State Employment Law Articles

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued an update to their WCMSA Reference Guide on January 10, 2022, and it contained some distressing news for the workers’ compensation community.

The South Carolina Supreme Court issued two decisions late in 2021 that may impact employers’ and co-workers’ potential liability in litigation arising from an employee’s discharge.

On January 14, 2022, following our prior alert found here , CMS issued guidance containing new compliance deadlines for the vaccine mandate for those healthcare employers in the 24 states previously covered by injunctions. The January 14 guidance can be found here .

New Orleans has revived its mask mandate for indoor spaces, effective January 12, 2022. Citing increased COVID-19 infection and hospitalization rates, Mayor Latoya Cantrell has ordered that all individuals over the age of two who do not have breathing complications must wear masks “when in indoor sp

On January 12, 2022, just one week after issuing mask mandates, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter issued executive orders mandating that places of public accommodation serving food and drinks indoors require persons to furnish proof of vaccination or negative PCR or antig

As the mayors of Minneapolis and St. Paul did last week, Duluth’s mayor, Emily Larson, issued an indoor mask mandate, effective January 13, 2022, due to the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

On December 13, 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul instituted a mandate requiring that masks be worn in indoor public spaces, unless a covered business has implemented a mandatory vaccination requirement. The mandate was set to be reevaluated on January 15, 2022. However, as part of her “Winter Su

On January 13, 2022, the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division (Oregon OSHA) announced that because the Supreme Court of the United States has stayed the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS), it “w

Colorado has enlisted the help of the criminal justice system to reinforce its strong public policy against restrictive covenants. Beginning on March 1, 2022, violations of Colorado’s restrictive covenants statute, C.R.S. § 8-2-113, may subject employers to criminal liability.

In the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s January 13, 2022 decision to grant emergency relief to stay implementation of the federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration’s Emergency Temporary Standard regarding COVID-19 (“Federal OSHA ETS”), Illinois employers in both the public and p

In response to the rapid influx of COVID-19 variant cases over the course of the holiday season, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser recently announced further efforts by the city to curb the spread of the virus. In addition to reinstating the District’s indoor mask mandate (which had been

In a pair of related rulings in Hayes v. University Health Shreveport, LLC, and Nelson v. Ochsner Lafayette General , the Supreme Court of Louisiana held on January 7, 2022, that private Louisiana employers may mandate COVID-19 vaccines for their employees.

On January 7, 2022, the Illinois Department of Labor (IDOL) filed peremptory rules adopting the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS). IDOL will require all state and local public employers in Illinois to compl

Minnesota’s Occupational Safety Administration (MNOSHA) adopted the federal Occupational Safety Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 Vaccination and Testing Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) on January 3, 2022, and began enforcing the rules on January 10, 2022. Yesterday, the Supreme Court of th

In this episode, Jen and Erika Frank talk about a new California law that requires employers to retain employee records for four years. Jen also discusses which personnel documents must be kept confidential and why.

Oregon operates a state plan that the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has approved that applies to both public and private employers. Accordingly, Oregon employers are subject to the state OSHA’s standards rather than the federal OSHA standards. Oregon OSHA may adopt an eme

On December 31, 2021, Puerto Rico Governor Pedro Pierluisi issued Executive Order No. 2021-87 (EO) requiring first responders and certain private sector personnel to receive the COVID-19 vaccine booster shot in order to be considered fully vaccinated. The EO took effect immediately and requires cove

A workers’ compensation claimant is legally entitled to collect compensation for a work-related injury and pursue a personal injury action, also known as a third-party action.

Today, artificial intelligence (AI) can be found in almost every workplace.

Have any employees in Connecticut? Then you are covered by the Connecticut Family and Medical Leave Act (Connecticut FMLA).