A recent opinion from the Eastern District of Pennsylvania serves a win to a medical marijuana card-holder who brought claims against an employer under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), the Pennsylvania Medical...more
6/4/2025
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Department of Transportation (DOT) ,
Disability Discrimination ,
Drug Testing ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Litigation ,
Federal Labor Laws ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Medical Marijuana ,
Pennsylvania ,
Plant Based Products ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Screening Procedures ,
State Labor Laws
In 2018, Washington enacted a Fair Chance Act, requiring covered employers to wait until after considering an applicant to be “otherwise qualified” for the position at issue to inquire about or consider criminal history when...more
5/6/2025
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employer Responsibilities ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Notice Requirements ,
State Labor Laws ,
Washington
On December 23, 2022, President Biden signed the “James M. Inhofe National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2023” which, among many other things, amended Section 19 of the Federal Deposit Insurance Act, 12 U.S.C....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Since 2018, California has had a comprehensive Fair Chance Act (CFCA), which places a number of restrictions on employers using criminal history for hiring and other employment purposes. San Francisco and...more
10/15/2024
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Background Checks ,
Ban the Box ,
California ,
Conditional Job Offers ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Ads ,
Job Applicants ,
Labor Reform ,
Labor Regulations ,
Local Ordinance
Effective September 3, 2024, employers with locations or employees (including remote workers) in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County (ULAC) will be subject to a new Fair Chance Ordinance. To say that the new...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Earlier this week, by denying the employer’s motion to reconsider in Cemex Construction Materials Pacific LLC, 372 NLRB No. 157 (2023), the National Labor Relations Board not only validated the...more
11/30/2023
/ Cemex ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employees ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Labor Relations ,
Motion for Reconsideration ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Union Organizers ,
Unions
For many years, California employers have been subject to the state’s Fair Chance Act, which (in a nutshell) requires employers to...more
8/23/2023
/ Adverse Employment Action ,
Background Checks ,
California ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Criminal Background Checks ,
Criminal Records ,
Employees ,
Fair Chance Act ,
Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
State Labor Laws ,
Wage and Hour
Since 2014, Minnesota has provided applicants and employees with protections if they lawfully use cannabis for medicinal purposes. Starting August 1, 2023, Minnesota will provide protections to individuals who use cannabis...more
On May 25, 2023, the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey granted an employer’s motion to dismiss a putative class action in Zanetich v. Wal-Mart Stores E., Inc. Addressing an issue of first impression, the...more
6/6/2023
/ Cannabis Products ,
Drug Testing ,
Employee Rights ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Employment Policies ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
Marijuana ,
New Jersey ,
Recreational Use ,
State Labor Laws ,
Workplace Safety
Seyfarth Synopsis: Across nationwide testing, marijuana positivity rates for 2022 reached 4.3% (up from 2.7% in 2017), with biggest gains found in states that legalized recreational marijuana....more
In the last two years, more jurisdictions have passed laws providing employment protections to applicants and employees using cannabis on their free time, including in New York, Washington, DC, and California. Recently,...more
On September 18, 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed AB 2188, which will make it unlawful for California employers to rely on cannabis test results for employment purposes, unless in very narrow circumstances....more
As previously reported here, on February 22, 2021, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed the “New Jersey Cannabis Regulatory, Enforcement Assistance, and Marketplace Modernization Act” (CREAMMA), which amended the New Jersey...more
The District of Columbia legalized cannabis for medicinal purposes in 2010 and began to permit individuals to use the drug recreationally in 2015. Last month, on July 13, 2022, Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser signed the...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The latest Gallup poll shows that 68% of Americans support cannabis legalization. Further, the rate of positive cannabis test results has jumped in the last decade. And according to recent news reports,...more
On January 14, 2022, the Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed a trial court decision that dismissed a former employee’s complaint alleging his employer failed to consider whether it could reasonably accommodate his use of...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: Each year, employers revisit and possibly modify their background screening policies and practices to account for newly enacted ban-the-box and other laws impacting background screening. Last year, we saw...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On June 16, 2021, Louisiana joined the growing list of states and localities with so-called “Fair Chance” laws by enacting its own law restricting an employer’s consideration of criminal history in hiring...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On June 25, 2021, concluding that Iowa’s comprehensive drug testing statute requires employers to “substantially” comply with its mandates, the Iowa Supreme Court issued two separate decisions finding that...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On June 18, 2021, the Iowa Supreme Court upheld a portion of the Waterloo, Iowa ban-the-box law’s restrictions on “when” employers can inquire about criminal history, but struck down restrictions on “what”...more
Recently, when dismissing a job-applicant’s disability discrimination claims brought under California state law, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California issued two welcome reminders to employers. ...more
On April 28, 2021, Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney signed Bill No. 200625 which, effective January 1, 2022, prohibits employers from requiring prospective employees to undergo testing for the presence of marijuana as a...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: On March 23, 2021, Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law SB 1480, which includes amendments to the Illinois Human Rights Act prohibiting employment discrimination based on an individual’s conviction...more
Marijuana remains a Schedule I drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act. However, more and more states and localities are either enacting marijuana laws with express employment protections or resolving court cases in...more
Recognizing that state medical and recreational marijuana laws are sweeping the nation, and that a recent survey reflected that nearly half of surveyed American adults have used marijuana, the Acting Director of the U.S....more