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Employment
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May 09, 2024
Acting Labor Sec. Urges Senate Panel To Back DOL Funding
Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su on Thursday defended President Joe Biden's U.S. Department of Labor budget, telling a Senate panel that such funding is necessary to recover workers' stolen wages and fight unlawful child labor, among other priorities.
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May 09, 2024
Nike Denied Nursing Workers Lactation Spaces, Suit Says
Nike failed to provide nursing employees with adequate breaks or spaces to express breast milk and told a manager that she was setting a bad example for her team when she asked to pump milk outside of her scheduled breaks, a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County superior court said.
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May 09, 2024
'You Have To Engage,' Judge Tells Attys In Damages Debate
A Georgia federal judge on Thursday chided attorneys for a man hoping to beat back a challenge to a $3.4 million discrimination verdict he won last year, saying that they needed to put a little more sweat equity into their filings if they hoped to keep their hefty judgment whole.
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May 09, 2024
NYC Denies IVF Coverage To Gay Male Workers, Court Told
New York City unlawfully discriminates against gay male employees by refusing to cover in vitro fertilization under its healthcare plan while providing heterosexual and lesbian workers with those benefits, according to a proposed class action filed Thursday in federal court.
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May 08, 2024
Boeing Again Seeks Exit From Suit Over Love-Triangle Murder
The Boeing Co. is again asking a Seattle federal judge to let it escape liability in a case involving a love triangle among employees that ended in murder, saying the newest iteration of the suit still doesn't adequately allege Boeing knew or should have known about the employee's potential for violence.
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May 08, 2024
Texas Univ. Says Rules, Not Sex Bias, Behind Coach Firing
The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley pushed back Wednesday against a former assistant tennis coach who accused the school of firing her because of her sexual orientation, arguing that she was dismissed for violating its policy while traveling for a tournament.
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May 08, 2024
GW Hospital Bargained In Bad Faith, NLRB Dems Say In Redo
A split National Labor Relations Board panel said Wednesday that George Washington University Hospital sabotaged union negotiations with unworkable proposals, reasserting precedent that employers bargain in bad faith by insisting on contract provisions that effectively nullify unions.
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May 08, 2024
EEOC Atty Highlights Top PWFA Compliance Challenges
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission legal counsel Carol Miaskoff gave her take Wednesday on some notable compliance challenges the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act will pose for employers, pointing to areas where numerous laws may overlap and the requirement that workers core tasks could be paused.
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May 08, 2024
Lyft Driver Asks Calif. Justices To OK Intervening In PAGA Suit
An attorney for a Lyft driver who sued the company under the Private Attorneys General Act urged the California Supreme Court on Wednesday to find her client has standing to intervene in a competing PAGA Lyft case that reached a settlement, saying the deal threatened to "extinguish" her client's rights.
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May 08, 2024
Wash. Justices Decline Personal Injury Atty's Fee Split Spat
Washington's high court has declined to hear a personal injury lawyer's challenge to his old firm's fee-splitting agreement, letting stand a state appellate court's ruling that the contract had "clear and unequivocal language" compelling him to pass on half the fees he earned from the firm's former clients after his departure.
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May 08, 2024
Colo. Sheriff Fights State Law That Let His Deputies Unionize
A Colorado county sheriff whose staff is unionizing has sued the state over the 2023 law that gave his workers the right to organize, seeking a declaration that the law does not apply to his office.
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May 08, 2024
Duke Doctor Partially Resuscitates NC Firing Suit
The North Carolina state appeals court has partially revived a fired Duke University hospital resident's lawsuit alleging that health care system officials terminated him because of his depression after an inadequate firing-review process that violated an employment contract.
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May 08, 2024
4th Circ. Says Purpose Of Inmate Labor Affects Classification
The primary purpose of prisoners' work at a Baltimore County recycling plant should determine whether a group of incarcerated people were employees under federal law, a Fourth Circuit panel ruled Wednesday, rejecting the county's view that any amount of rehabilitative-oriented work spared it from minimum wage obligations.
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May 08, 2024
4th Circ. Asks If High Court Ruling Bars Credit Suisse Tipster
A Fourth Circuit panel questioned Wednesday whether a U.S. Supreme Court ruling prevented it from reviving a whistleblower case by a former Credit Suisse employee alleging the bank helped U.S. citizens evade taxes after paying a $2.6 billion criminal penalty.
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May 08, 2024
Coldwell Banker's Lockboxes Draw BIPA Suit
Coldwell Banker has been sued in Illinois state court by a proposed class of employees who claim it violated Illinois' biometric privacy law by failing to get their informed consent before requiring them to scan their fingerprints to access biometric lockboxes that store keys for rental units shown to potential customers.
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May 08, 2024
8th Circ. Grapples With What Triggers An EFAA 'Dispute'
The Eighth Circuit seemed skeptical Wednesday of Chipotle's argument that the date of a worker's alleged sexual assault is the linchpin for determining whether a law limiting mandatory arbitration shields her lawsuit, but receptive to the notion that a "dispute" could have occurred before she filed the case in court.
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May 08, 2024
Farmworkers Union Says DOL's 2022 Rules Keep Wages Low
A farmworkers union in Washington state is challenging rules the U.S. Department of Labor introduced in 2022 that the union said are depressing farmworkers' wages.
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May 08, 2024
Oil Field Workers File Proposed Class Suit Over Unpaid Wages
Three oil field workers have slapped their employers with a proposed collective and class action in Texas federal court accusing the companies of failing to pay overtime and straight-time wages to hourly, day rate and salaried workers in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
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May 08, 2024
NJ Court Reverses Order Piercing School Board Atty Privilege
A New Jersey appellate court has reversed trial court orders compelling a school district to produce communications with its attorneys in a discrimination and malicious prosecution suit brought by a former administrator, finding that she had not established any Sixth Amendment right at stake to necessitate piercing attorney-client privilege.
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May 08, 2024
Dems Propose Scrapping Title VII Damages Caps
House and Senate Democrats unveiled legislation Wednesday that would eliminate ceilings on the amount of damages workers can receive under federal civil rights law if a jury finds they've been discriminated against, a proposal the lawmakers say would correct outdated limits.
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May 08, 2024
Mass. Justices May Give Green Light To Tip Ballot Measure
Massachusetts' high court justices appeared skeptical Wednesday of arguments by a group of restaurant owners seeking to kill a ballot question that, if approved, would gradually raise the minimum wage for tipped workers to the state's $15-per-hour standard.
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May 08, 2024
Lighting Co. Reaches Deal To End Parental Leave Suit
A lighting company struck a deal with a former project manager who accused the company of firing him because he asked to take parental leave after his child was born and he was then stuck in Egypt at the outset of the pandemic, a Massachusetts federal court filing said.
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May 08, 2024
Catholic School Defeats Gay Teacher's Bias Suit At 4th Circ.
The Fourth Circuit on Wednesday struck down a gay drama teacher's win in his suit alleging he was unlawfully fired by a Catholic school after announcing his wedding on Facebook, finding that his job entailed responsibilities that triggered a religious exception to anti-discrimination law.
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May 07, 2024
Gov't Enforcement Concerns Employers, Littler Report Finds
Almost three-quarters of U.S. employers share great concern over the impact the U.S. Department of Labor's and the National Labor Relations Board's enforcement actions will have on their businesses, according to a survey Littler Mendelson PC released Wednesday.
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May 07, 2024
10th Circ. Finds 'Religious Animus' In School's Vaccine Rules
The Tenth Circuit ruled Tuesday that the University of Colorado System's policies regarding COVID-19 vaccine exemptions violated constitutional religious liberty protections, saying its rules were motivated by "religious animus" and should have been blocked by a trial court.
Expert Analysis
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Calif. Ruling Shows Limits Of Exculpatory Lease Clauses
A California court's recent decision in Epochal Enterprises v. LF Encinitas Properties, finding a landlord liable for failing to disclose the presence of asbestos on the subject property, underscores the limits of exculpatory clauses' ability to safeguard landlords from liability where known hazards are present, say Fawaz Bham and Javier De Luna at Hunton.
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Breaking Down California's New Workplace Violence Law
Ilana Morady and Patrick Joyce at Seyfarth discuss several aspects of a new California law that requires employers to create and implement workplace violence prevention plans, including who is covered and the recordkeeping and training requirements that must be in place before the law goes into effect on July 1.
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Series
Serving As A Sheriff's Deputy Made Me A Better Lawyer
Skills developed during my work as a reserve deputy — where there was a need to always be prepared, decisive and articulate — transferred to my practice as an intellectual property litigator, and my experience taught me that clients often appreciate and relate to the desire to participate in extracurricular activities, says Michael Friedland at Friedland Cianfrani.
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Fears About The End Of Chevron Deference Are Overblown
While some are concerned about repercussions if the U.S. Supreme Court brings an end to Chevron deference in the Loper and Relentless cases this term, agencies and attorneys would survive just fine under the doctrines that have already begun to replace it, say Daniel Wolff and Henry Leung at Crowell & Moring.
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What A Post-Chevron Landscape Could Mean For Labor Law
With the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on Chevron deference expected by the end of June, it’s not too soon to consider how National Labor Relations Act interpretations could be affected if federal courts no longer defer to administrative agencies’ statutory interpretation and regulatory actions, say attorneys at Morgan Lewis.
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Former Minn. Chief Justice Instructs On Writing Better Briefs
Former Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Lorie Gildea, now at Greenberg Traurig, offers strategies on writing more effective appellate briefs from her time on the bench.
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Preparing For Possible Calif. Criminal Antitrust Enforcement
Though a recent announcement that the California Attorney General's Office will resume criminal prosecutions in support of its antitrust enforcement may be mere saber-rattling, companies and their counsel should nevertheless be prepared for interactions with the California AG's Antitrust Section that are not limited to civil liability issues, say Dylan Ballard and Lillian Sun at V&E.
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Studying NY, NJ Case Law On Employee Social Media Rights
While a New Jersey state appeals court has twice determined that an employee's termination by a private employer for social media posts is not prohibited, New York has yet to take a stand on the issue — so employers' decisions on such matters still need to be assessed on a case-by-case basis, say Julie Levinson Werner and Jessica Kriegsfeld at Lowenstein Sandler.
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Stay Interviews Are Key To Retaining Legal Talent
Even as the economy shifts and layoffs continue, law firms still want to retain their top attorneys, and so-called stay interviews — informal conversations with employees to identify potential issues before they lead to turnover — can be a crucial tool for improving retention and morale, say Tina Cohen Nicol and Kate Reder Sheikh at Major Lindsey.
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AI In Accounting Raises OT Exemption Questions
A recent surge in the use of artificial intelligence in accounting work calls into question whether professionals in the industry can argue they are no longer overtime exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act, highlighting how technology could test the limits of the law for a variety of professions, say Bradford Kelley at Littler and Stephen Malone at Peloton Interactive.
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Calif. High Court Ruling Has Lessons For Waiving Jury Trials
The California Supreme Court’s recent decision in TriCoast Builders v. Fonnegra, denying relief to a contractor that had waived its right to a jury trial, shows that litigants should always post jury fees as soon as possible, and seek writ review if the court denies relief from a waiver, say Steven Fleischman and Nicolas Sonnenburg at Horvitz & Levy.
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A Look At 3 Noncompete Bans Under Consideration In NYC
A trio of noncompete bills currently pending in the New York City Council would have various effects on employers' abilities to enter into such agreements with their employees, reflecting growing anti-noncompete sentiment across the U.S., say Tracey Diamond and Grace Goodheart at Troutman Pepper.
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Series
Spray Painting Makes Me A Better Lawyer
My experiences as an abstract spray paint artist have made me a better litigator, demonstrating — in more ways than one — how fluidity and flexibility are necessary parts of a successful legal practice, says Erick Sandlin at Bracewell.
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Draft Pay Equity Rule May Pose Contractor Compliance Snags
The Federal Acquisition Regulatory Council's recently proposed rule that would prohibit government contractors from requesting certain job applicants' salary history seems simple on the surface, but achieving compliance will be a nuanced affair for many contractors who must also adhere to state and local pay transparency laws, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.
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2nd Circ. Baby Food Ruling Disregards FDA's Expertise
The Second Circuit's recent decision in White v. Beech-Nut Nutrition, refusing to defer litigation over heavy metals in baby food until the U.S. Food and Drug Administration weighs in on the issue, provides no indication that courts will resolve the issue with greater efficiency than the FDA, say attorneys at Phillips Lytle.