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Author Archives: Kris Olson

Mass. gov proposes ‘fix’ for commission-only employees

Not surprisingly, attorneys who represent employers and those who represent employees disagree on both the process and potential end result of Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker’s move to use a supplemental spending bill to respond to a decision by the Supreme ...

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Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court to hear vaping ban appeals in December

In December, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court will hear arguments related to Gov. Charlie Baker’s emergency regulation banning the sale of nicotine vaping products. Baker’s administration had appealed an Oct. 21 order of the state Superior Court, which had allowed ...

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Court refines guidance on vacations, medical leave

Massachusetts’ Supreme Judicial Court in a recent decision refined its guidance for employers trying to assess whether a vacationing employee is abusing medical leave, practitioners say. DaPrato v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority also reaffirms that a mistaken “honest belief” that ...

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Court: when accountants fail to detect fraud, in pari delicto no longer applies

By enacting M.G.L.c. 112, §87A 3/4, the Massachusetts Legislature intended to preempt the common-law doctrine of in pari delicto as it applies to the negligent conduct of accountants and auditors in failing to detect fraud, the state Supreme Judicial Court ...

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Contractor can’t sue as third-party beneficiary

A contractor’s breach of contract claim against the company that created preliminary designs for a project should be dismissed because the contractor was not an intended beneficiary of the contract between the company and the owner of the project, a ...

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Juries warming to bias, retaliation claims

Prior to 2017, the number of million-dollar verdicts in employment discrimination and retaliation cases in Massachusetts over the previous two decades could more or less be counted on one hand, according to plaintiffs’ attorney Elizabeth A. Rodgers. Then, the floodgates ...

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Foreign company’s sales subject it to jurisdiction

In what it noted was a “close call,” the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that it did not offend the Due Process Clause of the Constitution to exercise specific personal jurisdiction against a German corporation that derived income ...

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Doctrine doesn’t spare college’s auditor

A college whose financial aid director committed fraud could sue its auditor under the doctrine of in pari delicto, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled, finding that because the employee was not a member of senior management, her conduct ...

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