Employment & Labor Law

Although the Bible tells us that “No man can serve two masters,” in some instances, a subcontractor’s employee can have two masters – the subcontractor and the prime contractor – under the “joint employment” legal doctrine. Employers must deal with the expanding impact of this doctrine as it affects…

A transgender employee’s gender dysphoria is a disability protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), according to the United States District Court of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. In Blatt v. Cabela’s Retail, Inc., No. 5:14-cv-04822, 2017 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 75665, at *1 (E.D. Pa. May 18,…

Beverly Butcher of West Virginia worked for a coal mine owned by Consol Energy for 37 years. But when Consol Energy implemented a biometric hand scanner to track the hours of its employees, Butcher, a devout evangelical Christian, refused to use it based on what he claimed was his religious…

College athletes have long argued — for the most part unsuccessfully — to be treated as university employees. On January 31, 2017, NLRB General Counsel, Richard F. Griffin, Jr., delivered the most significant victory to date for a particular group of these athletes. In an official document, titled Memorandum GC…

Less than two weeks before the Department of Labor’s new federal overtime rule was scheduled to take effect on December 1, a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide preliminary injunction postponing…

Two major recent changes impact the enforceability of Virginia construction contracts. These changes make certain contractual waivers “null and void” as a matter of law. First, waivers of mechanic’s lien rights executed before work begins or materials are supplied by subcontractors or material suppliers are now null and void. This…

United Excel Corporation, a Kansas company in the hospital construction business, employed a sales representative to solicit business from hospitals throughout the country.  At some point, the sales representative asked to work out of his home, which was located in Massachusetts.  During the three years that he worked from his…

On April 27, 2016, in a move lauded as the most significant expansion of federal intellectual property law in the last half-century, Congress passed the Defend Trade Secrets Act of 2016 (“…

Trade secret issues arise daily in the workplace with nearly every employment decision, from employee hiring and firing, to every contract that contains a non-disclosure or confidentiality provision. President Obama today signed the Defend Trade Secrets Act (“DTSA” or the “Act”), with huge implications for employers,…