AUTHORIZATION and REQUEST FOR EMPLOYMENT RECORDS

ian

I am receiving requests for employment records from private attorneys. The requests contain an attorney cover letter and a Authorization and Request for Employment records form with the former or current employees signature. Other similar requests contain a blank authorization form with an attoreys' letterhead and the former/current employees release authorization. I believe that outside of a court ordered subpoena I need not comply. Please advise.

Margaret Morford

You need to check your state laws. In some states, you must provide employees with copies of their entire file or parts of their personnel file. Other states, you do not have to do so. You are allowed to charge a reasonale fee for copying.

Perhaps if you post the state that you're in, the Attorney Editor for that state will tell you what, if anything, you are required to provide.

Also, use the search feature on the Forum to look at previous discussions we've had about whether to provide the records even if you're not required to do so. Forum members made some pretty good arguments both for and against doing so.

Hope that helps you. Welcome to the Forum!

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

ian

I am receiving requests for employment records from attorneys' accompanied by the current/former employees authorized release. Is a court ordered subpoena needed prior to releasing this information? The states in question are New Jersey, Penn. New York, Florida, Mass. and Maryland.

Don D

Am I to understand that you are getting a rash of these things and that they are similar or identical in format? If that's the case, sounds like some hungry attorney has his sights on your company and he's representing a group of people. If I got two or less of these I would ignore them. If I got more than two, I would immediately condact my corporate or labor attorney. I'm certainly no lawyer, but before every responding to anything like this I would also ensure that the 'lawyer' who sent the request actually holds himself out as representing the party on whom the records are sought and that the letter specifically says that; and that that ex-employee has signed the document. Still it could be a scam, even with that appearance. But, I never send anything in response to a 'request' from a lawyer unless he's working for our company.

scottorr

I'm in NY. I never send a response without a court ordered subpoena. I believe here in NY the ee file belongs to the employer not the ee and therefore are not required to release without a court order. Our company allows ee to review portions of their own file upon written request and they must be an active ee. The request must be specific as which portions they wish to review. If we receive a request from an attorney's office, we forward the request to our attorney. They generally tells us to ignore the request.