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A recent (and surprising) ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court may allow businesses to be sued in states where they have little connection. The Court ruled 5-4 to uphold a Pennsylvania law that requires a corporation to consent to the jurisdiction of Pennsylvania courts over them as a condition of registering to do business there. […]
Remote work has skyrocketed in popularity since the beginning of the pandemic. Of course, there are many advantages to this practice, including access to a broader candidate pool and fewer real estate expenses. However, an important consideration is employees’ physical location. This compels HR professionals to familiarize themselves with employment laws of multiple states because […]
After Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter, the company laid off over 900 California employees. As news spread that Twitter plans to eliminate 50% of its workforce, employees filed a class action lawsuit against the company alleging the reduction in force violated the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act as well as California law. […]
In our latest installment of Ask the Expert, brought to you by the team of industry experts at HR Hero®, we look at a recent question from a subscriber regarding political discussions (and disagreements) in the workplace. Q: I have an employee who has requested FMLA and has worked for us for 11 months, but has worked […]
Wrongful termination suits often rely on proof of motive—did the employer terminate the employee for an unlawful reason? But employers that act for illegal motives aren’t likely to admit it, so the law has established ways to prove unlawful motives through circumstantial evidence. But there is more than one formula for that proof, depending on […]
When an employee is injured on the job, the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) or the state-specific leave statutes may confer benefits in addition to what a state’s worker’s compensation provides. Employers subject to the FMLA should consider how the law interacts with their state’s worker’s comp law when FMLA-eligible employees need time […]
The National Football League (NFL) recently levied a $10 million fine against the Washington Football Team (WFT) for fostering a workplace culture loaded with sexual harassment, bullying, and intimidation. The fine, imposed at the end of a months-long investigation, is one of the harshest penalties the league has ever assessed. The money will be used […]
Many cases have recently challenged the technical content in various employer-provided COBRA notices. The premise of these lawsuits has been that even minor deviations from COBRA regulations from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) should make a plan administrator liable for penalties even if the notices otherwise included comprehensive COBRA information. Certainly, plan administrators should […]
Persons who recover from COVID-19 are believed to develop immunity from further infection for some as-yet undetermined amount of time. On February 12, the Alabama Legislature created (and Governor Kay Ivey signed) a more certain form of immunity protecting businesses and other organizations from lawsuits that blame them for illness from the virus. The new […]
Illegal preemployment background checks can lead to millions of dollars in lawsuit payouts. Be aware of these common pitfalls to avoid a similar fate.