Update Your Nondisclosure Agreements: New and Complex Non-Compete Agreement Restrictions & Uniform Trade Secrets Act

On August 10, 2018, Massachusetts adopted a new, far reaching, and, for businesses, controversial law putting significant restrictions on companies’ ability to use Non-Compete Agreements. Polls showed high levels of support for the changes as a ballot question. In a rushed deadline for implementation, unlike the new Massachusetts Family Leave Act starting in 2021 and other […]

Read more...

Employees’ Requests to Accommodate a Disability – Employer Requirements & Defenses

Employers, supervisors, and HR need a good sense of what the legal tests are and of available defenses to common employee issues. The following will help you avoid some handicap discrimination pitfalls. There are frequent complaints that businesses always need to call an attorney when employment law issues arise. I hope my website blog and […]

Read more...

Massachusetts Sick Leave Law – Does Your Business Need A Check-up?

Massachusetts Sick Leave Law – Does Your Business Need A Check-up? We hope for good health for ourselves and others. Sickness and injury may come to us all,  but when employees sicken, your business needs a sick time leave policy. Employers must provide paid sick leave if they have more than 10 employees – full […]

Read more...

MA Sick Leave Law Starts Now

We all want good health – for our business and our employees – but sickness happens.  The Massachusetts earned sick time law now requires time off, paid or unpaid, as accrued for routine or emergency medical visits and travel time to care for an ill family member or to address domestic violence. The law as in […]

Read more...

Gender discrimination masked by “old boy” stereotypes –

While sex sells, now more than ever,  sex discrimination also lives on too well according to the EEOC.  It received a $ 500,000 jury verdict in a case under Title VII about sex discrimination in promotion policies in which less qualified men were consistently promoted over a very well qualified woman. *  Our firm recently […]

Read more...

Court Tosses EEOC Expert in Disparate Impact Discrimination Case

When a federal court dismissed a disparate impact discrimination case,  the EEOC got egg on its cheeks. A large percentage of the discrimination cases we see involve disparate treatment – good old-fashioned, intentional discrimination.  More subtle and with wider impact is discrimination based on disparate impact.  Disparate impact discrimination involves employment practices that are unintentional […]

Read more...

Associational Discrimination: An Employment Red Flagg

In a recent, precedent setting decision, the Supreme Judicial Court found that the plaintiff, Marc Flagg, had a valid claim of associational discrimination by his employer AliMed, Inc.  Associational discrimination is something that occurs when an employer takes a negative action against an employee due to someone that they are associated with in a protected […]

Read more...

Did the Windsor Case Striking Down DOMA “Undomicile” Employment Law?

On June 26, 2013, in United States v. Windsor, the Supreme Court invalidated Section 3 of DOMA making unconstitutional that part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Marriage is no longer defined as between a man and a woman to the extent determined in Windsor. Section 2 of DOMA, however, still stands, and allows […]

Read more...