New England Biz Law Update

California forum selection clauses in preliminary agreements for the acquisition of an eyewear company bound a non-signatory buyer that stepped in and purchased the target before the original deal could be closed, a U.S. District Court judge in Massachusetts has ...

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 ...

Summary judgment should not have been granted to an insurer that claimed an employer knowingly and intentionally deceived it into retroactively reinstating a canceled policy so as to cover a claimed workers’ compensation injury, the Workers’ Compensation Court Appellate Division ...

A former worker for a Chinese restaurant chain could satisfy the numerosity requirement for certification of a class action claim for unpaid “reporting pay,” even though the number of putative class members was unclear, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ...

A Massachusetts resident who provided outside sales services to a Taiwanese manufacturer was misclassified as an independent contractor and entitled to Wage Act protections, a U.S. District Court judge has found. In a 2002 contract, defendant Powertech Industrial Co. agreed ...

A former Honeywell employee’s disability discrimination lawsuit was barred by her consistent assertion of total disability in pursuing Social Security Disability Income benefits, a divided panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. Plaintiff Mayra F. Pena ...

A former graduate student’s lawsuit claiming that Rhode Island College violated his rights to freedom of speech and expression and retaliated against him for his conservative viewpoints raises questions for a jury to decide and therefore should have survived the ...

A financial consultant who allegedly compiled a list of his former clients from memory after leaving the company to join a competitor could be considered to have used confidential information, a Massachusetts Superior Court judge has found. Defendant Devin Callinan, ...

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 ...

A federal judge has resurrected payroll reporting guidelines adopted during the Obama administration that require large employers to break down wages and salaries according to the sex, race and ethnicity of their employees. On March 4, U.S. District Court Judge ...