The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) recently settled charges alleging that a company’s employee separation agreements restricted former employees from receiving monetary awards for reporting securities law...more
11/1/2023
/ Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Corporate Fines ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Restrictive Covenants ,
Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) ,
Securities Violations ,
Separation Agreement ,
Whistleblower Awards ,
Whistleblower Protection Policies ,
Whistleblowers
On October 10, 2023, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law a bill that will allow plaintiffs in California to continue pursuing claims during the pendency of an appeal to an order denying a petition to compel arbitration. The...more
On October 4, 2023, the Supreme Court of the United States heard oral arguments in a highly-anticipated case over whether a self-proclaimed “tester” plaintiff has standing to bring Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) claims...more
10/9/2023
/ Acheson Hotels LLC v Laufer ,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Justice (DOJ) ,
Disability Access Claims ,
Fair Housing Act (FHA) ,
Hospitality Industry ,
Hotels ,
Mootness ,
Oral Argument ,
Public Accommodation ,
SCOTUS ,
Standing ,
Title III ,
Websites
On August 30, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) released two decisions that will make it more difficult for employers to implement past practices during a break in bargaining or at an impasse, opening the door...more
9/8/2023
/ Collective Bargaining ,
Collective Bargaining Agreements (CBA) ,
Contract Terms ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Labor Relations ,
NLRA ,
NLRB ,
Regulatory Violations ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions
On August 24, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced a new final rule for union elections that revives the prior “ambush election” rules. The new rule compresses the time period between the time a...more
Illinois has joined the wave of jurisdictions passing pay transparency requirements. On August 11, 2023, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed a bill into law that will require employers to include pay ranges in job postings...more
On July 31, 2023, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals revived a Christian teacher’s religious discrimination lawsuit over his refusal to refer to transgender students by their names and pronouns with which they identified. ...more
8/11/2023
/ Bostock v Clayton County Georgia ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Department of Education ,
Educational Institutions ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) ,
Gender Identity ,
Groff v DeJoy ,
Public Schools ,
Religious Accommodation ,
Religious Discrimination ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Sexual Orientation Discrimination ,
Title IX ,
Title VII ,
Transgender ,
Undue Hardship
Under a recently introduced bill, employers across New York State could face new restrictions on the electronic surveillance of workers and the growing use of automated decision-making and artificial intelligence (AI)...more
On June 29, 2023, the New York City Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP) issued new guidance on the enforcement of the city’s law regulating the use of automated employment decision tools (AEDTs) ahead of the...more
7/5/2023
/ Artificial Intelligence ,
Audits ,
Automation Systems ,
Bias ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Disparate Impact ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Discrimination ,
Final Rules ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Job Applicants ,
New Guidance ,
Notice Requirements
On June 13, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) overruled its 2019 independent contractor standard focused on whether workers have “entrepreneurial opportunity” and returned to a common law multi-factor analysis...more
A putative class action recently filed in Seattle, Washington, against a solar energy equipment company could be the first lawsuit to test the bounds of the state’s relatively new restrictions on noncompetition agreements for...more
In yet another effort to speed up the processing of cases, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) general counsel on May 22, 2023, issued a memorandum instructing Regional Offices to speed up compliance with Board-ordered...more
On April 20, 2023, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) imposed a host of expanded remedies against an employer that allegedly committed a number of repeated labor law violations in the context of collective bargaining....more
4/24/2023
/ Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) ,
Administrative Remedies ,
Collective Bargaining ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Enforcement Actions ,
Labor Law Violations ,
NLRB ,
Remedies ,
Statutory Violations ,
Unfair Labor Practices ,
Unions
On February 23, 2023, an administrative law judge for the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) ruled that a Catholic university in Florida is exempt from the Board’s jurisdiction as a religious institution. But the case tees...more
On December 19, 2022, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 federal contractor vaccine mandate. The 2-1 panel...more
12/22/2022
/ Biden Administration ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Mandates ,
Executive Orders ,
Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR) ,
Federal Contractors ,
Infectious Diseases ,
OSHA ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Vaccinations ,
Workplace Safety
On December 9, 2022, a federal judge in Montana permanently blocked enforcement in healthcare settings of a first-in-the-nation law that had prohibited discrimination in employment and the provision of services based on...more
12/20/2022
/ Anti-Discrimination Policies ,
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) ,
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Coronavirus/COVID-19 ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Health Care Providers ,
Healthcare Facilities ,
Hospitals ,
Permanent Injunctions ,
Preemption ,
Vaccinations
On November 3, 2022, an Illinois circuit court judge dismissed a Biometric Information Privacy Act (Privacy Act or BIPA) putative class action against Samsara, Inc., a DashCam developer. DashCam is a safety technology for...more
11/11/2022
/ App Developers ,
Biometric Information ,
Biometric Information Privacy Act ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Dashcams ,
Data Collection ,
Prior Express Consent ,
Putative Class Actions ,
Safety Equipment ,
Video Recordings ,
Written Consent
With the rise of inflation and other negative economic indicators, most news reports are suggesting that the U.S. economy is facing uncertain times. Some economists predict that the economy is headed for a recession or that...more
Millions of workers across the United States will be headed to the polls on Tuesday, November 8, 2022, for the midterm elections. With control of Congress up for grabs for the final two years of President Joe Biden’s...more
On September 8, 2022, an Illinois federal judge dismissed with prejudice a Biometric Information Privacy Act (Privacy Act or BIPA) class action against an online eyewear retailer over its virtual try-on (VTO) tool,...more
California employers may soon be barred from discharging employees or refusing to hire individuals based on their off-duty use of marijuana, under a new bill headed to the governor’s desk. On August 30, 2022, the...more
9/7/2022
/ Corporate Counsel ,
Drug Testing ,
Employee Rights ,
Employment Policies ,
FEHA ,
Governor Newsom ,
Marijuana ,
Off-Duty Employees ,
Pending Legislation ,
Recreational Use ,
Screening Procedures
The panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that largely upheld California’s law banning mandatory arbitration agreements in the employment context just withdrew its decision. On August 22, 2022, two of the three...more
8/29/2022
/ Appeals ,
Arbitration ,
Arbitration Agreements ,
Chamber of Commerce ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Employer Liability Issues ,
Employment Contract ,
Employment Litigation ,
Hiring & Firing ,
Mandatory Arbitration ,
Mandatory Arbitration Clauses ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) ,
State Labor Laws
On August 18, 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark E. Walker issued a preliminary injunction blocking part of Florida’s House Bill (H.B.) 7, known as the Individual Freedom Act (IFA), which prohibits employers from requiring...more
8/22/2022
/ Bias ,
Civil Rights Act ,
Constitutional Challenges ,
Corporate Counsel ,
Diversity and Inclusion Standards (D&I) ,
Employee Training ,
First Amendment ,
Free Speech ,
Governor DeSantis ,
New Legislation ,
Preliminary Injunctions ,
Public Schools ,
Race Discrimination ,
Sex Discrimination ,
Title VII ,
Training Requirements
In a decision issued on August 11, 2022, the Nevada Supreme Court declined to recognize recreational marijuana use as a “lawful” activity for purposes of the state’s law providing employment protections for “lawful...more
On May 23, 2022, the Supreme Court of California held that premium pay for missed meal and rest periods constitutes “wages” under California labor law and that employers may be held liable for the failure to properly report...more