New England Biz Law Update

It can be a bonanza or a bogeyman and, thanks to changes by Congress and the Obama administration, the federal False Claims Act has more teeth than ever. As the federal government has been doling out billions of dollars to stimulate the economy and stabilize troubled financial institutions, the new administration supported an update to the 23-year-old False Claims Act — a rainmaker law that has recovered roughly $22 billion since 1986 — saying it needs to be preserved as a “potent and useful weapon against the misuse of taxpayer funds.”

Though lawyers who represent employers insist that wage-and-hour class actions are on the rise in Massachusetts, plaintiffs’ attorneys dismiss the claim as a scare tactic in the debate over recent changes to the state’s Wage Act. The employment law firm of Littler Mendelson, which tracked labor lawsuits filed in the state and federal courts over the summer, was prompted by the activity on the dockets to warn its clients that a tsunami of wage-and-hour class actions is engulfing the state.

Two recent cases dealing with the use of outside counsel for internal corporate investigations — including one involving the international law firm Proskauer Rose — underline the dangers of representing a company and one of its employees at the same time.

A dramatic jurisdictional split among the federal circuit courts of appeal has put in jeopardy more than 400 cases decided by the National Labor Relations Board over the past year-and-a-half.

Attorneys, employee advocates and lawmakers say a surprise U.S. Supreme Court ruling eliminating “mixed-motive” claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act will make proving age bias in the workplace a much tougher task for plaintiffs.

Litigation between employers and former employees over non-compete agreements and other forms of restrictive covenants is increasing. In the past few years, employers have dramatically stepped up their use of non-compete agreements to limit what a departing employee can do. ...

The U.S. Supreme Court’s recent decision to pass on a chance to address a long-standing division of opinion among federal circuits — over which test bankruptcy courts should apply when weighing whether an intellectual property license can be kept by ...

An employer violated the Massachusetts Wage Act when it refused to pay a fired employee for his unused vacation time, the state Supreme Judicial Court has decided. The employer — whose written policy provided that any employee who left on ...

An employer that fired a worker without providing the prior warning or suspension called for under the disciplinary policy in its personnel manual violated an implied employment contract, the Massachusetts District Court/BMC Appellate Division has ruled. The plaintiff employee did ...

Patent litigation filings in Massachusetts spiked earlier this year, which some believe may be the result of new local rules implemented in U.S. District Court last fall. But while lawyers and judges report that the commonwealth has become a more ...