Employment Law This Week®: DOJ’s New Stance on Title VII, ACA Contraception Mandate, SCOTUS Hears Class-Action Waiver Arguments, RI’s Paid Sick Leave Policy
Key Cases - School States Claim Against State Superintendent for Unconstitutional Discrimination In Bethel Ministries, Inc. v. Salmon, No. SAG-19-01853, 2019 WL 6034988 (D. Md. Nov. 14, 2019), the court denied Maryland...more
Timely Topics - By Shannon B. Hartsfield - The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced on Jan. 18, 2018, the creation of a new division within its Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR is described as...more
Timely Topics - Serious data breaches have become routine in the United States, yet a recent survey shows that the majority of religious institutions do not have a full-time IT professional, have no system to detect a...more
Last summer, Donald Trump received recognition for being the first Republican presidential nominee to mention the LGBTQ community in his acceptance speech. If you didn’t actually listen to his speech or read the transcript,...more
Timely Topics - A draft executive order of President Donald Trump relating to religious freedom proposes several material changes to federal law. First, it would require the executive branches to recognize a broad scope...more
Timely Topics - The final rule implementing Section 1557 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) was issued by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) on May...more
Respondeat superior (literally, "let the master answer" in Latin) is a doctrine that applies when an employer or principal has the ability and authority to direct and control the pertinent acts of the employee. Put otherwise,...more
The decision by the United States Supreme Court on same-sex marriage has been greeted with praise and disdain by different corners of the country. The faith-based community has been especially outspoken. This is not...more
Editor's Overview - This month's article by Lindsey Chopin discusses Affordable Care Act ("ACA") litigation. Just five years old, the Supreme Court has considered issues related to the ACA numerous times. Two of those...more
The employee benefits issues to be considered by the U.S. Supreme Court continue to be of great significance to plan sponsors and fiduciaries. This month we review the Court's employee benefit decisions from 2013 and also...more
This month we look at part three of our three part series on Class Actions. In part three, Robert Rachal and M. Todd Mobley address the role of experts in class certification post Wal-Mart and Comcast and how to use and...more
Defense of Marriage Act - Supreme Court Ruling on United States v. Windsor - The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that a portion of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) is unconstitutional. ...more