As the idea of “Hero Pay”, an hourly premium paid to front-line grocery and retail workers during the existence of a public emergency, gains traction around the country (hazard pay ordinances are in effect in Berkeley, Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, San Francisco and a host of other California cities as well as in Seattle),…
Read More »As we advised you a couple of weeks ago, the Connecticut Family and Medical Leave Act requires that employee contributions to the Connecticut Paid Leave Authority were to be deducted beginning January 1 and remitted to the state on a quarterly basis. Well, we want to remind you once again that the first quarterly payment…
Read More »A Boston-based federal district court judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed last May by the Massachusetts-based high-end seafood chain, Legal Sea Foods. US District Court Judge Nathaniel Gorton agreed with defendant Strathmore Insurance Company that the COVID-19 virus did not result in the requisite physical damage to Legal Sea Foods’ property, notwithstanding government ordered shutdowns…
Read More »A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has ruled that a London-based Caffe Nero chain café cannot be forced to backpay rent for the months during the early days of the pandemic when they were shut down by a state mandate. Judge Kenneth Salinger ruled that the café, which closed permanently in October, was still legally bound…
Read More »In New York, which accounts for the 2nd highest coronavirus death rate in the country at 225 deaths per 100,000 residents, even while dramatically underreporting COVID nursing home deaths, the state Department of Labor last week issued guidance ordering that if an employer requires an employee to stay home for fear that the employee has…
Read More »Underscoring the importance of who’s calling the shots at the NLRB, DOL and other federal departments during the transition from the Trump to the Biden administration, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) this week announced that it was withdrawing three opinion letters that address compliance issues related to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The…
Read More »There was some legal and legislative headway made this past week on the question of business interruption protections being applicable during the pandemic. First off, the US District Court for the Northern District of Ohio ruled last week that a claim for insurance protection under business interruption coverage by a multi-state restaurant owner was valid…
Read More »Last week, the Small Business Administration (SBA) and the US Department of the Treasury announced that the Paycheck Protection Program will reopen next Tuesday, January 19, 2021 to all lenders. The SBA this week began opening the program in phases so as to better reach underserved and minority-owned small businesses with community financial institutions, minority…
Read More »Concluding a long two-decade endeavor by Ohio business interests, Governor Mike DeWine this week signed House Bill 352 into law in the Buckeye State. The legislation, which has been strongly pushed for years by the defense bar as well as business advocates, reduces the statute of limitation on complaints of discrimination within the workplace. Previously,…
Read More »The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) has issued its long-awaited Final Rule addressing who may share tips under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the circumstances under which employers may use a tip credit. It will become effective on March 1, 2021, 60 days after publication in the Federal Register. The Final Rule implements a 2018 amendment…
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