Connecticut’s Freedom of Information Act (“FOIA”) generally provides access to both meetings and records of public agencies. The FOIA does provide an exception to the open meetings requirements for certain “personnel matters”, namely, discussions “concerning the appointment, employment, performance, evaluation, health or dismissal of a public officer or employee, provided that such individual may require…
John Shea
As most are aware, lawsuits brought by college athletes alleging entitlement to wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) have been uniformly rebuked by reviewing courts that have immediately dismissed such suits for failure to state a claim. For example, in Dawson v. NCAA, the United States District Court for the Northern District of…
Employers with fewer than 50 employees are not covered by either the Connecticut or the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, and employers with 50 or more but fewer than 75 employees are covered only by the federal FMLA. But employees of businesses with more than 75 employees can be eligible for family and medical…
Supervisors in Connecticut can be held to have personal liability under some statutes prohibiting discrimination in employment, but not others. In a 2002 decision in the case of Perodeau v. City of Hartford, 259 Conn. 729, the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that the state Fair Employment Practices Act does not impose liability on individual employees. …
There is an on-going debate in the field of employment discrimination law as to whether an employer can require an employee to take a discrimination claim to arbitration rather than filing a lawsuit. A recent decision of the Connecticut Superior Court at Hartford in the case of Grose v. Didi, LLC gives some guidance on…
As was discussed in our prior blog post and alert, the U.S. Supreme Court in Janus v. AFSCME, 585 U.S. ____ (June 27, 2018) just issued a ground breaking decision with respect to the collection of agency fees from non-union members, holding that the involuntary withholding of such monies violates the First Amendment “free speech”…
The wait is over. For better or worse, this morning the United States Supreme Court issued what may well prove to be the most important public-sector labor law decision of the last 50 years. By a 5-4 majority the Supreme Court’s conservatives in an opinion authored by Justice Alito have held in Janus v. AFSCME…
Business clients often ask us whether their non-compete agreements with key employees will actually be enforced by the courts. A recent decision from the Connecticut Superior Court illustrates the limits to enforcing these agreements. Typical of non-compete enforcement situations, the plaintiff company learned that an executive employee who had just resigned had been hired by…
The 2018 Regular Session of the Connecticut General Assembly concluded on May 9, 2018. Numerous bills that were of significant interest (e.g., paid family and medical leave, other changes to the state’s FMLA, changes in the state’s paid sick leave act, measures addressing sexual harassment, increases in the state’s minimum wage) did not pass. From a…
An offer letter is a formal offer of employment to a job applicant. Employers also use offer letters to summarize the basic terms of employment after an applicant has accepted an oral job offer. What to Include in an Offer Letter—the Basics Written offer letters are not required in Connecticut, but employers in the state…
New York State, and New York City, stepped up this legislative season and passed several new laws in response to #MeToo, aimed at ferreting out and preventing workplace harassment. Here is what employers should know: “Mandatory arbitration clauses” are now prohibited for sex harassment claims in New York. These provisions require employees to take their…
A recent question from a client on pay requirements for salaried employees who have exhausted their sick and vacation pay indicates that a refresher on compliance with the salary basis rule under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act might be in order. The applicable federal regulation is found at 29 C.F.R. 541.602. An exempt employee…
The SEC has announced it will hold a public meeting on Wednesday, April 18 at 3:30 p.m. to discuss possible standards for broker-dealers and investment advisers when dealing with retail investors (e.g., small retirement plans, their participants, and IRA owners), signaling that it will consider a new fiduciary standard of conduct and related rules. At…
For some years, employment law in Connecticut has seemed to make a clear distinction between bonus plans that are discretionary, and plans that guaranteed payment of a bonus if specified performance criteria were met. In a pair of decisions interpreting Connecticut’s wage payment statutes (Connecticut General Statutes sec. 31-68 and 31-72), the Supreme Court of…
In a recently released and lightly redacted memo, a staff attorney for the U.S. National Labor Relations Board concluded that Google’s firing of James Damore was legal. Last year, Damore, a Harvard graduate and a little-known engineer at Google, ignited a firestorm when he published a memo in which he criticized Google’s diversity policies and…
