State Employment Law Articles

Effective October 1, 2014, small employers in Maryland will be required to provide employees with unpaid leave for the birth or adoption of a child under the Maryland Parental Leave Act (“PLA” or “Act”), a new law passed by the Maryland General Assembly.

Connecticut recently made several important revisions to its paid sick leave law in response to requests by businesses for clarification of the law’s requirements. On June 6, 2014, Governor Dannel P. Malloy signed into law an amendment to Connecticut’s Paid Sick Leave Act (Act) that: 1) changes the

On May 30, 2014, a Puerto Rico Joint House and Senate Conference Committee approved a joint version of Senate Bill No. 501, which would have required all Puerto Rico employers to prohibit, prevent and remedy all forms of unjustified harassment and bullying in the workplace. This legislation faced wi

Following Brinker and the growing number of issues and decisions in its wake, a recent California Court of Appeals decision is welcome news for employers faced with meal and rest break class actions. In an unpublished decision, Sutter Health Wage and Hour Cases, the California Court of Appeal, First

Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has signed the Workforce Opportunity Wage Act, mandating gradual increases in the state’s minimum wage to $9.25 an hour by January 1, 2018. The Act ties increases to the rate of inflation beginning 2019.

Weeks after Wisconsin and Tennessee1 enacted their own legislation aimed at restricting access by employers to applicants’ and employees’ personal online content, Oklahoma and Louisiana have followed suit, further complicating the patchwork of state password protection laws already in place.2

Hospitals that require caregivers to be immunized against influenza are often sued to force them to exempt employees with religious objections from getting the shots, but last week a New Jersey court turned the argument for religious exemption on its head when it ruled in favor of a nurse whose obje

May 28 was the deadline for California bills to clear their house of origin this year, and many bills of interest – and concern – to California private sector employers moved to the other chamber. Here are some of the “live” bills to watch.

In Sarrazin v. Coastal, Inc., 311 Conn. 581 (2014), the Connecticut Supreme Court analyzed when an employee’s travel time between home and work constitutes compensable work time. The Court affirmed the decision of the trial court in holding that a plumber who carried company tools in a company vehic

A new Houston ordinance prohibits private employers from discriminating against employees on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity, familial status, and marital status. The Houston Equal Rights Ordinance (“HERO”), which takes effect on June 27, 2014, expands the types of “protected charac

Seattle, Washington has enacted groundbreaking legislation that, over several years, will phase in a $15.00 per hour minimum wage, the nation’s highest for private employers who do not contract with governmental entities.1 Although a handful of states have recently enacted incremental increases in t

The stage is set for Puerto Rico to become the first U.S. jurisdiction to statutorily address “workplace bullying” or “workplace harassment” (sometimes known as “mobbing”), with potentially costly consequences for employers. It is now up to the Governor of Puerto Rico to decide whether to approve or

A California Court of Appeal in Jong v. Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc., Case No. A138725, ___ Cal. App. 4th __, (Cal. App. 1st Dist. 5/20/2014) (Jong) recently upheld the trial court’s grant of the defendant’s pre-certification motion for summary judgment against California law off-the-clock cl

Oklahoma has joined the growing list of states prohibiting employers from requesting or demanding access to the personal social media accounts of employees or job applicants. Signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin, H.B. 2372, becomes effective November 1, 2014.

An employer that petitioned to compel arbitration one year after the employee filed his employment-related complaint did not waive its right to arbitrate the complaint, the California Court of Appeal has ruled, confirming the burden of proving a party waived its right to arbitration is a heavy one.

Minnesota’s new Medical Cannabis Act, signed into law on May 29, 2014, narrows the kind medical cannabis permitted, as compared to many other state laws, but may offer considerable protections to applicants and employees in the workplace. The Act became effective upon enactment, but it will take tim

Prospective employers in Rochester, New York, will no longer be able to ask applicants to describe their criminal history in an employment application, and for a time thereafter. The City on May 20, 2014, enacted a “Ban the Box” Ordinance, which restricts the timing of these pre-employment inquiries

A non-competition agreement that prohibited employees from soliciting the employer’s “past, present or prospective future customers or clients” is overbroad, a federal district court in Arkansas has ruled, striking down the agreement and granting summary judgment in favor of two employees. Morgan v.

On Tuesday, May 27, 2014, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder signed the Workplace Opportunity Wage Act (S.B. 934) into law. The Act will increase Michigan’s minimum wage from $7.40 to $9.25 per hour over the next four years – an overall increase of 25%. The increase will occur in phases beginning on Sept

n a long-awaited decision, the California Supreme Court in Duran v. U.S. Bank National Association, S200923 (May 29, 2014), clarified California's standard for certifying class actions in employee misclassification cases. In doing so, the Court issued badly needed guidance to trial courts deciding w