New York State On April 12, 2018, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the New York State Legislature’s anti-sexual harassment legislation. The bill includes a number of requirements impacting private employers, including the implementation of mandatory sexual harassment training and policies. Specifically, effective immediately, the law expands the anti-sexual harassment protections to certain… Read more
Last Thursday, New York’s highest Court upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by actress Lindsay Lohan accusing Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc., the maker of the popular video game Grand Theft Auto V (“GTA”), of violating her right to privacy. This is the second appeal that Lohan has lost against Take-Two. Lohan alleged that Take-Two… Read more
On March 5, 2018, the California Supreme Court issued a decision concerning the way that certain bonus pay affects the calculation of an employee’s regular rate under California Labor Code § 510 for purposes of determining overtime. Because this involves employee wages, claims that can reach back as far as four years, the impact on… Read more
Based on the provisions of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has once again updated the Cost-of-Living Adjustments for 2018. In recently issued guidance, the IRS has adjusted the limits on health savings accounts (HSAs). For calendar year 2018, while the annual limitation for an individual with self-only… Read more
On January 25, 2018, the U.S. EPA reversed its longstanding Clean Air Act “once in, always in” policy, opening the door for certain “major” sources of hazardous air pollution to finally downgrade to “area” sources. “Reclassification of Major Sources as Area Sources Under Section 112 of the Clean Air Act,” William L. Wehrun, Assistance Administrator,… Read more
The Communication Workers of America (“CWA”) as well as three named plaintiffs filed suit against named defendants and an unspecified class of “hundreds of major American employers and employment agencies,” for alleged age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), that protects individuals 40 and older from discrimination on the basis… Read more
On December 21, 2017, the Music Modernization Act of 2017 (H.R. 4706) was introduced in the House of Representatives. The bill seeks to modernize the U.S. music licensing system by (1) creating a not-for-profit mechanical licensing and royalty collective to collect and distribute mechanical royalties from interactive streaming services, such as Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora,… Read more
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to review a case in which the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“PTAB”) judgment related to a patent interference proceeding (Interference No. 106,025 (the ʼ025 interference)). The Court’s denial of certiorari fortified the SGR team’s previous successes before the… Read more
On Friday, December 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled on challenges to OSHA’s new silica exposure standard, rejecting all challenges by industry and one of the challenges by labor unions, finding OSHA’s failure to extend the “medical removal protection” standards of the new rule to certain employees was… Read more
As previously reported, recent decisions by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) provided state entities a green light to use sovereign immunity as a defense in Inter Parties Review (IPR) proceedings. However, it remained unclear as to whether waiver of sovereign immunity would be found when a related district court action was initiated by… Read more