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Nasir and Matt talk about the recent court decision that requires insurers to inform consumers of the name of a competitor. They then answer the question, "One of our employees is a backup driver for our food delivery business and we get a discount from our insurance company if our drivers take a defensive driving course; that employee ended up taking the course but did not get approval from HR, but from her supervisor. HR says we don't have to pay her for the day and tell her we're docking her a vacation day, I wasn't as sure. What do you think?" Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist and also answer some of your business legal questions that you, the listener, can send in to ask@legallysoundsmartbusiness.com and, of course, follow us at askbizlaw. MATT: And you are? NASIR: Oh, yeah. And my name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: I’m Matt Staub. I guess that was my opportunity to say my name first and I didn’t do it. NASIR: You totally blew it! That was your opportunity. MATT: That’s fine. NASIR: In fact, that was a test and you failed, miserably. MATT: We like to do alphabetically order so I wouldn’t want to get out of place. NASIR: Oh, is that why we did it that way? Obviously, by last name. MATT: Yeah, I guess that’s true. Well, that’s what I was thinking. Who goes alphabetical by first name? NASIR: People that forget others’ last names, I suppose, I don’t know. MATT: Okay. We’re going to go a little bit outside our states here in Connecticut but we can talk about this as a whole because it’s pretty interesting. So, I guess this was in the federal court of appeals but it was in the second circuit. There is a new Connecticut statute that’s restricting insurers in claim administrators for mentioning the name of or scheduling an appointment with an affiliated glass company unless they also give the name of a competing glass company in the area. So, basically, they have to inform the consumer of I guess the name of the competitor before scheduling this appointment and I am sure there is more details that go into this but there’s protections in place. I would think it’s to help the consumer but, yeah, this is pretty interesting. I have never really even come across something like this or thought about it before. NASIR: Yeah, if you have ever been into an accident or your windshield breaks or whatever, sometimes you will get referrals, especially depending upon whether they are going to write you a check or they have to go through an authorized dealer or whatever, they will tell you or give you a referral to who you can take your car to, right? To get your glass repaired or whatever. And so, what this Connecticut law is saying, “Okay. Look, if you are going to make a referral like that, if there is an affiliation between you and this other company, then you also have to mention a competitor.” And it sounds nice and I think the public court here thought the same, “Okay, it sounds nice, but does this really protect the consumer or does it protect the competitor?” And, if you look a little bit deeper where the statute came from, it definitely didn’t come from consumer protections advocates; it came from these other competitors, specifically in this glassware industry, apparently. MATT: Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned it in the beginning that, when I said glass, that was the reason I said that. It’s kind of confusing but I am thinking back to the last time I had my windshield replaced and I think – this was not in Connecticut but – they gave me three different options and I can’t remember if they just gave it to me because they wanted to give three options or, you know, maybe that was just the way they do business. NASIR: Yeah. This is in California, right? I don’t know; I’d be surprised. I have never heard of any such law that does that but I wonder if they did that out of requirement or not. MATT: Because it was, well,