On April 9, the New Your City Council voted overwhelmingly to approve a measure that would ban pre-employment marijuana testing for workers in the city, with a number of specific exceptions. Mayor Bill de Blasio has indicated...more
Last week, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission released information on charges filed with the agency in fiscal year 2018. Total charges declined to 76,418, the lowest number filed with the EEOC since 2006. ...more
Over the past year, we have had a number of employers ask about removing marijuana from the panel of illegal substances screened for applicants and/or employees. Some of these companies cite the low unemployment rate, stating...more
In addition to the typical reasonableness argument and other defenses against the enforcement of employment noncompetition covenants, in some cases courts will invalidate these agreements based on a public policy argument....more
The Occupational Safety and Health Act prohibits employers from retaliating against employees who report workplace injuries to OSHA. On March 1, OSHA filed a lawsuit against a Massachusetts construction company whose CEO...more
Formal employment contracts can be for a specific term or may be terminated by one or both parties under certain conditions. When the agreement has no set term or can be ended by either party at any time, it is considered...more
Most employers know that an employee does not have to ask for Family and Medical Leave by name in order to fall under the FMLA’s protections. At what point, however, does the employee’s disclosure of a medical condition...more
In some situations, developing a creative approach toward overtime pay can cost the employer more than if it had simply paid time and one-half overtime in the first place. On February 8, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals...more
2/20/2019
/ Appeals ,
Class Action ,
Damages ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) ,
Fluctuating Workweek ,
Jury Verdicts ,
Minimum Salary ,
Pay Rates ,
Unpaid Overtime ,
Wage and Hour
Over the past several years, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (which includes North Carolina and South Carolina) has significantly lowered the bar for plaintiffs to get to a jury trial on their claims of sexual or other...more
Over the past several years, our practice has seen a marked increase in the number of employee accommodation requests that involve remote work. As communications technologies have improved, these employees regularly contend...more
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, employers may only require employees to submit to medical exams or inquiries when there is a business necessity for determining the employee’s ability to perform the essential...more
2/12/2019
/ Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Appeals ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dismissals ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Medical Examinations ,
Reasonable Accommodation ,
Reversal
A client recently received a request from a salesperson who suffers from depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. The employee said that certain customers acted in ways that triggered her symptoms, and she...more
On January 11, the U.S. Supreme Court accepted an appeal of a Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decision dealing with the administrative prerequisites for a plaintiff to file suit against an employer under Title VII and related...more
1/25/2019
/ Administrative Procedure ,
Appeals ,
Certiorari ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Exhaustion Doctrine ,
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ,
Fort Bend County Texas v Davis ,
Jurisdiction ,
SCOTUS ,
Split of Authority ,
Title VII
In a highly publicized incident during the 2016 presidential election, a Trump campaign staff worker claimed that the North Carolina campaign director threatened him with a pistol on the way to a campaign event. The worker...more
1/18/2019
/ Appeals ,
Assault ,
Donald Trump ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Litigation ,
Firearms ,
Independent Contractors ,
Negligence ,
Political Campaigns ,
Vicarious Liability ,
Workplace Violence
Employer wellness plans have attracted multiple legal challenges ranging from HIPAA concerns to allegations that such programs violate federal civil rights under GINA and the ADA. Adding to this confusion, the Equal...more
When training interviewers on legal compliance in hiring, employers often coach their employees to avoid phrases that can be interpreted as referring to the applicant’s age. For example, the EEOC sometimes views claims that...more
In recent years, federal courts have increasingly been called upon to decide whether employers must provide accommodations relating to disabled employees’ commutes to and from work. The EEOC and some federal courts have...more
Many health care employers require employees with patient contact to obtain various vaccinations as a condition of employment. Occasionally, employees or applicants will decline the vaccines and request an exemption based on...more
Under the Occupational Safety and Health Act, companies are responsible for preventing their employees from being exposed to safety violations. For years, OSHA has also asserted that a company can be held responsible for...more
During the Obama presidency, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued interpretation memoranda that called into question the legality of common employer programs intended to reduce accident rates. This...more
Employers with California operations probably know that traditional noncompetition covenants are unenforceable in that state. Additional state court decisions concluded that customer non-solicitation prohibitions are also...more
Most prosecutors will tell you that the cover-up is often worse than the underlying crime. This adage was again proven correct earlier this month when OSHA announced that the U.S. Department of Justice had obtained federal...more
At the end of each federal fiscal year, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration releases a list of the 10 most frequently cited safety standards violations. This year’s list was issued on October 23 and contains the...more
Many employers rely on the fluctuating workweek (FWW) method to reduce their overtime obligations. FWW allows employers to pay a fixed salary and a half-time overtime premium to employees whose working hours significantly...more
Clients sometimes ask us if we are seeing an increase in the number of sexual harassment claims filed since the initiation of the #MeToo movement. Our typical answer has been “Not really, but wait.” Earlier this month, the...more