The Utah Business and Employment Lawyer

  Many employees are confronted with situations in which they are not paid all wages they’ve earned, whether in the form of unpaid salary or hourly pay, overtime pay, commissions, bonuses or other compensation. Utah law provides numerous protections to employees who are owed wages during employment or following employment. These protection include claims for breach of contract, unjust enrichment and other common law claims, as well as claims under the Utah Payment of Wages Act, Title 34, Chapter 28 of the Utah Code. Federal law also provides protections for certain types of wage claims. The Utah Payment of Wages Act establishes clear guidelines for timely and complete wage payments to employees and, critically, empowers workers to seek redress if these requirements are violated. If your employer hasn't paid you all the wages you are owed, you have the right to file a wage claim under the UPWA against your employer. Depending on the size of your claim, you can file an administrati...

  Utah parents have a number of workplace rights during pregnancy, postpartum recovery, breastfeeding, and while on leave for pregnancy or pregnancy related conditions. Both federal and Utah laws protect your ability to pump at work, take pregnancy-related accommodations, take necessary leave and remain free from discrimination or retaliation.  Under federal law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the PUMP Act require most employers to provide reasonable break time whenever an employee needs to express breast milk for up to one year following childbirth. Employers must also provide a private lactation space that is not a bathroom, shielded from view, and free from intrusion by coworkers or the public. If your workplace offers paid breaks, they must remain paid when used for pumping. Additional pumping time may be unpaid only if you are completely relieved of all duties. The PUMP Act also expands protections to many salaried, part-time, and previously excluded empl...

If you’ve experienced retaliation at work for speaking up about workplace safety issues, you may be protected by whistleblower laws. Both the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) at the federal level and the Utah Occupational Safety and Health Division (UOSH) at the state level provide whistleblower protections for employees who engage in safety-related protected activities. OSHA, 29 U.S.C. § 654, and its general duty provision, requires employers to furnish employment free from recognizable safety hazards. Similarly,  Utah Code § 34A-6-101 et seq. requires employers to provide safe and healthy working conditions to employees in Utah. Specifically, OSHA’s general duty provision, 29 U.S.C. § 651 et seq., imposes a general duty on employers to furnish a workplace “free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm” to employees, mandates that employer’s comply with OSHA regulations, and requires employees to comply with...

  Utah, like other states, follows the doctrine of at-will employment. Under this doctrine, there is a presumption that all employment relationships are terminable at-will by any party. This development of this doctrine arose from ideas related to freedom of contract and laissez-faire economic principles that were judicially created over time to create a default rule for employment relationships. Stated differently, an at-will employment relationship means that an employer or employee may  terminate an employee the relationship at any time, with or without notice, and with or without cause as long as such termination is not for an unlawful reason . The at-will employment rule is a presumption that may be overcome in several ways, including, for example, through a contract with a specific term (i.e., one year) or through agreements that limit the situations in which an employee may be terminated (i.e., termination for "cause"). Of course, simply because an employee is not ...