New England Biz Law Update

Is a severance package a form of employment income, or does it constitute a supplemental unemployment benefit? The answer makes a big difference when it comes to income taxes, and it’s now up to the justices of the U.S. Supreme ...

A high school principal did not have to work 10 years before being entitled to payment for her unused vacation time, a Rhode Island Superior Court judge has determined. The defendant School Committee argued that the plaintiff principal’s own employment ...

Violations of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act are increasingly being alleged by employers in lawsuits against former employees, but with a split in the district of Massachusetts, the ability of a business to hold fraud charges over a defector’s ...

Intellectual property attorneys practicing in the 1st Circuit say they have serious concerns about a proposed statute that would establish a new administrative panel to decide smaller copyright claims. The U.S. Copyright Office recently released a 161-page report recommending the ...

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s recent focus on compliance and enforcement issues surrounding laws barring national origin-based job bias has some attorneys wondering if new guidance may be forthcoming. The EEOC held a meeting on Nov. 13 to address the ...

Corporate legal spending nationwide will remain flat in 2014, but winning the business of large international companies could give law firms a competitive edge in the year ahead, according to a newly released report from a local consulting group.

A Massachusetts Superior Court judge has set aside a $1.2 million jury verdict awarded to a nurse who claimed her employer, Massachusetts General Hospital, retaliated against her for taking time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act. The plaintiff ...

A Texas-based company could not be sued in Rhode Island for manufacturing allegedly defective fertilizer products that caused a Rhode Island plaintiff to lose royalty payments, a U.S. magistrate judge has found. The defendant company argued that the complaint should ...

A year after a U.S. District Court judge ruled that a law firm associate could not pursue an associational discrimination claim against his employer, a second member of the federal bench has reached the same conclusion in a suit brought ...

An employee who complained internally but did not take his claims to the Securities and Exchange Commission until after he was fired still qualifies as a whistleblower under the Dodd-Frank Act and can sue for retaliation, a U.S. District Court ...