Free «Employer's Duty of Care and Issues of Compensation» Essay Sample

1. Explain whether Jake’s actions are in or out of “his scope of employment.”

Every employee has certain responsibilities, as well as rights. First of all, he or she has to fulfill the requirements that relate to his sphere of work, and the duties he performs doing his job. The employee also has to do the work properly, and as good as possible for the customers not to have any complaints about the job he performs. Along with that employees have rights to have a break during their working period; they have a right for different kinds of compensations, like for working extra hours or getting injured.

Taking the given video into consideration, and speaking about this case, it should be mentioned, that Jake who is an employee was doing his job and was trying to make it professionally. At the same time, he was not exact about the fulfilling the requirements of his employer Herman who was “free oil change”, because Jake was doing a lot more things for the customers like checking tires and making sure that everything in the car was well. The question is whether the instructions given to Jake earlier were exact and determined to change oil only in the customers’ cars. In the given case, it is up to the court to decide the right and the wrong part.

2. Explain whether or not Herman is responsible for Jake’s injury.

As the law says, every employer has to provide proper working conditions that would be safe for life and health of his employees during the working hours. Every injury or bad accident happened during that time should be compensated by the employer to his employees. However, the other side is that the employees may cause injuries to themselves intentionally, and in cases only court can make a proper decision whether the employer has or has not to compensate the costs of medical treatment for the employees. There are also some cases of violation the rules of proper behavior during the working time that leads to injuries workers may get as a result, unless they are made intentionally. However, all the cases of injuries that happen during the working hours, no matter whether they are light or lead to the worker’s severe illness or even death are under the employer’s responsibility.

Speaking about this case, Jake had an injury during the working hours and there is evidence that the hurt was non-intentional, because Herman also got hurt after he tried to fix the situation by himself. So, in this case, Jake should be paid for the injury he got performing his job. However, when Jake started saying that he might go to the hospital and there even might be a compensation case, a thought of the possible blackmailing might have come to the employer’s mind and he became angry with his employee. However, he shouldn’t have accused Jake in “blackmailing” him; on the contrary, he had to be the one who should have to take care of his employee when the latter suffered the injury.

3. Explain whether or not Jake should be paid the overtime.

The State worker’s law has a certain paragraph that states the fact of the overtime payment, if the fact of working extra hours occurs. The cost of the overtime work is one and the half of the salary the worker earns during regular hours. If the employer demands the employees to work overtime, he should mind that he will have to raise the salary to his employees for the extra working time, and that he is as well responsible for his workers like during the regular hours.

In the given case, Herman, the boss, said that Jake was “just promoted to a service manager … we don’t get paid overtime” that makes it unfair to Jake, but along with that, he can ask to get paid as a service manager which is more preferable than getting the mechanic’s salary. On the contrary, it might be all Jake’s fault that there were long queues and the service took more time than it was planned, because he provided some extra free services beside free oil change, like checking tires, transmission and other things. The employee didn’t follow exact directions of his boss and it was unprofessionally to spend that much time on doing unrequested job for free. However, in general, if to speak about this certain case, the employer, Herman, should pay Jake for the overtime working hours without arguing and trying to bribe Jake by his promises like “promotion” or “days off next week” or anything else. The severe violation of the employee’s rights can be observed here, in this case. Moreover, there should be a punishment for the employers that ignore generally excepted rules of relations between employers and workers.

4. Explain the rights Jake and Herman have individually in this scenario.

The rights of the employer, who is Herman, and the employee that is Jake, in this scenario are the following: Jake has to perform the free oil change on time and not make extra job for the customers to wait long queues to get that free service. He should fulfill the exact demands of his boss. Jake has a right to get a compensation for the injury he got during the working hours and besides, he has a right to demand for the extra payment for working overtime. Herman should have stated clearer to Jake what his duties exactly were during the days of the free oil change service. Herman has to pay the compensation expenses for the injury Jake got at work, and also pay additional money for the overtime hours his employee worked during the last two days. However, Herman also may argue that Jake doesn’t follow the given direction “just change the oil” exactly, thus, violating the rules and spending more time on this service and, moreover, the thorough examination of cars took more time that it was planned by the company’s direction that caused long queues, and clients might be unsatisfied with the company’s work. At the same time, Jake was doing a thorough job, and the customers would like that, and come here repeatedly to get the professional service. So, Jake’s actions were not against the company’s interests and Herman could be more professional by paying the overtime hours to Jake, as well as paying for the injury Jake suffered while doing his job as well as add to an advertisement of the free oil change some more items, with which Jake was providing the customers for free.