Allyn & Fortuna LLPPaula Lopez, February 9, 2016. The Women’s Equality Act (“WEA”) went into effect on January 19, 2016. The WEA is a combination of five bills signed into law by Governor Cuomo on October 21, 2015. The various provisions are intended to serve as a comprehensive means for protecting women’s rights in the workplace and affording enhanced remedies for plaintiffs who prevail in litigation brought for violations of the law. The key employment-related provisions of the WEA amend New York’s Labor Law (NYLL) and Human Rights Law (NYSHRL) and…
Paula Lopez, December 4, 2015. Recently, New Jersey’s appellate court ruled that an arbitration provision contained in a company’s employee handbook, the receipt of which was electronically acknowledged by its employees, is unenforceable because the handbook also contained a broad disclaimer disavowing the creation of a contractual relationship. Because of the disclaimer language and the absence of a signed arbitration agreement, the court found that plaintiff never agreed to arbitrate the claims against her employer. New Jersey employers seeking to have claims brought by employees arbitrated should review…
Paula Lopez, October 23, 2015. As noted in a previously posted blog dated May 12, 2015, New York City passed the New York City Stop Credit Discrimination in Employment Act (“SCDEA”), which amends the New York City Human Rights Law to include provisions prohibiting employers, labor organizations and employment agencies from conducting credit checks as part of their hiring process and from discriminating against an applicant or employee based on credit history, with certain limited exceptions. SCDEA went into effect on September 3, 2015. The New York City…
Paula Lopez, September 2, 2015. In a 3-2 decision issued last week, the National Labor Relations Board delivered a highly anticipated decision in NLRB v. Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc., broadening the joint employer standard that has been in place for the last 30 years. The decision drew extreme reactions from dissenting board members and polarized pro-employer and pro-union organizations. Browning-Ferris Industries of California, Inc. (BFI), owns and operates a recycling facility. BFI directly employs 60 employees, most of whom work outside the facility. The BFI employees are…
Paula Lopez, August 7, 2015. In Brown & Brown v. Johnson, the New York Court of Appeals (New York’s highest court) rejected a choice of law provision contained in an employment agreement that designated Florida law as the law governing the agreement because it found that Florida’s employer-friendly approach in enforcing employment-related restrictive covenants is contrary to New York’s public policy. A choice of law provision in an agreement allows parties to agree that a particular state’s laws will be used to interpret the agreement regardless of where…
Paula Lopez, July 6, 2015. On Friday, June 26, 2015, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Anthony Kennedy (and joined by Justices Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kagan and Breyer) that the right to marry is a fundamental right protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell et al. v. Hodges, et al. means that all states are required to license a marriage between couples of the same sex and to recognize out of state same-sex marriages. The Supreme Court’s decision reversed…
Paula Lopez, June 5, 2015. On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court issued its decision in the case EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., reversing the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal’s decision holding that Abercrombie could not be held liable on a religious discrimination claim for failure to accommodate. In an 8-1 decision reversing a decision of the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court made it clear that Title VII requires employers to make efforts to accommodate an applicant or employee’s “religious observance and practice”…
Paula Lopez, May 12, 2015. On May 6, 2015, Mayor Bill De Blasio signed into law Bill A-261A, which amends the New York City Human Rights Law (NYC HRL) to prohibit employers, labor organizations and employment agencies from conducting credit checks as part of their hiring process and from discriminating against an applicant or employee based on credit history. Although the new law provides for certain exemptions where employers are permitted to request and rely on credit-related information, the exemptions are limited. Employers with four or more employees…
Paula Lopez, February 20, 2015. It is important for employers to always implement proper policies as a tool for staving off litigation. While doing so employers should understand that the statements contained in their policies are binding on them in the same manner that they would be on their employees. Therefore, they should take the proper steps to ensure that their policies accurately reflect the state of the law so as to not expose themselves to legal liability that otherwise could be avoided. A Michigan employer learned this…
Paula Lopez, October 16, 2014. Last week, in the case Integrity Staffing Solutions v. Busk, the U.S. Supreme Court heard argument on whether warehouse workers are entitled to overtime pay for time spent waiting to pass through employer mandated security checks after they had already clocked out for the day. The plaintiffs were former warehouse workers in Nevada employed by Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. a company that provides warehouse space and staffing to Amazon.com and similar clients. The plaintiffs worked in two warehouses in Nevada as hourly employees…