Labor & Employment Law Update

The recent decision in Dyer v. Ventra Sandusky, LLC, issued by the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals (which has jurisdiction over Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee), should motivate employers to take another look at whether their attendance policies run afoul of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).

There are plenty of gray areas in the law, but it is generally clear that employees are not to be disciplined because they are absent for FMLA-covered reasons. That also means that employees should not accumulate attendance “points,” e.g., under a no-fault attendance ...

In May, we reported on Illinois becoming the eleventh state to permit recreational marijuana beginning January 1, 2020. Noncitizens in these eleven states and the District of Columbia may reasonably conclude that using marijuana in accordance with state law will have no bearing on immigration status. Unfortunately, that is a wrong assumption. Federal law controls immigration, and it remains a federal offense to possess marijuana. For the unsuspecting foreign national, this is a legal distinction that many will not understand. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Officers ...

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), employees must be properly classified as either exempt or nonexempt, and nonexempt employees must be paid overtime (1½ times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked over 40 hours in a workweek). All compensation, including commissions and non-discretionary bonuses, must be included in the regular rate of pay for purposes of calculating overtime, unless the compensation is one of eight specified types of payment (e.g., holiday gift, birthday gift, discretionary bonus, and certain profit sharing payments).

Employees may be ...

On August 13, 2019, Illinois Comptroller, Susana Mendoza, signed an Executive Order (EO) aimed at enforcement of the state’s prevailing wage law (aka mandatory top line union wage/benefits scale) for “construction” projects receiving state money. On the surface, one would say “hey, that’s a pretty good idea.”  But… the EO invites more questions than answers.  More importantly, it encourages organized labor to target contractors that they have disputes with (without any proof or evidence of actual non-compliance with prevailing wage law) and the Comptroller may ...

In January 2019, we reported on the Illinois Supreme Court’s decision, Rosenbach v. Six Flags Entertainment Corp., where the highest court in Illinois unanimously found that an individual need not allege (or show) an actual injury to qualify as an “aggrieved” person under the Illinois’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA). This decision opened up the floodgates for additional, class action litigation under this Illinois statute.

Then, last week, in Patel v. Facebook, (a case that was originally filed in Illinois but later transferred to the Northern ...

MAJOR CHANGES TO ILLINOIS EMPLOYMENT LAWS:  NEW MANDATORY SEXUAL HARASSMENT TRAINING, REPORTING AND DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS, RESTRICTIONS ON EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENTS, & SEVERAL OTHER MANDATES

ATTENTION Illinois employers of ALL sizes… Are you ready?  Today (August 9, 2019), Governor Pritzker signed Senate Bill 75 – the Workplace Transparency Act – into law.  Effective January 1, 2020, major new changes will forever alter how Illinois employers manage harassment and discrimination issues as well as other workplace controversies.

In fact, the changes will require ALL ...

This past February we reported that the Supreme Court agreed to review the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in Fort Bend County v. Davis on the viability of claims brought in federal courts where the claimant had not first filed her claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). On June 3, 2019, the Supreme Court issued its decision holding that Title VII’s charge-filing requirement is a non-jurisdictional claim-processing rule that may be forfeited if not timely asserted. 

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employee is required to first bring his ...

With much fanfare, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker signed into law major amendments to the Illinois Equal Pay Act (IEPA) that now bar Illinois employers from asking job applicants or their prior employers about salary, wages or benefits history. On average, women in Illinois are paid only 79% of what men receive, according to information recently released from Gov. Pritzker’s office. Gov. Pritzker and Illinois legislators hope that the IEPA amendments will help correct the disparity. Gov. Pritzker told a crowd at the recent signing ceremony that “[w]e are declaring that ...

A federal court in Pennsylvania recently ruled that a former employee presented sufficient evidence to warrant a jury trial on a claim she was retaliated against after she resigned. The decision serves as a good reminder that anti-retaliation protections extend beyond the end of the employment relationship to protect former employees.

Cherie Leese complained of sexual harassment while employed by a state agency. She later filed a charge alleging she was issued discipline in retaliation for her report. The parties eventually settled. As part of that settlement, Leese resigned ...

Several years ago, a trend was emerging that consisted of third-party, private marketplaces where employers could have their employees purchase health care with an “allowance” of sorts. This “allowance” could be facilitated by an employer that set up a stand-alone Health Reimbursement Arrangement (HRA). The emerging trend was analogous to the way traditional pension plans evolved to 401(k)s. Then, before things could take off, the Affordable Care Act put a halt to it. Essentially, the ACA said that these stand-alone HRA plans broke the rules because they had ...