Employment

We all know the default American Rule for attorneys’ fees: unless you get fees in a contract or from a statute, you shouldn’t count on someone else paying the freight if you win your case.

Recently, union leaders at the Long Island Railroad and representatives of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority finally reached a deal to avoid a strike. If a strike had occurred, businesses would have faced a potentially significant loss of employee productivity as more than 300,000 daily commuters travel to and from Long Island each day.

On July 22, 2014, two federal appellate courts issued conflicting decisions, within hours of each other, regarding the IRS final rule published on May 23, 2012 (the “IRS Rule”), intended to implement the exchange-related tax credit provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA” or the “Act”).

Earlier this month, we wrote about New Jersey’s proposed “ban the box” measure—a law that would prohibit employers from inquiring about job candidates’ criminal histories early in the hiring process—heading to Governor Chris Christie’s desk. It’s still sitting there, so no news on that front.

My colleague Drew Matzkin is quoted in this Society for Human Resource Management piece in which he comments on the importance of employers keeping an employee’s performance issues separate from the individual’s use of FMLA-leave. The article focuses on the rising rate of FMLA abuse and specific tactics employers can take to contain it.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’ (USCIS) Fraud Detection and National Security (FDNS) Directorate has recently begun implementation of an L-1 site inspection program in response to an August 2013 report released by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) titled “Implementation of L-1 Visa Regulations.”

For applicable large employers (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) endeavoring to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s employer shared responsibility rules, determining an employee’s status as “full-time” is critically important.

A non-compete agreement is a vital tool that companies use to protect their confidential and trade secret information and their customer and employee relationships. Employers, of course, want to avoid the trouble of running to court to enforce their non-compete agreements, but if they do, they better make sure their non-competes will withstand a judge’s scrutiny.

With so much focus on the reasonableness of restrictive covenants, it’s easy to forget that non-competes are plain old contracts—nothing more. And when it comes to enforcing non-competes, basic contract law still applies.

The California Supreme Court recently held that a trial court needed to revisit its class certification decision regarding newspaper carriers who alleged that they should have been classified as employees rather than independent contractors.

The EEOC released its updated enforcement guidance on pregnancy discrimination yesterday -- the first time it's done so in more than 30 years. You can access the guidance and related documents here.

The Employer Shared Responsibility provisions of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) generally require “applicable large employers” (i.e., employers who employed at least 50 full-time and full-time equivalent employees on business days during the preceding calendar year) to offer group health plan coverage or face the prospect of having to pay an assessable payment.

Employers and insurers offering medical plans: take note! Two important final regulations issued jointly by the IRS, DOL and HHS (the “Departments”) are now in effect.

Corporate Counsel followed up on my entry on the amendments to the New York Wage Theft Prevention Act, which we expect Governor Cuomo to sign shortly.

A recent decision from the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, one of the most important courts in the nation, reaffirmed that a company’s internal investigations—if structured properly—are protected from disclosure in litigation by the attorney-client privilege.

My article on pregnancy accommodations, the EEOC's updated Enforcement Guidance and the Young v. UPS case, which the Supreme Court will hear in its next term, was published in Thompson's ADA Compliance Guide August 2014 Newsletter.

JD Supra's Business Advisor recently asked my colleague Jennifer Rubin what is "the one thing that a business's non-compete agreement should accomplish."

To call the Supreme Court’s recent decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc. much-anticipated or highly controversial is an understatement. And, to be clear, any time the Supreme Court weighs in on bed-rock constitutional principle—particularly as it affects the church-state relationship, it is a big deal.

In December, we wrote about New Jersey’s proposed “ban the box” measure, known as the Opportunity to Compete Act, making its way through the legislature – a law that would prohibit employers from inquiring about job candidates’ criminal histories early in the hiring process.

Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied a request to review the issue of whether the Fair Labor Standards Act grants employees a non-waivable right to bring a collective action and thus, renders arbitration agreements with collective action waivers unenforceable.