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NOVEMBER 2021 KunkelCase Files 888-228-9680 • www.KunkelLawFirm.com • GKunkel@KunkelLawFirm.com
FROM THE DESK OF
3 Ways to Survive Your Best Decisions Sully Found Confidence While Facing Doubt
Gregory Kunkel, Esq.
CAN EMPLOYERS MAKE COVID-19 VACCINATIONS MANDATORY? With the FDA’s approval of COVID-19 vaccines, many employers are requiring employees to get vaccinated as a condition of employment. Many people have called our office asking if their employer can require them to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Generally speaking, the answer to this question is yes. According to the EEOC, employers are free to impose the vaccine mandate on all employees unless the employee meets one of two narrow exceptions: 1) the employee cannot be vaccinated due to a disability or medical condition and no other reasonable accommodation is available that would eliminate the risk of possibly exposing coworkers to the virus and 2) the employee is unable to receive the vaccination due to a sincerely held religious conviction and the employer cannot provide an accommodation that would pose no more than a de minimis cost on the employer’s business operations. Thus, under the EEOC guidance, an employer can terminate an employee for refusing to be vaccinated unless the
When you make the right decisions in life, a band doesn’t appear on the scene to sing your praises. Often, your best decisions are private and very difficult to make. But how do you ultimately know whether or not you did the right thing? The movie “Sully,” directed by Clint Eastwood, confronts this question in a fascinating way. It’s based on the true story of Captain Chesley “Sully” Sullenberger and his decision to land his commercial plane in the Hudson River because he realized it wouldn’t make it to LaGuardia due to a rare engine failure. Although the survival rate for water landings is remarkably low, every single person lived. That’s 155 people, including two infants. Despite being a hero, the pilot faced enormous legal challenges afterward. To put it simply, insurance and the airline company didn’t want to pay for the damages. Captain Sully and his copilot were forced to constantly defend the best decision he could have made. Based on this true story and its movie adaptation, here’s how you, too, can cope with doubt about the most important decisions in your life.
employee can establish that he or she meets one of the narrow exceptions to a vaccine requirement.
No. 1: In any crisis, always focus on the first step.
When you’re in the pilot’s cockpit and alarm bells are going off, it’s easy to panic or, worse, freeze in terror. How do you stop yourself from doing that? Although it’s certainly easier said than done, you should put all of your energy into the initial action of dealing with the crisis.
–Greg Kunkel
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This step includes emotional crises, too, when you’re deep in self-doubt. What’s the first step to knowing you made the right decisions? It’s double-checking your work and talking to others who have been in similar positions. It can also mean being patient for results to come in. Focus on small steps, and after that, try this next step.
However, if you’ve landed a plane and saved 155 lives but face intense legal threats that could jeopardize your well-being and that of your family, you may feel like your emotional state is out of your control. That’s totally normal — it may even be healthy to allow yourself to feel disappointment, anger, and worry. Embracing your emotions may allow you to accept, overcome, and see past them faster.
No. 2: If something isn’t within your control, relinquish your concern.
No. 3: Don’t doubt yourself alone — find a listening ear.
If you’ve had a new job change you’re worried about, create a pros and cons list and see what you think. No matter what the results are, you can always consider your next steps toward a future you’ll be happier with.
As a hero, Sully felt very isolated in his unique situation of self- doubt; however, he was lucky to rely on his copilot, wife, and lawyers (who knew his situation intimately). They considered it carefully themselves and assured him he was right. It’s easy to isolate yourself when you feel most vulnerable and afraid of being wrong. However, it might be worth opening up to a friend, or even a therapist, to talk about your doubts and why they may cause you anxiety or decision paralysis. Working through these phases in your life never has to be done alone — we all need help sometimes. While I’m not Captain Sully, these tips have helped me numerous times, and in some cases, I wish I had taken my own advice sooner! Thanks for reading, friends. I hope you’ll have a wonderful start to the holiday season.
FOOTBALL AND THANKSGIVING: A MATCH MADE IN MARKETING HEAVEN
Last year, 30.3 million people tuned in to watch the NFL’s Thanksgiving showdown between the Washington Football Team and the Dallas Cowboys. For those Americans (and probably for you if you’re reading this article), football is as essential to Thanksgiving as turkey and stuffing — but why? As it turns out, there are two answers to that question. The first is that games have been played on the holiday for almost as long as it has officially existed. Thanksgiving became a holiday in 1863, and just six years later, the third American football game in history was played on it.
George A. Richards, decided that in order to attract more fans, his team would make a point to always play on Thanksgiving when most people were off work. To sweeten the pot, he committed his radio station (an affiliate of the NBC Blue Network) to broadcasting the Thanksgiving game live on 94 different stations across America. This idea was a hit from day one! According to Sporting News, the long-unloved Lions “not only sold out the stadium, they also had to turn people away at the gates.” In 1966, the Dallas Cowboys signed on to play every Thanksgiving, too, for similar publicity reasons. Since those early days, football-themed traditions have flourished in American families. Apart from watching games on TV, one of the most popular is
According to SB Nation, the Young America Cricket Club and the Germantown Cricket Club faced off in that inaugural Thanksgiving game in Philadelphia, and football has been played on Thanksgiving pretty much ever since! When the NFL was founded in 1920, the Thanksgiving game was official from the get-go.
organizing a pre-turkey game of family touch football a la the sitcom “Friends.” (Its famed episode “The One With the Football” aired Nov. 21, 1996.) If you’ve never organized a game, this could be your year! To get started, Google “Scott’s Family-Friendly Touch Football” and click the first link.
The second reason we watch football on Thanksgiving is more about money than tradition. In 1934, a Detroit Lions coach,
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Jelly Bean Deception Why Jelly Belly Got Sued for Using Sugar
Before Bang and other creatine energy drinks became all the rage, many companies tried their hand at candy designed to energize. Not wanting to miss out on the action, Jelly Belly developed Sports Beans. Like most other energy supplements, Sports Beans contained electrolytes, carbohydrates, and a plethora of B vitamins. They also included the phrase “evaporated cane juice” as one of the ingredients — but this got them into some legal trouble. A woman named Jessica Gomez filed a case against Jelly Belly in 2017 over this ingredient. She claimed the company had falsely advertised their Sports Beans by stating they contained juice instead of sugar. Gomez believed the company portrayed that the beans were healthy by trying to appeal to athletes instead of stating that the product contained sugar. Her complaint argued that the product’s label was designed to mislead consumers, asserting that she would not have been willing to pay as much or at all for the product if she knew it contained sugar.
Jelly Belly responded, calling the lawsuit complete nonsense. They pointed out that evaporated cane juice and sugar are interchangeable terms and also cited the product’s nutritional chart which showed that each serving contained 17 grams of sugar.
Jelly Belly further picked apart the claim by stating that Gomez did not insist on expecting a sugar-free product, and she did not explain why anyone would be surprised to find sugar in a product described as jelly beans. This is not the first lawsuit against a company for using an alternative term for sugar. Though the Food and Drug Administration does not have any legal requirements regarding “evaporated cane juice,” it recommends calling the ingredient sugar to avoid these instances. The courts ended up siding with Jelly Belly, as Gomez failed to show any facts specific to the purchase or the advertising of the product. False advertising and deceptive practices do happen, but this case was not one of those instances. If Gomez had paid attention to the nutritional chart, this entire lawsuit could have been avoided.
Take a Break!
BAKED CORNBREAD AND CHORIZO STUFFING
Inspired by FoodNetwork.com
Ingredients
• 1 lb Mexican chorizo • 1 white onion, chopped • 1 carrot, chopped • 1 celery rib, chopped • 3 garlic cloves, chopped • 2 cups premade cornbread, crumbled
• 1/4 cup cilantro, chopped • 1/2 cup chicken stock • 1 tbsp unsalted butter, for greasing • Cilantro, for garnish • Cotija cheese, for garnish
Directions
1. Preheat your oven to 350 F. 2. In a large skillet over medium heat, cook the chorizo for 5 minutes. Add the onion, carrot, celery, and garlic. Cook for 10 additional minutes. Stir in the cornbread and cilantro. 3. While stirring, slowly add the chicken stock. Stir until absorbed. 4. Butter a small casserole dish, then add the stuffing in an even layer. Bake for 20 minutes, garnish as desired, and serve!
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE From the Desk of Gregory Kunkel, Esq. PAGE 1 3 Ways to Survive Your Best Decisions PAGE 1 Football and Thanksgiving: A Match Made in Marketing Heaven PAGE 2 Jelly Bean Deception PAGE 3 Take a Break PAGE 3 Baked Cornbread and Chorizo Stuffing PAGE 3 Dog Dials 911 to Save His Owner PAGE 4
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Dogs can be trained to obey a lot of commands: sit, stay, roll over, play dead. But how about “dial 911”? Well, that would probably be a foreign command for most dogs. Luckily, it wasn’t for Buddy, an 18-month-old German shepherd who remembered his training and saved his owner’s life. Joe Stalnaker of Scottsdale, Arizona, sustained a head injury during a military training exercise 10 years prior to the incident. Because of that injury, he suffered from seizures. Normally, a condition like that would make it unwise for him to live alone, but Stalnaker valued his independence and wanted to find a way to lead as normal a life as possible. Joe adopted Buddy from a Michigan-based organization called Paws With a Cause when the pup was just 8 weeks old. Paws with a Cause trains assistance dogs, and after adopting him, Joe trained Buddy to dial 911 until an operator was on the line in the event that he had a seizure. How One Dog Saved His Owner By Dialing 911
A year and a half later, that training saved Joe’s life. One day, Joe began seizing when he was home alone with Buddy. Buddy rushed to the phone and dialed 911, whimpering to the dispatcher. Even if they don’t hear anyone on the line, dispatchers are required to send police. When police arrived at Joe’s home, they found him and Buddy, who was barking loudly. They took Joe to the nearby hospital, where in a few days, he made a full recovery. Some might say that Buddy was just following his training, but this heroic act goes far beyond just sitting and rolling over for treats. Even the veteran dispatchers hadn’t heard of a dog dialing 911 before. Buddy knew it was his mission to keep his owner safe, and thankfully, he knew exactly what to do under pressure — because that’s what heroes do.
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