On March 30th, a group of plaintiffs consisting of several industry associations of employers and an Arkansas law firm filed an action in the U.S. District Court in Little Rock seeking an injunction to prevent the U.S. Department of Labor from implementing its new “persuader activity” rule. This rule, which is set to take ...
For decades, “fair share” fees have been justified as a mechanism to help unions cover the costs associated with collective bargaining. In the 1977 case of Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that compulsory union dues are unconstitutional, but unions could collect fees necessary to cover costs ...
On March 17, 2016, the Kentucky Supreme Court addressed the “similarly situated” standard that must be established by all plaintiffs in Kentucky Civil Rights Act (KCRA) claims in The Board of Regents of Northern Kentucky University v. Weickgenannt, 2016 WL 1068245 (Ky. March 17, 2016) (unpublished). Plaintiff ...
The deadline for employers that use pre-approved retirement plan documents to sign an updated version of their 401(k), profit-sharing, money purchase, or other defined contribution plan, is drawing near.
The IRS requires all pre-approved plans to be updated or “restated” in their entirety every six years to incorporate ...
On March 14, 2016, the Department of Labor forwarded its modifications to the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM), which increases the salary requirements for exempt workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), to the Congressional Office of Management and Budget (OMB). This is the last step before the NPRM’s ...
Consol Energy has asked the Fourth Circuit to review a nearly $600,000 unanimous federal jury verdict in favor of a former employee’s Title VII claims of religious discrimination based on the company’s failure to accommodate his religious beliefs. U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. Consol Energy, Inc., No ...
On Tuesday, March 1, 2016, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC") filed two sex discrimination lawsuits in federal court that are premised upon the Commission’s position that sexual orientation discrimination is a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The first lawsuit filed by the EEOC was filed ...
The recent and unexpected death of Justice Antonin Scalia at a West Texas ranch may affect the decisions in several employment-related cases pending before the U.S. Supreme Court this term. The nine-member body—now reduced to eight—faces a variety of controversial issues predicted to divide the Court along ...
On Monday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit concluded that it has jurisdiction to review challenges to the “Clean Water Rule.” As previously detailed on this blog, the Clean Water Rule was promulgated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers to clarify and expand the reach of ...
Steve Hall, an experienced patent lawyer and litigator, and member of Wyatt's Intellectual Property Protection & Litigation Service Team, was recently quoted in the February 2016 issue of The Lane Report. The article, "Many Options to Protect Intellectual Property," draws upon the knowledge of local experts in the field and describes ...