New England Biz Law Update

When in doubt, employers should proceed with caution and consult with their lawyers if they want to avoid being slapped with a suit for violating Rhode Island’s tough new social media privacy law. That’s the advice of employment and social ...

A co-owner of a health club chain who was accused of freezing out the widow of his deceased partner and, in concert with an outside acquaintance, diverting corporate assets and proprietary information to open competing clubs violated his fiduciary duty ...

A U.S. District Court judge has found that an often-cited 2012 Supreme Judicial Court decision does not in fact require employers, as a matter of law, to expressly include the phrase “Massachusetts Wage Act” in a release. The plaintiff employee ...

A life insurance company’s disbursement of death benefits under certain employee-benefit plans via the use of “retained asset accounts,” or RAAs, did not violate its duty of loyalty under ERISA, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. The ...

Intellectual property attorneys who challenge decisions before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board say a recent Federal Circuit ruling means they no longer can be barred from introducing new evidence in appeals at the U.S. District Court. Until the Federal ...

Two years after a guidance warning employers against the overly broad use of criminal background checks to screen potential new hires was issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, it is drawing renewed criticism from employers, business groups and ...

Lawyers in New England say a recent decision by the U.S. Supreme Court that struck down President Obama’s 2012 recess appointments to the National Labor Relations Board threatens to invalidate hundreds of rulings made over an 18-month period. But the ...

An employer could not rely on the “inevitable disclosure” doctrine to block an employee from working for a competitor, a U.S. District Court judge has ruled. The defendant employee — who had been a scientist for plaintiff Boston Scientific, a ...

A recruiting company’s formula for calculating the per diem component of consultants’ wages violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime provision, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled. A U.S. District Court judge had awarded the company summary ...

Volatility in the world of shareholder class actions has stoked a debate over whether the lawyers who bring such cases are laudable public watchdogs or stick-up artists. The number of federal securities class actions rose by 14 to 166 in ...