The anti-retaliation provision in Section 215(a)(3) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) makes it unlawful for an employer to “discharge or in any manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint or instituted or caused to be instituted any proceeding under or related to this chapter, or has testified or is about to testify in any such proceeding.” On March 22, 2011, the Supreme Court of the United States decided Kasten v ...
Home Care Service providers may need to review how they pay many of their employees as a long-standing overtime exemption is slated to be eliminated by the Department of Labor (“DOL”). The DOL has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to revise the regulations pertaining to companionship and live-in domestic workers, with a 60-day public comment period set to close in the near future ...
On February 21, 2012, in Anshutz Exploration Corp. v. Town of Dryden, a New York court upheld a municipality’s effort to restrict production of oil and natural gas within city limits. The case arose from the Town of Dryden’s effort to ban horizontal-well fracking by amending a zoning ordinance to prohibit all activities related to exploration for, production and storage of oil and natural gas. Anshutz challenged Dryden’s ordinance, arguing that it was preempted by state law ...
Hot off the presses from our United States Supreme Court is a decision decided February 21, 2012 affirming a broad construction of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”). While the decision, Marmet Healthcare Center, Inc. v. Clayton Brown, 565 U.S. – (2012) No. 11391, would appear to be a case of narrow import – it reverses a decision of the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals that held arbitration provisions in nursing home contracts to be invalid – the language is far reaching ...
In this day and age it is commonplace for employers to issue communication devices such as Blackberries, iPhones and Androids (collectively “PDAs”) to employees. These devices allow employees to work and respond to emails and other communications without being tethered to their desks. They are beneficial to both the employer and employee – PDAs help the employer by increasing employee productivity and help the employee by allowing greater work flexibility ...
President Obama announced on January 4, 2012, that he would use his power of recess appointment to fill three vacancies on the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). All three appointees had been formally nominated by the President for their positions but the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee had not yet acted on any of the nominations. The new members are Sharon Block (D), Terence F. Flynn (R), and Richard Griffin (D) ...
The Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division is proposing changes to the regulations that govern the Family and Medical Leave Act (the “FMLA” or the “Act”). The proposed changes include provisions relating to an employer’s ability to opt to use different increments of FMLA under certain circumstances and clarify an employer’s responsibility to reinstate an employee after FMLA leave in situations where it may be impossible, as opposed to inconvenient, to reinstate an employee mid-shift ...
On February 24, 2012, two years after oral argument, the Texas Supreme Court issued its watershed decision in Edwards Aquifer Authority (the “Authority”) v. Day. The Court’s long-awaited decision included two significant pronouncements on groundwater that are likely to have ripple effects throughout the water community and could open the flood gates to a wave of litigation ...
On 6 February 2012 the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine amended its Resolutions No. 1297 and No. 1298, dated 30 November 2011 (the "PSA Resolutions"), which determine tender terms for conclusion of production sharing agreements ("PSA") on exploration and production of hydrocarbons, in particular non-conventional gas, in Oles'ka and Yuzivs'ka subsoil blocks. These amendments (the "Amendments") are apparently made to address some of the foreign investors' concerns ...
President Obama has renewed his proposal to cut over $40 billion in tax breaks for oil, gas and coal producers over the next decade in an attempt to spend more for alternate energy and conservation. The $3.8 trillion budget proposal represents a 29% increase in renewable energy funds in 2013, as compared to 2012 ...
On November 15, 2011, existing facilities subject to the federal Spill Pollution Control and Countermeasure Rule (“SPCC Rule”), 40 C.F.R. Part 112, were required to finalize and implement a plan—known as an “SPCC plan”—detailing the equipment, workforce, procedures and steps to be taken to prevent, control and provide adequate countermeasures to a discharge of oil to navigable waters of the United States or adjoining shorelines ...
In the recent decision of Giza v. Sechelt School Bus Service Ltd., 2012 BCCA 18 (“Giza”), the Court of Appeal for British Columbia (the “Court of Appeal”) held that an employee who quit his job after being given working notice of termination of employment was nevertheless entitled to sue for damages for wrongful dismissal for the period of reasonable notice in excess of the notice given.Mr ...
In just a few years, the Federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1984 (the “CFAA,” 18 U.S.C. § 1030) - a sweeping statute that criminalizes the unauthorized access of protected computers - has evolved into a broad and powerful weapon in computer-related criminal and civil litigation. Originally enacted to target hackers, the statute now reaches almost any imaginable malfeasance that involves a computer. Two recurring categories of cases arise in an employment context ...
The National Labor Relations Board has had a busy few weeks. First, over the dissent of its sole Republican Member, Brian Hayes, it issued a final rule implementing new procedures for union elections. Second, it issued a decision in D.R. Horton, 357 NLRB No. 184 (January 3, 2012), a much-anticipated case involving class action waivers in collective bargaining agreements. Third, on the heels of the D.R ...
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The Supreme Court of Canada confirms that only those modern practices that maintain a reasonable degree of continuity with the practices, customs or traditions that were integral to an Aboriginal group’s pre-contact dist inctive culture will be protected as an Aboriginal right under section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982. On November 10, 2011, in the case of Lax Kw’alaams Indian Band v ...
2011 saw significant developments in the courts in relation to the issue of directors’ liability for the costs of remediation of waste sites, an issue which is particularly crucial where the company which disposed of the waste is not in a position to pay ...
2011 saw steady increases of production throughout the Marcellus Shale play, a heavy emphasis on strengthening and expanding pipeline infrastructure, and a boom in the level of activity in the Utica Shale play ...
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DISCIPLINARY MEASURES RELATING TO THE USE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT: COCA-COLA IS FORCED TO REINSTATE AN EMPLOYEE THE COMMISSION DES RELATIONS DU TRAVAIL (THE “COMMISSION”) RECENTLY RULED ON THE WAY IN WHICH AN EMPLOYER PROCEEDED TO IMPOSE A DISCIPLINARY MEASURE ON AN EMPLOYEE DUE TO HIS USE OF COMPUTER EQUIPMENT BELONGING TO THE EMPLOYER ...
On December 23, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it would postpone its requirement that employers post a notice informing employees of their federal labor law rights until April 30, 2012. As discussed in our NLRB Roundup Part 2, this rule requires physical posting of an 11x17 notice, as well as publication on the employer’s intranet or internet site if the employer customarily uses these sites to communicate with employees ...
