In January 2021, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 263, better known as the Fresh Start Act (the Act), into law. The Act standardizes the professional licensure process in Ohio by removing vague disqualifiers such as “moral turpitude” and “lack of moral character.” Through its restorative justice approach, the Act offers professionals with records of certain prior offenses a path to licensure. Most of the Act’s provisions become effective on Oct ...
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, one of the world’s most talked about and anticipated events, finally kicked off on Friday, July 23, 2021, after a long wait due to COVID-19. Every time the Olympics comes around, a common internet myth will persist that warns: Unless you are an Official Sponsor, you are barred from talking about the Olympics. While that may be true in certain circumstances, it is not always the case ...
The following is a list of best practices applicable to the share class review process. This guide aims to provide helpful tips regarding the process of replacing an advisory client’s existing mutual fund share class with a lower-cost alternative, where it is identified that a replacement option exists and may be available for placement in the client’s account at the custodian. Review of share classes on a periodic basis ...
Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 75 on June 29, 2021, appropriating budget funding for the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) for the 2022-2023 biennium and enacting some pro-employer changes to workers’ compensation law ...
On July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed a wide-ranging executive order entitled “Promoting Competition in the American Economy.” One key element of the executive order is to address noncompete covenants that the White House characterized as stifling competition between companies. Section 5(g) encouraged the FTC to draft rules which seek to “curtail the unfair use of non-compete clauses and other clauses or agreements that may unfairly limit worker mobility ...
Health care practitioners are seemingly subject to a constantly growing laundry list of regulatory requirements. However, the Ohio General Assembly has reduced the administrative burden on certain professionals seeking licensure in multiple states through the enactment of interstate license compact legislation ...
On July 13, 2021, Ohio Lieutenant Governor John Husted announced the introduction of the Ohio Personal Privacy Act (OPPA), a comprehensive privacy framework following in the footsteps of recent legislative enactments in California (the CCPA as modified by the CPRA), Virginia (the CDPA), and Colorado (the Colorado Privacy Act) ...
On Dec. 29, 2020, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) published a final rule amending Regulation Z’s Ability-to-Repay/Qualified Mortgage (QM) requirements (the New Rule). Regulation Z requires creditors to make a reasonable, good-faith determination of a consumer’s ability to repay their residential mortgage loan. Loans that comply with Regulation Z’s requirements qualify for certain protections from liability ...
Dinsmore partner James Reid was recently published in Bank Director with his article "How to Minimize Individual Liability for Employment-Related Claims," an excerpt of which is below ...
On Friday, July 9, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order directing various federal agencies to implement 72 specific actions intended broadly to increase competition in the American economy. The executive order is intended to impact a wide range of economic activity, including mergers and acquisitions, occupational licensing, anticompetitive behavior, and prices of medical devices and prescription drugs ...
The second iteration of the Department of Labor Fiduciary Rule – PTE 2020-02 (DOL Fiduciary Rule) became effective on Feb. 16, 2021. However, the Department of Labor (DOL) provided that it would not pursue enforcement actions against firms who work “diligently” to comply with the Impartial Conduct Standards ...
The Departments of Health and Human Services (HHS), Labor, Treasury, and the Office of Personnel Management issued the first interim final rule with comment period, in what is likely to be a series of rules, aimed at ending surprise medical bills from out-of-network providers ...
The Multifamilly and Healthcare Facility divisions of HUD are a bit like two different dialects of the same language; both offer mortgage insurance under the Federal Housing Administration, but each has its own distinct rules and conventions on underwriting, closing and asset management. Being conversant in one dialect doesn’t necessarily equip you to get by in the other ...
Until now, hospital licensure was absent from Ohio’s regulatory scheme. However, Ohio’s final budget bill, which became effective on July 1, 2021, introduced a new hospital licensure system.[1] Under the final bill, Ohio hospitals have three years to become licensed by the Ohio Department of Health (the Department) ...
Dinsmore's Chris Cashen, Anne Guillory, Chris Jackson, and Kyle Bunnell were published in dri Strictly Speaking, Vol. 18 Issue 1. Their article, "States’ COVID-19 Immunity Statutes and Product Liability Claims Related to COVID-19," examines states’ COVID-19 immunity statutes for product designers, manufacturers, and distributors concerning COVID-19-related lawsuits. An excerpt is below ...
The Supreme Court, in Minerva Surgical, Inc., v. Hologic, Inc., et al., Case No. 20-440, recently upheld the doctrine of assignor estoppel, but severely limited its reach. The Court limited assignor estoppel to not apply in the cases of a “common employment arrangement” with an employer and employee, when there is a change in law, and when the issued patent has “materially broader” claims than the assigned invention ...
Late amendments to Ohio’s budget bill (Am. Sub. H. B. 110[1]) set the stage to disrupt Ohio’s health care business community and alter health care oversight, operations and quality in the state. The new law provides moral, ethical, and religious grounds to refuse health care, and in doing so, affords unprecedented rights and protections that stand to impact the Ohio health care community in a myriad of ways ...
Dinsmore partner Kelvin Lawrence was published in Bloomberg Tax with co-author Bruce P. Ely from Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP. Their article, "The MTC Undertakes an Ambitious Study of Partnership Taxation," discusses the Multistate Tax Commission (MTC) Uniformity Committee's work group they created to study issues related to multistate taxation of pass-through entities ...
Key Takeaways The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether to take a case regarding Section 101 of the Patent Act as it applies to inventions involving natural laws. The Federal Circuit recently invalidated claims belonging to American Axle & Manufacturing Inc. relating to the manufacture of a prop-shaft using a natural law under Section 101 ...
Dinsmore health care partner Joseph Zielinski was published in the most recent edition of New Perspectives on Health Care Risk Management, Control and Governance, the publication of the Association of Health Care Internal Auditors. His article, "The Effectiveness of Your Compliance Program," covers how to effectively audit your organization's compliance program while gaining valuable insights. An excerpt is below ...
If you work in the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) space, you are certainly aware of the landmark unanimous decision by the United States Supreme Court in Facebook v Duguid[1], in which the Court narrowed the definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) to equipment that has the capacity to either store or produce numbers using a random or sequential number generator. On its face, this decision seemed benign (the definition of an ATDS is unchanged) ...
On Wednesday, June 23, 2021, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L., a much-anticipated decision regarding schools’ regulation of off-campus speech. The Court held that while schools may discipline students for some off-campus speech, their ability to do so is much more limited than for on-campus speech. B.L. was a student at Mahanoy Area High School and cheered on the junior varsity team during her freshman year ...
On June 21, 2021, the Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new rule to restrict the amount of non-tip-producing work a tipped employee can perform when an employer is taking a tip credit. The proposed rule clarifies that if an employee performs work that directly supports tip-producing work for a substantial amount of time — at least 20 percent of the hours worked in a workweek or at least 30 continuous minutes — the worker must be paid the standard minimum wage ...
Guided by the materiality standard from Escobar, a key safeguard for FCA defendants, the Western District of Pennsylvania found the Zaldonis relator failed to show the alleged fraud “would have any effect on the government’s decision to pay a claim.” Five years after the Supreme Court decided it, Escobar thus continues to set a high hurdle for plaintiffs ...
On Wednesday, June 16, 2021, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) released a Notice of Interpretation, explaining how it interprets Title IX to prohibit discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity ...
