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
On January 17, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear arguments over the legality of the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. This is the third case on the mandate to receive Supreme Court review....more
A Pennsylvania federal judge granted Pennsylvania and New Jersey a nationwide preliminary injunction blocking two Trump administration final rules. The two final rules create exemptions for moral and religious objections to...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
Late last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to look into exempting religious employers from the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) contraceptive mandate. Qualifying religious employers...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
The Supreme Court in a unanimous opinion remanded Zubick v. Burwell — and the six cases consolidated with Zubick — back to the Courts of Appeals to rule on the contraceptive opt-out notice provisions. The Court directed the...more
The United States Supreme Court has declined to rule on the merits in a case brought by religious non-profit entities challenging the “religious accommodations” to the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act...more
The Supreme Court declined to rule on whether religiously affiliated nonprofits can be required to affirmatively “opt out” of providing contraceptive coverage to their employees, which would have triggered separate...more
Regardless of one’s preferred metaphor, the Supreme Court of the United States is adept at ducking, punting, and otherwise avoiding messy and socially divisive interpretive issues. Every once in a while, the parties even help...more
As part of its requirement that non-grandfathered group health plans provide benefits for certain preventive care without cost sharing, the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) requires these plans to cover at least one form of...more
Does filling out a form burden religious beliefs? We’re about to find out. On November 6, the Supreme Court agreed to review a group of seven cases (led by No. 14-1418, Zubik v. Burwell) brought by religious non-profit...more
In what continues to be a controversial and developing area of employment law, a federal appellate court recently validated the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “opt out” provision, finding that requiring nonprofit employers to...more
Last Thursday, while many of us were preparing for the long weekend ahead, the U.S. Supreme Court was hard at work, issuing an order that may have far-reaching implications for religious nonprofit organizations. ...more
Steve Hazen alerted me to the fact that California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris has filed an amicus brief in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., U.S. Supreme Court Docket No. 13-354. The question presented in that...more
Intellectual property is a legal construct referring to creations of the mind for which exclusive rights are recognized. Common types include copyrights, trademarks, patents, industrial design rights, trade dress and,...more