New England Biz Law Update

A U.S. magistrate judge has ruled that a health care provider that brought suit over a failed attempt to buy Landmark Medical Center in Woonsocket need not disclose the communications it had with a special master concerning asset purchase agreements. ...

A plaintiff alleging sex discrimination and sex harassment must present only sufficient circumstantial evidence from which a jury could find in her favor, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has decided. The plaintiff employee filed suit against her former ...

A Hong Kong investment analyst pleaded fraud with sufficient particularity to proceed with an intentional misrepresentation claim against a Massachusetts company that rescinded a job offer shortly after he left the employment he had, a U.S. District Court judge has ...

Consumer protection attorneys are lauding a proposed federal rule that would effectively ban class action waivers in arbitration clauses included in new contracts for financial services. At the same time they are bracing for a wave of legal challenges by ...

Law firms that think they are adequately covered for cybersecurity risks may want to think again. A firm’s insurer may have slipped an exclusion for data breaches into the general liability policy the firm has been renewing year after year. ...

Lawyers investigating whether an out-of-state defendant’s operation of a website provides a basis for suing the party in local federal court will find few bright-line rules coming from decisions issued in the 1st Circuit. A survey of recent opinions by ...

A car dealership could not enforce a policy banning employees from wearing pins, insignia and “message clothing” in the workplace, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in a split decision. The dealership petitioned for review of a decision ...

A class-action waiver in a mandatory arbitration agreement between a Domino’s Pizza franchisee and its employees could not be enforced against delivery drivers asserting wage and tip law violations, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled. The plaintiff was a ...

For many years, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and others have complained that lease accounting standards are not transparent enough, allowing too many off-balance-sheet lease transactions to occur, which are not properly disclosed to investors. New and dramatic changes ...

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage & Hour Division recently issued a controversial new Administrator’s Interpretation detailing the division’s views on “joint employment” under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act. Notably, in ...