LAW 760: Common Law Regulation of the Employment Relationship
Although Congress and state legislatures have taken significant steps to intervene in the workplace, these federal statutory schemes operate against the backdrop of the common law rules governing the employment relationship. This course will focus primarily on common law regulation of the workplace, beginning with employment at-will and exploring various contract and tort theories that have modified the impact of the at-will rule. Through an examination of these doctrines, we will explore how the law responds to interests that employees seek to protect through the law – interest such as job security, dignity and privacy – and the competing needs of employers for flexibility and control over the work process. Although the focus will be common law doctrines, references will be made throughout the course to various statutory interventions in the workplace, and some attention will be paid to the interaction between different sources of regulation. [1credit hour]
