Litigation / Class Action Employment Consulting
Representing Employers and Employees
About Our Employment Law Department
Notable Achievements in Employment Law
Publications and Articles in Employment Law
The Employment Law Department at Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen, P.A. is the largest unit in the law firm, and one of the largest of its kind for comparable law firms in the Twin Cities and the upper Midwest.
The department represents employers, executives, privately employed individuals, government workers, labor groups, and other parties in dispute resolution, litigation and appeals; compensation packages, and employee agreements; and administrative hearings. We cover a broad range of issues arising in the workplace:
Discrimination and Harassment Claims
Race, religion, color, sex or national origin (Civil Rights Act of 1964)
Age discrimination
Disability discrimination (Americans with Disabilities Act)
Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Sexual harassment
Military leave law
Termination / Retaliation
Wrongful Discharge
Whistleblowing / Qui Tam
Labor Law
Labor union matters
WARN Act and plant closings
Wage and Hour/FLSA compliance
Drug testing
Employment Agreements and Compensation
Employment contracts
Executive law and severance
Non-compete agreements
Non-solicitation agreements
Trade secrets
Stock options
Duty of loyalty
Public Sector Employees
Civil service, municipal, state, and federal employees
Merit Systems Protection Board
Veteran's Preference
Corporate Responsibility
Sarbanes-Oxley
Other Employment Law Matters
Breach of contract
Commission claims
Constitutional rights
Defamation / Invasion of privacy
Education and tenure law
Employee handbooks
ERISA employment benefits
Immigration Issues
Professional Licensing Board Actions
Unemployment Compensation Law
About Our Employment Law Department
The Department comprises more than a dozen attorneys, paralegals and support personnel who devote substantial portions of their time to working on a variety of employment law matters. They provide legal counsel and representation in contested proceedings, including hearings before administrative agencies, trial litigation, and appeals for diverse employees, ranging from those at executive levels to other personnel. The law firm also furnishes legal counsel and representation to start-up, emerging, and small and mid-size businesses in dealing with employment-related issues and other matters arising in the workplace.
While all the attorneys in the Employment Law Department handle a broad variety of matters, they excel in specialty areas as well:
- Seymour Mansfield works with a substantial number of displaced executives in high-tech businesses and other industries and represents a number of large employers as well. He also concentrates in the areas of non-compete litigation and trade secret protection.
- Marshall Tanick, an author and journalist, works with those in communications and media fields. He is also known for his work in the areas of defamation, whistleblowing, and drug testing law.
- Philip Trobaugh works with many employees in the educational field and also heads the Law Firm's Education Law Department.
- Denise Yegge Tataryn, a former official with the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation in Washington, D.C., handles many disability and insurance-related matters, including claims for benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act ("ERISA").
- Charles Horowitz often works with individuals in the public sector, including Veteran's Preference claims.
Public sector employees comprise a substantial segment of the clients of the Employment Law Department. The Law Firm regularly provides legal counsel to educators, law enforcement and firefighting personnel, and administrative, clerical and support personnel for governmental agencies.
The Firm focuses on resolving employment-related disputes efficiently, economically, and effectively. These goals are realized through increasing use of arbitration, mediation, and other forms of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) when appropriate. Teresa J. Ayling, a certified arbitrator and mediator, heads the law firm's efforts at ADR. A former registered nurse, Ms. Ayling furnishes representation to a wide number of employees and small businesses, including those in the medical field. Other attorneys have special expertise in particular matters within the employment field.
Many clients of the Firm have formed their own businesses, or head businesses that call upon the Firm for assistance in workplace-related matters. They form the core of the Law Firm's work on behalf of small and mid-size businesses, including providing preventive law counseling as well as representation in connection with employment-related claims.
Notable Achievements in Employment Law
The Employment Law Department has produced noteworthy results for many clients, including:
- Successfully securing a Constitutionally mandated civil service hearing for a fired municipal employee.
- Obtaining a six-figure settlement for a tenured professor who had been illegally fired.
- Obtaining the reinstatement of an honorably discharged veteran of the armed services employed as a firefighter for the City of St. Paul, arguing to court that the City lacked just cause for his termination due to an alleged physical disability.
- Representation of a terminated Minneapolis police officer who was denied a hearing by the Police Federation and the Civil Service Commission. The successful advocacy included two components. The first was a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, which resulted in a federal judge ordering the Civil Service Commission to give the officer a hearing. The second component was representation before an Administrative Law Judge who ordered that the officer be reinstated to his position with full seniority and over two years of back pay.
- Obtaining large settlements on behalf of approximately one dozen administrative and front office employees and coaches of the Minnesota Vikings football team.
- Invalidating a Coon Rapids city policy docking pay of National Guard members for military service.
- Representing a group of Minneapolis police officers in a successful lawsuit and injunction invalidating a City policy that prohibited re-hiring of retired employees.
- Achieving large settlements for the County Auditor and a police officer in Albert Lea, Minnesota for violation of their Constitutional rights and wrongful dissemination of private information about them in violation of the Minnesota Government Data Practices Act.
- Obtaining the dismissal of a whistleblower claim on behalf of a southern Minnesota business.
- Achieving reinstatement of a mechanic for a national corporation after improper drug testing.
- Litigating and successfully avoiding noncompetes and restrictive covenants and trade secret claims in many recent cases involving employees in the printing, computer and sales industries.
- Representing hospital workers at the University of Minnesota in connection with the merger of the University Hospital System with a private sector hospital group.
- Obtaining a large settlement for faculty members in administrative, athletic, and music departments at a number of private colleges in the Twin Cities area.
- Representing doctors, nurses, and other medical personnel before the Board of Medical Practice and other Boards and maintaining their licenses to practice.
- Defending a Minneapolis advertising executive who was sued for breach of a non-compete agreement, defamation, and other claims and securing a dismissal of the lawsuit against her.
- Assisting an executive with a non-profit power cooperative in obtaining a large settlement in connection with termination of his employment contract.
- Successfully representing CEOs and other executives of large, publicly-traded companies in the insurance, merchandising, finance, and health care product industries, among others, in negotiating pre-employment contracts as well as severance packages.
Publications and Articles in Employment Law
The Law Firm publishes a quarterly newsletter entitled "Workplace Watch," summarizing recent developments in Minnesota employment law. It is prepared by Mr. Tanick, a contributing editor on employment and labor law for Bench & Bar, the official magazine of the Minnesota State Bar Association. He also has been a contributing editor on employment-related matters to Finance & Commerce, Twin Cities Employment Weekly, and is currently a columnist with the Minnesota Lawyer magazine.
Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen publishes several regular newsletters dealing with other workplace-related matters, including:
- Harassment Watch, which reviews developments in connection with discrimination and harassment laws
- Disability Watch, which reports on legal developments regarding the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and other disability-related laws
- ADR Watch, which deals with arbitration and mediation issues
Articles of interest in Employment Law
Our knowledgeable attorneys have published articles in numerous publications on a wide variety of employment law topics.
Articles of interest in Unemployment Compensation Law
Please see Selected Client Results for more examples of favorable outcomes on behalf of plaintiffs and employers.
Contact Mansfield, Tanick & Cohen to discuss your employment law issue. You can e-mail our attorneys directly or we will be glad to direct you to a senior attorney conversant in a particular area of the law.
