New England Biz Law Update

Can an employer, faced with a purported class action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, avoid litigation by immediately offering a settlement to the sole plaintiff before a class is certified?

Tagged with: Dec. 31 2012 issue

After stirring up the bar with a pair of cases alleging that at-will employment clauses for non-union workers violated federal law by potentially stifling concerted activity, the National Labor Relations Board has issued guidance memos that offer some relief for ...

Tagged with: Dec. 31 2012 issue

In the second of two cases considering what class action plaintiffs must prove to make it past the certification stage, the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court tackled the issue of whether plaintiffs asserting a fraud-on-the-market claim must prove that ...

Tagged with: Nov. 30 2012 issue

If the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court wanted to decide whether the Daubert standard for admitting expert testimony at trial also applies at the class action certification stage, they picked a factually and procedurally messy case as a vehicle ...

Tagged with: Nov. 30 2012 issue

Sometime employment litigation is complicated, so much so that the parties and judges cannot even agree on which court has jurisdiction to hear an appeal.

Tagged with: Oct. 31 2012 issue

Employment attorneys say that they have seen an increase in disability-related charges since final regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act Amendments Act went into effect more than a year ago.

Tagged with: Sept. 30 2012 issue

Before lawyers had time to digest the recent ruling from the National Labor Relations Board that an employer violated federal law by requesting confidentiality from all employees during internal investigations, they faced another question: Was the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ...

Tagged with: Sept. 30 2012 issue

Colleges and universities are not the only ones closely watching the affirmative action case on the U.S. Supreme Court’s docket. Employers are also weighing in, saying that the decision could have a dramatic impact on their hiring practices and in ...

Tagged with: Sept. 30 2012 issue

In most American workplaces, at-will employment clauses in employee handbooks and agreements are as common as break room water coolers. But recent cases brought by the National Labor Relations Board alleging that some at-will policy agreements violate federal law have ...

Tagged with: Aug. 31 2012 issue

After a series of rulings that left some litigators questioning the future of class action litigation, the U.S. Supreme Court will wade into the issue once again next term with a decision that could clarify class certification standards, but also ...

Tagged with: July 31 2012 issue