New England Biz Law Update

With the explosion of employment litigation — in particular, wage and hour lawsuits — many employers are turning to mandatory arbitration agreements as a strategy to keep defense costs down and avoid class actions. But as more and more companies ...

Massachusetts is the American birthplace of the jury system. Each year, residents of the commonwealth serve as jurors and collectively render decisions that directly impact members of their community. In certain instances, their verdicts send powerful messages and drive social ...

In the current Massachusetts legislative session, a number of bills are pending that have the potential to increase employee protections and, in turn, impose further burdens on employers. Covering such varied areas as social media privacy, non-competition agreements and workplace ...

The explosive growth of the so-called “litigation finance” industry is a game-changer in the civil practice arena. The New York Times Magazine recently documented the rise of this industry and described it as “transformational.” One litigation financing entity, Gerchen Keller, ...

Management-side lawyers claim the new federal rules bolstering disclosure requirements for third parties that advise employers in opposing union-organizing campaigns impermissibly interfere with the attorney-client relationship. The U.S. Department of Labor last month announced long-awaited amendments to its so-called “persuader ...

Founded in 1930, the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution is the world’s largest private, independent nonprofit dedicated to ocean research, exploration and education. This spring marks the beginning of a new era in exploration for WHOI. In April it welcomed the ...

A health care provider could not enforce a non-competition agreement with a physician who left to work elsewhere, a Superior Court judge in Rhode Island has held. The plaintiff, Medicine and Long Term Care Associates LLC of Cranston, or MLTC, ...

A technology company that breached its state contract by falsely certifying it had paid its subcontractors on time could not recover damages from the project owner for allegedly withholding payment for completed work, a Superior Court judge in the Massachusetts ...

A recent U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing plaintiffs to use statistical evidence to establish class liability in a wage-and-hour case opens up a new battlefront in employment and other types of class action cases. The case involved current and former ...

A complaint for long-term disability benefits under an employee welfare benefit plan should not have been dismissed under the plan’s three-year limitations period, as the time limit was not mentioned in the letter informing the claimant that his request was ...