In the recent decision of Davies v. Alcan Rolled Products, the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals continued its recent trend of reviewing claims decisions based on the medical management guidelines in W. Va. C.S.R. § 85-20-1, et seq. (“Rule 20”). At issue in Davies was the calculation of permanent impairment for carpal tunnel syndrome (“CTS”) claims. In W.Va. C.S.R. § 85-20-64 ...
The ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (“ADAAA”) has created new liability concerns for employers since it was enacted a few years ago. Specifically, the ADAAA protects, among other persons, “qualified individuals with a disability” from unlawful discrimination or harassment. It further requires employers to provide “reasonable accommodations” to such employees to enable them toperform essential job functions, with various exceptions ...
The Employee Free Choice Act (“EFCA”), the bill that would have altered the way in which unions are allowed to organize workers, was introduced in both chambers of the United States Congress on March 10, 2009 ...
Supporting OSHA’s aggressive semi-annual regulatory agenda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, Jordan Barab, recently warned a research symposium that, “despite what goes on in Congress, [OSHA] [has] absolutely no intention of pulling back or retreating.” Barab alerted attendees that OSHA’s regulatory agenda aims to extend enforcement beyond traditional manufacturing and construction sectors ...
A June ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has provided a bit of a relief for employers who face Fair Labor Standards Act retaliation claims from employees. The Supreme Court's ruling in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 131 S.Ct. 1325, 1329, 179 L. Ed. 2d 379 (2011) represented a significant victory for employees, but now all is not lost for employers. In Maynor v. Dow, No. 10-40771, 2011 U.S. App. LEXIS 12759 (5th Cir ...
As you will be aware, 1 January 2012 is the go live date for OHS harmonisation. A new OHS Act, Regulation and Codes of Practice will commence in the Commonwealth and in each State and Territory at this time. The new package of OHS legislation will be based on model legislation, so will be substantially similar in each jurisdiction. For detailed information about the state of play in relation to OHS harmonisation, see our HR&IR Update of 22 June 2011 ...
Following the introduction of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Bill 2011 (Bill) and the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2011 (Transitional Bill) into the Commonwealth Parliament (as reported in our news alert of 23 March 2011), the Senate referred the Bill and the Transitional Bill to the Senate Education, Employment and Workplace Relations Legislation Committee (Commi
In April 2011, the Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a final rule that could have a significant impact on employers that use a “tip credit” to satisfy their obligation to pay employees minimum wage. Although courts have generally required employers to notify employees of (but not explain) the tip credit, the new rule requires employers to provide very specific and detailed information regarding their use of the tip credit ...
On June 13, 2011, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in United States v. Jicarilla Apache Nation, 564 U.S. ___ (2011), holding that the fiduciary exception to the attorney-client privilege does not apply to the United States government’s administration of Indian trusts ...
Are you already using E-Verify for all of your new hires? If not, you will soon be required to. The North Carolina legislature passed "An Act to Require Counties, Cities and Employers to Use the Federal E-Verify Program to Verify the Work Authorization of Newly Hired Employees" (the "Act"), which was signed into law by Governor Beverly Perdue on June 23, 2011 ...
It's been a long time coming, but the EEOC has finally published the official regulations for Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (GINA). (Title I addresses non-discrimination in the context of health insurance, and regulations for that Title will be issued by the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Treasury.) GINA was originally enacted on May 21, 2008, by, President George W. Bush, and became effective November 21, 2009 ...
The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Act”) was signed into law by President Obama on July 21, 2010. The Act was enacted to address many regulatory issues, including to promote financial stability in the United States “by improving accountability and transparency in the financial system,” “to end ‘too big to fail,’” and “to protect consumers from abusive financial services ...
On June 20, 2011, the Supreme Court issued its opinion in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, reversing a Court of Appeals decision that had affirmed certification of a nationwide class of 1.5 million female employees in a gender discrimination suit against Wal-Mart. In a 5-4 decision, the Court held that class certification was improper because the named plaintiffs failed to satisfy the commonality requirement of Rule 23(a)(2) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure ...
1. International anti-corruption conventions To which international anti-corruption conventions is your country a signatory? Chile is a signatory to and has ratified the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions, and the United Nations Convention against Corruption. 2 ...
Employers are likely to let out a collective groan of exasperation over the recently launched consultation on shared, flexible parental leave and the extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees ...
Employers are likely to let out a collective groan of exasperation over the recently launched consultation on shared, flexible parental leave and the extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees ...
Recent cases in which employers have successfully defended their decisions to enforce dress and diversity policies against Christian employees have led to comments by Christian campaigners that there is "disproportionate animosity" towards the Christian faith in the UK courts ...
The Court of Appeal has confirmed that a failure by the transferor to provide the information required by Regulation 13 of TUPE does not render the transfer ineffective (Marcroft v Heartland). The underlying dispute in this case concerned the enforcement of restrictive covenants in Mr Marcroft's contract. He had been employed by PMI in its commercial insurance business ...
In Watson v University of Strathclyde, the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that the inclusion of a particular member of staff on a panel to hear an appeal against a grievance amounted to a fundamental breach of contract, so that the employee who had brought the grievance was constructively dismissed ...
It is well established that an employer who provides a reference owes the employee who is the subject of the reference a duty to take reasonable care in preparing the reference ...
The Court of Appeal has ruled that career-long compensation will only be awarded in cases where an employee has little to no prospect of ever finding an equivalent job. (Wardle v Credit Agricole Corporate and Investment Bank). Mr Wardle, aged 44, brought a race discrimination claim against his employers, the French bank Credit Agricole, when a French candidate was awarded a promotion ahead of him ...
In a welcome decision for employers, the Employment Appeal Tribunal has considered the extent to which employment tribunals should investigate the employer's marking and scoring process in a redundancy procedure and held that detailed judicial scrutiny of the scores awarded in a redundancy process is inappropriate (Dabson v David Cover & Sons Ltd). Mr Dabson argued that he had been dismissed unfairly for redundancy ...
The Empoyment Appeal Tribunal has held, in the case of Burns v Santander UK plc, that an employee who is remanded in custody for 6 months while awaiting trial was not entitled to claim wages for that period. Mr Burns was arrested and charged with various criminal offences. He remained in custody for 6 months until his trial. Santander wrote to him to say that he would not be paid while he was in custody ...
The Government launched its consultation on modern workplaces on 16 May 2011. The consultation contains proposals for a system of shared flexible parental leave, the extension of the right to request flexible working to all employees, changes to the Working Time Regulations to deal with the interaction of holiday and sickness absence and proposals to require employers to carry out equal pay audits if they lose an equal pay claim ...
The Department for Business Innovation and Skills has now published its final guidance on the Agency Workers Regulations, which come in to force on 1 October 2011. The final guidance makes the provisions and requirements in relation to pay between assignments clearer especially in relation to annual leave. There has also been a minor change to remove one-off non-contractual bonus payments from the definition of pay ...
