Allyn & Fortuna LLPPaula Lopez, March 6, 2014. On February 26, 2014, in an effort spearheaded by Mayor Bill DiBlasio, the New York City Council passed significant amendments to the Earned Sick Time Act (ESTA), recently enacted in June 2013 and set to go into effect on April 1, 2014. Consequently, in a little over a month before ESTA was slotted to go into effect, several key provisions affecting the size of employer covered under the law, the implementation of the law, the permitted use of sick leave, and the law’s…
Paula Lopez, February 5, 2014. Employers in New York City and New Jersey are now required to provide reasonable accommodations to pregnant employees. While State and Federal laws prohibit employers from discriminating against pregnant employees, none of these laws require employers to provide reasonable accommodations. Instead, reasonable accommodations have only been required to the extent that they are available to similarly-situated non-pregnant employees. Effective January 30, 2014, the New York City Human Rights Law was amended to prohibit discrimination based on pregnancy, childbirth or related medical conditions. And,…
Paula Lopez, January 2, 2014. After cautiously avoiding a ruling on the issue of the legality of state bans on same-sex marriage it is increasingly likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will be forced to decide this issue. In Windsor v. United States, decided in June 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a provision of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) barring federal marital benefits to same-sex couples who had been married in states where same-sex marriages are legal. In its ruling, the Court expressly limited its holding…