State Employment Law Articles

The New Jersey Supreme Court has held “that the ‘ABC’ test derived from the New Jersey Unemployment Compensation Act, N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6), governs whether [an individual] is an employee or independent contractor for purposes of resolving a wage-payment or wage-and-hour claim.” Hargrove v. Sleepy

The District of Columbia Department of Employment Services has announced the Wage Theft Prevention Amendment Act will become effective on February 26, 2015.

In one of his last acts as Massachusetts Governor, Deval Patrick signed into law an amendment to the Massachusetts Maternity Leave Act (“MMLA”), extending coverage of the Act to male employees. The new parental leave law, signed January 7, 2015, will be effective on April 7, 2015 (90 days after its

Executive Summary: On January 13, 2015, the New Jersey Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision that will likely have a far reaching effect on employers by severely limiting their ability to classify workers as independent contractors. In Hargrove et. al. v. Sleepy's, LLC, the Court held that the "

New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo signed legislation (S.5885-B) on December 29, 2014, eliminating New York’s annual wage notice requirement (mandating a written notice of pay rates and other information during the month of January to all employees, regardless of the timing of pay increases or date o

On January 1, 2015, California 's Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (California paid sick leave act) went into effect. When Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. signed the Act into law on September 10, 2014, California became the second state to mandate that certain employers provide paid si

As previously reported, Act 77 of July 1, 2014 (“Act 77”) provided a period during which participants in retirement plans could prepay, at a reduced tax rate, the amounts accumulated under such plans. The original window period covered from July 1, 2014 through October 31, 2014. On December 22, 2014

An employer-friendly decision rings in the New Year in California. In Koval v. Pacific Bell Telephone Co., plaintiffs alleged “systematic company guidelines” restricted employee activities during meal and rest breaks and “prevented employees from fully realizing the [meal and rest] breaks to which t

Ordering Florida court clerks to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, U.S. District Judge Robert L. Hinkle, in Tallahassee, has announced that his August 2014 decision finding Florida’s 2008 same-sex marriage ban violated the U.S. Constitution applied to all marriage-license applicants, not

The Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) preempts California’s Broughton-Cruz rule, which states arbitration agreements for injunctive relief claims under the state unfair competition and false advertising laws are against public policy and invalid, the California Court of Appeal has held in an insurance

New York State Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law legislation to repeal the notice provision of the Wage Theft Prevention Act of 2010. Effective January 2, 2015, the law (Chapter 537) removes the notice requirement that, under the previous act, required employers annually to provide employees wit

After a delay of nearly six months, on December 29, 2014, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into a law a bill (A 8106-C, S5885-B) that amends the state's Labor Law, including the Wage Theft Prevention Act (the WTPA), and the law's application to limited liability companies, contractors and succe

Employers are reminded that as of January 1, 2015, most Illinois employers will no longer be permitted to include a question about criminal convictions in their employment applications.

In welcome news for employers, the West Virginia Department of Labor (WVDOL) has withdrawn a set of emergency regulations that would have significantly revamped state wage and hour requirements and created conflicts with federal wage and hour regulations. The WVDOL proposed the regulations to West V

Effective April 1, 2015, Massachusetts will become the fourth state (after New York, California and Hawaii) to extend employment protections specifically to domestic workers. The "Domestic Workers' Bill of Rights"1 creates new legal obligations for any individual or family in Massachusetts who emplo

New ordinances in Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties, Maryland, and Columbia, Missouri, limit an employer’s ability to inquire into an applicant’s criminal history. Employers should continue to be on the look out for new ban-the-box initiatives in the New Year as the list of localities consider

While more than two dozen states have introduced workplace anti-bullying bills, Tennessee is the first state to enact workplace anti-bullying law.

Indiana’s Right to Work law again has withstood a constitutional challenge in the state’s highest court. The Indiana Supreme Court dismissed a second challenge to the state’s Right to Work law based on its November decision in Zoeller v. Sweeney, 19 N.E.3d 749 (Ind. 2014), holding that the law, on i

In this blog post, we discuss important updates, including upcoming deadlines, with respect to employee benefits impacting plan sponsors.

Starting on August 13, 2014, employers doing business in the City of San Francisco, California have had to comply with sweeping amendments to San Francisco Police Code, Article 49, and Administrative Code, Article 12 ("the amendments," "the ordinances" or the "FCO"), which significantly restrict the