New England Biz Law Update

Employers have their work cut out for them if they want to ensure that workers they consider to be independent contractors do not at some point in the future have tenable grounds to claim they should have been classified as ...

An employee could bring a retaliation claim under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act even though his employer was not covered by the statute, a U.S. magistrate judge has ruled. The plaintiff employee, Joseph Reid, took 17 weeks of ...

A recent holding from the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is a reaffirmation that ERISA’s “duty of prudence” for fiduciary managers of employer-sponsored retirement plans speaks to process, not investment results, attorneys say. The plaintiffs in the case contended ...

The amount of holiday and vacation compensation owed to an employee should be calculated based on an insert in an employee handbook she received during her interview in December 2008, a Superior Court judge in Rhode Island has ruled. The ...

Trial judges did not err in declining to admit medical billing data compiled by the independent nonprofit FAIR Health under two arguably applicable exceptions to the hearsay rule, separate District Court Appellate Division panels in the Northern and Southern districts ...

A wrongful death suit against a nursing home fell within the scope of an arbitration agreement signed by a family member under a power of attorney shortly after the decedent’s admission to the facility, a U.S. District Court judge has ...

A wage-and-hour class action was not subject to an arbitration clause in a vendor agreement between the defendant and the independent contractor that the plaintiff deliveryman drove for, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The defendant, Dynamex ...

A surgeon who brought a discrimination suit against the hospital where she used to work was entitled to discovery of allegedly defamatory communications between her former supervisor and another hospital that subsequently rejected her application for credentials, a U.S. magistrate ...

An employee who applied for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits claiming to be unable to work because of a disabling condition could not hold her former employer liable for failing to reasonably accommodate her disabilities, a U.S. magistrate judge has ...

Two security officers at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell could sue for violations of their First Amendment rights based on claims they were fired for speaking out publicly against unfair hiring practices and sexual harassment, a Superior Court judge in Massachusetts ...