply a generic phone# that usually connects them to my Nursing department (Advice Line). Is this legal and can I be fired for not complying? My stress levels are through the roof because I feel that I am misrepresenting my Nursing license that I worked so hard for. If I need a Plumber, I am going to be pissed if an Electrician shows up pretending to be the Plumber. What are my options?
You must follow the lawful and reasonable directions of your employer As an RN you have obligations under the law that are independent of your employment. Almost certainly, one of these is not to practice in an area which you are not skilled or qualified to do so (unless you are under adequate instruction and supervision). Remember, as an RN you, personally, are legally responsible if your advice leads to harm and you were not acting reasonably. There are plenty of nurses who have gone to jail for delivering a lethal dose of medicine that was wrongly prescribed by a doctor. Even if your advice is unlikely to lead to this, you can still be deregistered - seems a waste of a lot of education just to become an Uber driver. Further, most jurisdictions make it illegal to mislead or deceive in trade or commerce. This one won’t send you to jail. So, it appears that the instructions are unlawful and it is not misconduct if you were to, politely, refuse them. This would not give your employer grounds to fire you. However, you should document your concerns and reach out to your union and possibly consult a lawyer.
They can ask, but there is nothing in law - that I can find - which obligates an answer. (There may be some exceptions that require a previous employer to provide a reference which might include this detail, but that does not appear relevant here.) As an aside, there is an ongoing #EndSalaryHistory campaign by the Fawcett Society which is focused on equal pay and sexual equality in the workplace, and they are calling on employers to: stop asking salary history questions...
The criteria used by the IRS suggest that for federal tax purposes, the cashier would be properly classified as a contractor. Behavioral Control: A worker is an employee when the business has the right to direct and control the work performed by the worker, even if that right is not exercised. There is probably some training involved here, but it seems negligible. Has the company actually retained the right to direct and control the cashier? Is he obligated to use their register, as they tell him to use it? Is his work evaluated for compliance with those instructions? I'd guess that in most cases, the company doesn't actually care about any of this. As long as the company got all the money it was owed, would it really care if the cashier just stuck the money in his pockets until the end of the day? I'd also argue that it isn't really the employer controlling the when and where of the contractor's work, but rather the circumstances. Classifying him as an employee because he has to be at the event doesn't really make any more sense than saying your plumber is an employee because he has to come to your house to do the job. Financial Control: Does the business have a right to direct or control the financial and business aspects of the worker's job? The investment in the cash register seems relatively nominal. The company probably does not reimburse the cashier for expenses incurred in getting the job done. The cashier is presumably free to offer his services to others. The cashier is presumably being paid a one-time, flat fee. As you noted, though, the fact that there isn't much profit-loss opportunity is one factor pointing in the other direction. Relationship: The type of relationship depends upon how the worker and business perceive their interaction with one another. The fact that this is a single, hours-long job is probably the strongest evidence that the cashier is a contractor. Further, the cashier's job is not a key part of the business, as it is only a minor portion of an event that the company has never performed before and has no apparent intention of repeating. I assume that the company is not providing health benefits, sick time, etc., and that any contract with the cashier includes no language suggestive of an employer-employee relationship. Conclusion: The employee-contractor distinction is pretty fact-intensive, but based on what you've provided, there seems to be a much stronger argument that the cashier would be a contractor.
the company does have the right to "verify the eligibility of the person and terminate the service to the ineligible at any time" is pretty unambiguous. They have assessed your eligibility, determined you don't have one and have terminated the service. They are completely within their rights to do this. If you feel that they have assessed your eligibility wrongly then you can dispute their assessment - either through whatever dispute resolution is detailed in the contract or by going to court if the contract is silent. The fact that they previously assessed you as eligible (or didn't actually make an assessment) is irrelevant.
This is not legal advice, It is not even primarily a legal opinion. It is a legal position. The lawyer, acting on behalf of the agency from which you requested information, is giving the reasons why that agency is declining your request. The lawyer is presumably either an employee of the agency, or has the agency as a client. In any case, this is notice of the position that the agency would be likely to adopt if you took further legal action, such as a suit to compel disclosure. Lawyers provide such position statements ion behalf of clients or employers all the time. Such statements indicate why certain action is taken, what basis the client or employer has for taking or not taking certain action, and often indicate the nature of the defenses or theories that will be used should a lawsuit follow, although the client or employer is free to change the theory at the pleading stage. Not only is it not unethical for the lawyer to respond in this way, the agency is, I am fairly sure, required by the law to provide a valid reason when a request is declined. That is what they have done, provide a reason that they claim is valid, with some legal reasoning about why it is valid. Note that I express no view on whether the reason given is in fact valid, or would be sustained in a suit. That would be a different question.
I would recommend talking to an adult person in HR. I'm quite sure they will notice that what your manager wants to do is more than dodgy, and doing something dodgy may be in the interest of your manager, but not in the interest of the company. The best thing is to go to HR, acting as if a mistake has been made, and point out to them what your start date was, and that the new contract has the incorrect starting date, and they need to fix this mistake or you can't sign the contract. If they insist you sign it, then you DON'T sign it. If they say you will be fired if you don't sign it, then you tell them that in that case you would get legal advice. BTW. You definitely don't sign this as it is. PS. This answer was posted on workplace.stackexchange, not law.stackexchange, so please don't complain if there is no legal content.
We're missing a lot of information that we'd need to offer a full answer. Here are some of the things that will probably drive the analysis: the type of counselor we're talking about; the types of information the counselor disclosed; the reason she disclosed it; the job functions of the people to whom she disclosed it; the reason the client is bothered by the disclosure. Generally speaking, a mental-health counselor has a fiduciary duty to maintain the confidentiality of patient information, but my understanding is that in most cases, the counselor would be allowed to discuss a case with colleagues for the purposes of advancing the patient's treatment. So discussing the facts of a tough case with a supervisor is not going to be as problematic as idly gossiping about clients with custodial staff. Beyond the permitted disclosures, there are also situations in which counselors are required to disclose confidential information, including cases where the counselor suspects child or elder abuse or where the counselor believes the client poses a danger to herself or others. If the disclosure was truly not permitted, then it may be that the client has a claim for breach of fiduciary duty. In Georgia, proving that case requires evidence that: That the counselor had information relating to the client that she knew or should have known was confidential; That the counselor communicated the client’s confidential information to third parties; That the client did not give informed consent to the counselor’s conduct; That the confidential information was not a matter of general knowledge; and That the disclosure harmed the client. As you noted, the client could also file a complaint with the state licensing board. I don't know of any federal laws or regulations that would come into play in the situation you've described.
No While you can be bound to terms you had the opportunity to read and didn’t, you cannot be bound to terms that you did not have the opportunity to read. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have a contract but it will be on different conditions to those in the undisclosed terms. For a contract to be valid, the parties must agree on the essential terms, for a phone contract, what service the phone company is giving and how much the consumer pays. Incidental terms can be left undefined and they will, if needed, be filled in by a court with reasonable terms. However, this only happens to the extent necessary to give effect to the primary purpose of the contract. For example, late fees or termination fees are not strictly necessary (common law principles of damages for breach of contract work just fine) so, if the undisclosed terms include them, they will be unenforceable. Notwithstanding, it’s quite likely that refusing to disclose in the advance violates state or Federal consumer protection laws against misleading or deceptive conduct.