One of the most sweeping economic changes arising as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic is the shift from in-person to remote working. Although many employees have returned to working on location again, factors indicate...
Employment Law Letter
Title VII doesn’t require employees to demonstrate an “objectively tangible harm,” the full U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit recently ruled. The landmark decision overturned the court’s...
The California Supreme Court recently dealt a difficult blow to clients of staffing agencies when it ruled that a client-hospital could be sued by a temporary nurse who had been placed at the hospital by a staffing...
For the past eight years, minor league baseball players have been in litigation with Major League Baseball, seeking to void a rule capping their pay and prohibiting payment outside the baseball season. On the eve of...
Maybe it’s because I write this during the All-Star break. Maybe it’s because Major League Baseball and minor league players have entered into a settlement, but I have been thinking about umpires. Every game needs a...
In a recent decision, the California Court of Appeal partially corrected the Public Employment Relations Board’s (PERB) egregiously misguided decision striking down most of a voter initiative strengthening Sonoma’s...
One of the benefits of compelling worker claims to arbitration is the privacy it affords the parties, especially to hiring entities, as well as more efficiency. In regard to public policy, both state and federal law are...
For the past 50 years, school districts prevented most religious expression around students and schools to avoid giving the impression the school sanctioned a specific belief. The desire to prevent any hint of...
Are California employers required to compensate job applicants for the time and expense of taking a mandatory drug test? The 9th Circuit (which covers California) recently held a district court properly entered judgment...
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the New York Labor Law (NYLL) recognize that not all salespeople are created equal for overtime purposes. While “inside” salespeople (those who make sales from a brick-and-mortar...
On May 24, 2022, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul signed the Adult Survivors Act (ASA) into law. The ASA allows certain sexual abuse victims who were 18 years or older at the time of the alleged incidents to file a civil...
Texas has a whistleblower law for public employees. Like playing an accordion, the Texas Supreme Court has both expanded and contracted the statute’s scope over the last several years. On May 27, 2022, the court issued...
The Texas Supreme Court just issued an important opinion on the payment of commissions to employees. The employer’s failure to simply insert one extra paragraph in an offer letter resulted in a whopping verdict against...
The benign headline above is covering up an ongoing dispute among the 17 judges in the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals (which covers Texas). The question: Should more or fewer employment cases get sent to a jury trial...
I can’t quite get Bobby McFerrin’s 1988 song out of my head (by the way, I added the question mark for reasons I will get to in a minute) since reading a May 12, 2022, article in the Wall Street Journal, “Confessions of...