Mat founded his law firm in his kitchen in 2004. He has built it to be a multi-million dollar firm in 3 states. In March he left it all behind to serve his country. Mat is a Lt. Col. in the NY Army National Guard and is currently in Afghanistan for 400 days. This is his 3rd tour since 2008.

His deep rooted passion for his country is unmatched by many but should be recognized by all. Mat also requires that the firm provide winter coats to homeless veterans every Christmas, turkeys for all veterans for every Thanksgiving.

Every month there is a charitable organization that is donated to. There is an unknown big heart behind that rough and tough exterior. It’s pretty refreshing to see someone who puts human kind over the all mighty dollar.

A Marine Corps Reservist who just shipped out for boot camp is suing his former employer for allegedly firing him because he joined the military – but his ex-bosses at a Connecticut car dealership say it’s all a big misunderstanding.

Service supervisor Nick Saccomanno said he didn’t know that Derek Laaser was only going off to Marine Corps initial training and then returning, and since the business had to lay people off anyway, it made sense to discharge him.

“I personally was totally confused about his status,” Saccomanno told Military.com. “We would never, ever, ever think of denying him an opportunity to work and join the military.”

Saccomanno declined to discuss the issue further, but John Gilmore, a spokesman for the law firm representing the dealership, said Laaser never made clear he was just going into the Reserve force and would be back. So Saccomanno essentially took the mechanic’s news as a full resignation that happened to coincide with “a slowdown,” Gilmore said: “[Laaser] was leaving anyway, so to try to save other jobs” he was let go.

David Slassberg, the attorney representing Laaser, said the explanations he is now hearing “sound like revisionist history.”

“He [Laaser] was summoned into the office, and was told, ‘We’re letting you go,’” Slassberg told Military.com. Laaser went into a panic over losing access to a General Motors-affiliated training program at a local community college, and so he asked Sacccomanno to give him a letter that made clear he wasn’t being fired because he wasn’t a good mechanic.

Slassberg said the termination letter states Laaser was being discharged from the job because of his military service and that “this decision was based not on performance.”
Under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, or USERRA, meeting service commitments – whether for training or active-duty call-ups – are not grounds for job termination.

“Federal law clearly prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of military service,” Slassberg said. 
Slassberg said he has handled many employment-related cases, but this would be his first USERRA case.

According to a longtime Navy Reserve JAG officer and lawyer with Tully Rinckey PLLC, a Washington law firm that has handled many USERRA cases, the dealership may very well have made Laaser’s case for him if it did put in writing that he was being fired because of his military service.
“That would make it what we call a ‘Direct Evidence Case,’ … [that is] there is direct evidence of discrimination and the evidence is not circumstantial,” Sterling DeRamus told Military.com.

But these cases are very rare, he said, and if Laaser’s supervisors did put it in writing, they either didn’t understand the law or decided to disregard it.

“Most likely the service manager will be getting a quick lesson in USERRA and issuing a formal apology and rehiring this Marine very shortly – plus paying back pay and attorney fees,” DeRamus said.

Date added: May 14, 2012
Submission Type: New Hire
Current employer: Tully Rinckey PLLC
Current title/position: Of Counsel
Industry: Legal Services
Position department: Legal
Previous Employer: Law Office of Robert J. Rock
Duties/responsibilities: Rock represents creditors and debtors in Chapter 7 and 13 bankruptcies. In addition, he will expand the firms’ Chapter 11 practice, which helps businesses of all sizes reorganize and save local jobs. In an effort to build relationships with potential new clients at Tully Rinckey PLLC, Mr. Rock also provides free bankruptcy consultations.
Company headquarters: Albany, NY

Wal-Mart is known for its low prices, but the company’s most recent headlines highlight its low wages. The retail giant has agreed to pay its current and former employees nearly $4.83 million in unpaid overtime following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division. Wal-Mart also agreed to pay $463,815 in penalties for its error, which involved the misclassification of some employees as exempt from the overtime pay guarantees of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The FLSA states that covered, nonexempt employees are entitled to overtime pay at a rate of not less than one and one-half times their rate of regular pay. Overtime pay is due for every hour worked over 40 hours in a seven-day workweek. Certain job functions may make an employee exempt from this FLSA protection, however.

Until 2007, Wal-Mart classified its vision center managers and asset protection coordinators as exempt from overtime pay requirements. The company corrected the classification for these employees that year following the Department of Labor investigation, and the resulting dispute over back wages and penalties has only now been resolved.

“Misclassification of employees as exempt from FLSA coverage is a costly problem with adverse consequences for employees and corporations,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis, according to a Department of Labor news release. “Let this be a signal to other companies that when violations are found, the Labor Department will take appropriate action to ensure that workers receive the wages they have earned.”

Are You Covered or Not?

More than 130 million U.S. workers are covered by the FLSA, which establishes standards for minimum wage, record-keeping and youth employment in addition to overtime pay. Whether or not an employee is covered depends on the type of employer and the employee’s specific duties.

All employees are covered within organizations that earn at least $500,000 in annual gross sales or engage in interstate commerce. Employees of hospitals, public agencies and most schools are also covered.

Executives, administrative workers, outside sales agents, certain professionals and some computer workers are exempt from the minimum wage and overtime pay standards. In each of these employment categories, the Department of Labor has established several tests that must be met in order for an employee to be considered exempt. In Wal-Mart’s case, the Department of Labor disagreed with Wal-Mart’s assertion that its vision center and asset protection employees passed these exemption tests.

“It’s amazing how many companies — big employers, small employers — are running afoul of the Fair Labor Standards Act,” said Graig F. Zappia, an employment law attorney with Tully Rinckey. “But violations can happen particularly easily when you’re dealing with large employers like Wal-Mart. There are not only so many employees but also so many job functions, and this can increase the odds that the employer will interpret the FLSA incorrectly.”

Repeat Offender

The six-figure civil penalty leveled against Wal-Mart is due to the “repeat nature of the violations”, according to the Department of Labor news release. One of Wal-Mart’s past FLSA violations was settled in 2007 and also involved overtime pay. The company paid $33.5 million plus interest to more than 86,000 workers for unpaid or underpaid overtime.

Wal-Mart’s overtime underpayment relates to another rule dictating how overtime pay should be calculated. Overtime workers are entitled to one and one half times their “regular rate”, which may actually be higher than their basic hourly rate. This is because the “regular rate” includes any bonuses, geographical differentials and other incentives earned in addition to the hourly rate. By failing to include these additional sums in their calculations, Wal-Mart short-changed even those employees who were correctly classified as eligible for overtime.

Though FLSA lawsuits typically originate with employees who discover they’ve been underpaid or otherwise mistreated, the Department of Labor may also take legal action on its own when dealing with repeat offenders.

“Once you’re on the government’s radar for previous violations, you may find yourself receiving random audits,” said Zappia.

Common Violations

FLSA violations don’t begin and end with misclassified employees and miscalculated overtime pay. It’s also not uncommon for employers to allow or require employees to perform duties off the clock. Employees who are forced to set up before clocking in, clean up after clocking out or work through unpaid breaks are legally entitled to compensation.

“People often think they’re doing the right thing for their employers by working late off the clock or working through their lunch hour,” said Zappia. “But the reality is that you need to be paid for all the hours you work. We even see companies in this economy saying, ‘We won’t pay you overtime, but we’ll give you comp time instead.’ But that’s not really a valid solution.”

Comp time, or paid time off, is sometimes offered as an overtime pay alternative to employees who have busy weeks and slow weeks. By working longer hours during peak times, these employees can theoretically earn extra days off to spend during the slow periods. But this is illegal under the FLSA for two reasons. First, the FLSA requires that overtime be paid in cash, and second, workers in this arrangement often earn only one hour of comp time for every hour of overtime, rather than one and one-half hours.

Workers who suspect their employers of violating their rights under the FLSA should contact an employment law attorney to consult on their situation.

“We’ll often meet clients who believe they were wrongfully terminated, and once we get down to the crux of the matter, we’ll discover they were salaried when they really should have been classified as hourly employees with potential for overtime pay,” said Zappia. “A lot of people don’t know enough about the act to understand when these types of violations are taking place.”

Tully Rinckey Family & Matrimonial attorney Barbara King appears on WGNA to provide legal guidance for listeners on concerns surrounding child custody living arrangements, inheritance in a divorce and child custody payments.

Tully Rinckey Criminal Defense Attorney Michael Macomber appears on CBS 6 to warn all high school students of the dangers of poor choices on prom night. Macomber explains how one poor choice can lead to loss of student loan eligibility, heavy fines and even jail-time.

Despite ongoing reports of malfunctions with the plane’s oxygen-supply system, the Air Force has urged its pilots to keep soaring into the sky on the F-22s. At least one pilot has been killed during a malfunction so far.

Major Jeremy Gordon and Captain Josh Wilson appeared on CBS News’ 60 Minutes last week to announce their continuing worries over the Raptor stealth jet. The pilots spoke out against the craft while accompanied by a US congressman, Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-Illinois), an escort insisted by the pilots because they feared that the military would reprimand them for their disclosure. Now both say they are willing to re-board Raptor jets, even after going on national television to voice their concerns with the aircraft. That might not be enough, though.

Since announcing their issues with the craft on 60 Minutes, other lawmakers within the US Congress have asked for further investigations with the Raptor fleet. Even with this urging, though, the Pentagon might follow through with a military procedure that could pull both pilots out of the ranks of America’s Armed Forces.

Although Congress is considering a probe of the plane, the US Air Force has yet to announce that it will reverse a letter of reprimand that was sent to Capt. Wilson. The pilot’s attorney, Frederic Morgan, tells the Daily Press that his client is willing to fly, but the Pentagon has yet to approve that privilege for him.

If the letter of reprimand remains on file, it could lead to a meeting with the Flying Evaluation Board and eventually the termination of the pilot’s career. This news comes despite Rep. Kinzinger’s representation as an elected official who has vowed to protect the pilots.

“Congress granted protection to whistleblowers in general and specifically military to say: if you have a concern, you know – not something obviously little – but something pretty big and serious… you have a right to talk to your congressman,” Rep. Kinzinger told CBS last week, “because just ’cause you join the military doesn’t mean you give up your right to citizenship.”

Adding to the news program, Morgan revealed that General Janet Wolfenbarger informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that both pilots “are fully protected from reprisal by the Military Whistleblower Protection Act.” The military has yet to reverse the letter of reprimand, though.

In an article last year for the Military Times, Mathew B. Tully explains that such a letter could essentially end the career of a serviceman such as Capt. Wilson.

“An LOR, if filed in your official military personnel file, can ruin your prospects for promotion or lead to separation,”wrote Tully.

Following a 2010 incident in Afghanistan that resulted in the deaths of several civilians, then-commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, authorized four LORs for high-ranking officers involved in the mishap. On their own part, the Los Angeles Times explained, “A letter of reprimand usually means that an officer’s career is effectively over.”

Frederic Morgan acknowledged that despite the backing of the some congressmem, that could be the outcome his client will face.

“We now look forward to the prompt withdrawal of the Letter of Reprimand against Captain Wilson, the termination of the Flying Evaluation Board proceeding, the reinstatement of his job and his promotion to Major, and the return of these fine officers to the service of their Nation at the controls of the airplane they love,” Morgan says in a statement.

Rep. Kinzinger also adds that he believes that the Air Force “want[s] to solve this problem” and should revoke the letter, although they have yet to formally do so, reports the Daily Press.

As RT reported on Thursday, sources within the US intelligence community say that the CIA is opening up a probe of their own into the separate matter of the leaking of classified information related to the alleged al-Qaeda bomb plot that was foiled this week. If those reports are confirmed, that would make only the second time this week that the Obama administration has gone after whistleblowers for leaking information.

Tully Rinckey of the District appointed Sterling DeRamus of counsel in the military law and federal employment law practice.