The Supreme Court ruled earlier this week that the Bayh-Dole Act does not automatically vest title to federally funded inventions in federal contractors in Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University v. Roche Molecular Systems, Inc., et al. The Bayh-Dole Act generally enables non-profit organizations, such as universities, to obtain title to inventions made under federally funded research programs while reserving march-in rights to the federal agency providing the funding ...
On May 26, 2011, the United States Supreme Court handed down its decision in Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America v. Whitingin which petitioners had challenged a 2007 Arizona law imposing sanctions on businesses that hire unauthorized aliens. Petitioners claimed that the Arizona law, the Legal Arizona Workers Act, was expressly, or alternatively, impliedly preempted by the Federal Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) ...
The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently provided additional support for calculating unpaid overtime compensationunder the Fair Labor Standard Act (“FLSA”) by paying damages to misclassified employees at 50% of the regular rate ...
Financial pressures often prompt an employer to review the benefits provided to employees and former employees in order to determine whether changes can be made that would decrease the cost of those benefits. Other times an employer will make changes to the benefits it offers in order to attract new employees or to better respond to the demographics of its workforce ...
Starting April 6, 2011 the Social Security Administration (SSA) resumed sending its “no-match” letters (or “decentralized correspondence (DECOR) letters”) to advise employers of reported social security numbers that do not coincide with SSA’s records. In 2007, SSA stopped sending DECOR letters due to federal litigation focused on an insert that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) wanted to include with the letters ...
On March 22, 2011, the Fifth Circuit ruled that the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (“USERRA”) does not support a cause of action for hostile work environment. This is the first ruling from any Circuit Court regarding the issue. USERRA, a federal statute that establishes rights for members of the National Guard and Reserve, applies to all public and private employers, regardless of size ...
On September 25, 2008, former President George W. Bush signed the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 (the “ADAAA” or the “Act”) into law, broadening the definition of “disability” under the Americans with Disability Act (“ADA”). The ADAAA makes it easier for people to establish that they are protected by the ADA and overturns holdings in several well-known Supreme Court decisions, which had previously narrowed the “disability” definition ...
According to an old Russian Proverb, “A spoken word is not a sparrow. Once it flies out, you can’t catch it.” Applying this to the employment context, if an employee verbally complains that his employer is violating the FLSA, is the employee protected from retaliation? Deciding a split among the circuit courts, the Supreme Court answered the question affirmatively, eliminating the need for a net: the FLSA protects employees who file oral complaints. Kasten v ...
Employers across the country are encountering problems with successful completion of the I-9 Form, a one-page form required to verify employment eligibility of workers in the United States. Despite internal audits and I-9 training, employers continue to identify errors on their I-9 Forms. Each I-9 error is treated as a separate violation resulting in a hefty fine ...
In a case decided last week, Staub v. Proctor Hospital, a unanimous United States Supreme Court finally addressed the application of the “cat’s paw” theory of liability to employment discrimination claims, holding that an employer can be liable for an employment action motivated by a non-decision maker’s discriminatory animus ...
The decision by an employer to offer a pension plan to its employees is an important one. Various types of pension plans may be offered, and the financial risk of the employer depends on the type of plan chosen.While unions and employees generally prefer defined benefit pension plans,(1) employers are now very reluctant to implement such plans because of the financial liability they entail ...
The facts of the case In 1987, the Hudson’s Bay Company (“HBC”) sold one of its divisions to the North West Company (“NWC ”). In the context of that transaction, some 1,200 HBC employees were transferred to NWC (the “Transferred Employees”). On October 7, 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada rendered its judgment in the Burke v. Hudson’s Bay Co. case ...
The business community has been placed on notice. OSHA has been actively pursuing its regulatory agenda, while also arming its arsenal to enforce compliance. This alert explores the highlights of OSHA’s initiatives in 2010 and what companies can expect in 2011. OSHA 2010: Expanded Enforcement and an Active Commission OSHA’s efforts throughout 2010 included expanded enforcement, a negative publicity campaign, and clearance of several legacy cases from the OSHA Review Commission (“OSHRC”) docket ...
OSHA is implementing several changes to its administrative penalty calculation system. Many of the agency's current penalty adjustment factors have been in place since the early 1970's, resulting in penalties which are often too low to have an adequate deterrent effect. Administrative penalty adjustments will therefore be made to several factors which impact the final penalty issued to employers. These factors include: 1 ...
Combined EAD/Advance Parole Cards Citing security and durability, USCIS announced last week that it is issuing combined employment and travel authorization on one card. Currently, applicants are issued two separate approval documents – a card for employment authorization and a paper approval for advance parole ...
Over the last ten years, Quebec society has frequently been called on to establish means for integrating human rights in the workplace, particularly with respect to accommodation matters ...
Here we go again! Consistent with its retaliation decisions over the past five years, the United States Supreme Court has revisited and expanded the scope of protection from retaliation under Title VII. In an 8-0 decision issued January 24, 2011, the high court expanded the scope of Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision by concluding that in certain situations, the statute allows an employee who has not personally engaged in protected activity to lodge a retaliation claim under the statute ...
The Obama National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”)1 has started to make its mark on the labor laws through a series of changes that collectively may have a significant impact on the labor law environment ...
After launching a National Emphasis Program (“NEP”) on recordkeeping in 2009, OSHA has focused increasingly more on recordkeeping compliance when conducting workplace inspections. Recently, the Assistant Secretary of Labor, David Michaels, noted that the recordkeeping NEP has supposedly uncovered recordkeeping violations in almost 60 percent of the 192 inspections OSHA has carried out to date under the program ...
“Never a dull moment” – 2010 was an eventful year for Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) jurisprudence in the Fifth Circuit and across the country ...
February 20, 2011, will bring a significant additional burden for many employers using the H-1B, H-1B1 Chile/Singapore, L-1 or O-1A category to sponsor a worker. Petitioners, even those entities not typically involved with technology subject to U.S. Government export rules, will be required to make an export control compliance statement under penalty of perjury on USCIS Form I-129. The statement is to certify that the foreign employee will not be allowed access to controlled U.S ...
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission received more than 12,000 charges in 2009 from employees claiming sexual harassment—a 6 percent increase from three years ago. Although harassment claims are on the rise, Haynes and Boone continues to secure significant sexual harassment victories for its clients, and employers overall ...
On November 9, 2010, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) issued its much-anticipated final rule implementing Title II of the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act (“GINA”), which applies to all employers covered by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), namely, employers with fifteen or more employees, as well as unions, employment agencies and labor management training programs ...
1.Redundancies in Japan 1 ...
A new version of the “Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act,” or DREAM Act, was filed on November 30, 2010. The DREAM Act was introduced for the first time in 2001, and has undergone many changes since its inception. The essential premise of the bill is to provide a path to lawful permanent residency for individuals who entered the U.S. as minors and do not have legal status ...
