No Long-Term Disability for Former Exec

NLRB case on investigations proves puzzling to lawyers

By Kimberly Atkins
Published: May 20, 2013
Tags: Employment

Employee handbook restrictions on confidentiality are not the only kind of confidentiality that law firms and other employees have to worry about. When an employer conducts an internal investigation, it usually wants everybody to keep it quiet. Last year, the National Labor Relations Board ruled that a company policy requiring employees to keep interviews related [...]

When staff complains, law firms should listen

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 20, 2013
Tags: Employment

A group of staffers at a Florida law firm showed up at the office all sporting orange shirts. Management wondered what it meant. The firm’s top brass didn’t spend a lot of time pondering the point, they just fired the ensemble. So far, so good. Florida is an at-will employment state, and the firm did [...]

Interstate Delivery Drivers Lose on Preemption Issue

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 15, 2013
Tags: Employment, Judge Gerald Bruce Lee, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

An Alexandria U.S. District Court grants summary judgment to defendant Lasership Inc. in this suit filed by a purported class of delivery truck drivers who allege they were misclassified under the Massachusetts Independent Contractor Statute, M.G.L. 149 § 148B. Though headquartered in Vienna, Va., Lasership maintains facilities in Woburn, Mass., and Meriden, Conn. In the [...]

An HR headache: New worker privacy law will protect ‘personal information’

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: May 13, 2013
Tags: Employment

Employment lawyers – and attorneys who run their own firms – should take note of a new, under-the-radar law set to take effect July 1. Under the new statute, employers are not obligated to disclose the “personally identifiable information” of current and former employees, including name, cell phone number and work schedule, to third parties. [...]

City Worker’s USERRA Claim Too Late

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 7, 2013
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Employment, Judge Stephanie Dawn Thacker

A chief warrant officer in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves, who left his job as a municipal waste manager for periods of active service with the Coast Guard, waited too long to file his suit under the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, and the 4th Circuit affirms the district court decision [...]

Sleepless lawyer loses disability bias case

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 6, 2013
Tags: Employment, Federal Courts

A lawyer who asked for an eight-hour work day as an accommodation for her insomnia has lost her disability bias case in federal court. Sleeping is recognized as a “major life activity,” the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said, but the lawyer did not show that getting only two to four hours of nightly [...]

A trap for p.i. lawyers

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: May 6, 2013
Tags: Employment, Federal Courts, U.S. Supreme Court

Personal injury lawyers whose clients have employee health benefit plans may want to pay attention to a new U.S. Supreme Court ERISA case, in order to protect their clients and themselves. The case creates a “window and a trap,” according to one plaintiff’s p.i. lawyer: Lawyers need to check current cases to protect their attorney’s [...]

Engineer sued for leaving with data

By Peter Vieth
Published: April 25, 2013
Tags: Contract, Employment, Judge Mosby G. Perrow III, Lynchburg Circuit Court

A trade secrets skirmish in a Lynchburg courtroom has become a sideshow in a high-stakes battle over a contract to manage the nation’s atomic bomb factory. While giant corporations jousted for the prized $22 billion federal contract, a former government overseer at the Texas nuclear weapons plant stood before Lynchburg Circuit Judge Mosby G. Perrow [...]

Plaintiff prevails in first case brought under amended VFATA – $208,100 Verdict

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: April 22, 2013
Tags: Alexandria Circuit Court, Employment

Plaintiff is a licensed architect with 35 years of experience in construction management and architecture. He was hired in January 2008 by the City of Alexandria to be the senior project manager for the new Alexandria police facility. The “APF” was and is the second-largest construction project ever undertaken by the city, with a total [...]