Employment

The Second Circuit has denied a plaintiff’s request to rehear argument en banc (that is, before all of the court’s judges) in a case alleging that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation.

A recent Fourth Circuit ruling in a case handled by Mintz Levin provides some comfort to employers concerned about terminating an employee who they believe has made a false complaint of discrimination.

With its “employer mandate”—i.e., the requirement that applicable large employers make an offer of group health coverage to substantially all full-time employees or face the prospect of a penalty—the Affordable Care Act (ACA) opened a fault line in the previously monolithic market for group health insurance.

Congress adopted the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (“FMLA”) to provide job security for employees who must miss work due to their own serious health condition, the birth of their children, to care for family members suffering from a serious health condition or for reasons related to their family members’ military service.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recently gave a candid assessment of the chances of getting an Affordable Care Act (ACA) replacement bill through the Senate, saying “I don't know how we get to 50 (votes) at the moment.” That succinctly captures the political dilemma.

On June 2, Patricia Moran was a guest on Bloomberg radio, where she discussed the Trump administration’s potential softening of the Obamacare contraception coverage mandate.

We previously discussed the conflict between a Second Circuit panel’s holding in April that Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act did not prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and the Seventh Circuit’s landmark ruling the same month reaching the opposite conclusion.

In an effort to make up for a funding shortfall in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ Medicaid program, state policymakers have proposed solutions that include a “play-or-pay” option under which employers who fail to offer major medical coverage, or who offer coverage but have low take-up rates, would be required

In a previous post we discussed the significant new obligations New York City’s “Freelance Isn’t Free Act” imposes on employers that retain the services of freelance independent contractors. On May 15, these requirements became effective for all freelance contracts executed on or after that date.

As expected, the New York State Department of Labor (DOL) recently appealed the decision of the New York Industrial Board of Appeals invalidating the DOL regulations concerning employers who use direct deposit or payroll debit cards to pay employees.  The regulations, which were scheduled to take effect on March 7, 2017, were invalidated in February 2016.

Join us on Tuesday, May 16 for the final installment of our Entrepreneur Series in partnership with the University of San Diego.

As we recently blogged about here, efforts to ban inquiries related to applicants’ salary history have gained momentum across the country. Last Friday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio joined this trend by signing into law a bill prohibiting New York City employers from inquiring about prospective employees’ salary history.

A few months ago, a three-member Third Circuit appellate panel in Acclaim Systems, Inc. v. Infosys, upheld a district court decision, which dismissed tortious interference claims against an employer for engaging with four individuals subject to non-compete agreements, because the employer had no knowledge of the non-competes at issue when it on-boarded them.

Earlier this month, in In re Investors Bancorp, Inc. Stockholders Litigation, the Delaware Court of Chancery reiterated its view that placing a meaningful limit on director equity awards to be granted under a stockholder approved equity plan allows the court to determine whether director equity awards are excessive under the more lenient business judgment rule.

In today’s global economy, the landscape surrounding immigration issues is becoming increasingly complex. Penalties for violations of federal and state immigration rules extend beyond civil fines to more serious consequences, including but not limited to, criminal liability.

The Second Circuit said last week that an employer violated the National Labor Relations Act when it fired an employee who criticized a supervisor on Facebook during an election. The catch here is that the Second Circuit reached this conclusion even though the employee used profanity and hurled personal insults at the supervisor as part of his criticism.

Earlier this month, the Supreme Court confirmed that federal appeals courts should apply a deferential standard of review to federal district court determinations regarding the legal sufficiency of EEOC subpoenas.

As we observed in a recent post on the Seventh Circuit’s decision in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College extending Title VII to sexual orientation claims, the Supreme Court will probably have to resolve the disagreement among the federal circuit courts over whether the statutory language “because of...sex” should be interpreted to include “because of…sexual orientation.”

We had such a spirited panel discussion on pay equity at our Third Annual Employment Law Summit recently that we wanted to follow up with a post addressing the current state of play on pay equity legislation, particularly with respect to salary history disclosure laws. This is a rapidly advancing area of the law in which we continue to see new developments.

Our colleagues at the ADR blog have published the first of a series of posts discussing the dilemmas inherent in attempting to resolve class claims through arbitration. In Is ‘Class Arbitration’ an Oxymoron?