New England Biz Law Update

A contract between two companies to develop renewable energy projects was not orally modified by a “mutual understanding” allegedly reached during mid-project conversations between the parties, a U.S. District Court judge in Rhode Island has ruled. Under a master agreement ...

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 ...