[WEBINAR] Preparing for Changes in the “Vested Rights Doctrine” - Understanding Plan Design Options
[VIDEO] Legal Update: Is the California Rule in Flux?
[VIDEO] Pension Liability by the Numbers
[VIDEO] Perspectives: The Practical Effects of Today's Pension Programs
On August 18, 2023, in Hamilton v. Dallas County, the full Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upended a longstanding precedent, significantly broadening the types of adverse employment actions that could give rise to an...more
Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, 597 U.S. __ (2022) (The United States Supreme Court concludes that a coach praying at mid-field following a high school football game was engaged in private religious expression...more
The Supreme Court addressed the intersection of the First Amendment’s Establishment and Free Speech clauses as they relate to a public employee’s personal religious expression when done in the public eye. In a 6-to-3...more
On Monday June 27, the Supreme Court issued their ruling in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District. (We previously reported on this case.) In a 6-3 decision penned by Justice Neil Gorsuch, the conservative majority...more
On April 25, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case Kennedy v. Bremerton School District, which we previously reported on. As you may recall, the case involves a high school football coach, Joseph Kennedy, who was...more
A suite of bills aimed at further enhancing protections for both employees and independent contractors regarding discrimination, harassment and retaliation in the workplace are on the horizon in New York State. Several of...more
Per recent federal employment law guidance, private employers can generally require employees to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as long as they comply with federal employment laws that prohibit discrimination on the basis of...more
A recent Illinois Appellate Court decision addressed the question of whether School Resource Officers (“SROs”) employed by school districts are entitled to district-paid disability and health insurance benefits for “law...more
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals, the appeals court that has jurisdiction over federal cases in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware and the U. S. Virgin Islands, recently held that a public employer violates the First...more
A city employee’s comments at a public event were not protected under the First Amendment because she spoke as a public employee, not a private citizen, a federal appeals court held in Barone v. City of Springfield. However,...more
Can one employee be considered terminated from the same position twice? Though the concept seems to give plaintiffs two bites at the apple for statute of limitations, the Utah Supreme Court says, in certain circumstances,...more
In the classic 1955 movie, Mister Roberts, Henry Fonda plays Doug Roberts, a frustrated Naval officer aboard a supply ship in a backwater area of the Pacific during World War II. Roberts desperately seeks a transfer to a...more
A recent decision from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals highlights the distinction between firing an employee for personal or politically expedient reasons (which may be entirely legal) and firing an employee because of his...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: An employee who expresses opposition to an employer’s policies and practices that affect members of the general public is not engaging in an activity that FEHA protects, because the activity is not opposing...more
The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled on a matter involving “perceived affiliation”, bringing clarity to the matter, where the circuits provided discordant rulings. As a result, personnel actions based upon even mistaken...more
In last week’s installment, I provided an introduction to the issue of patronage dismissals in the public sector, and a discussion of the Supreme Court’s Elrod (1976) and Branti (1980) decisions. In this installment, I’ll...more
It’s election season, and each year, like the dead leaves that fall from the trees, many loyal and long-term employees of vanquished incumbents face the prospect of getting cashiered once the newly elected officials, or their...more
Facially neutral decisions that are part of routine workforce reductions may not hold up in court if the only employee to be discharged in a group belongs to a protected class. In Schwartz v. Clark County, No. 14-16365 (May...more
On April 26, 2016, the United States Supreme Court ruled that when a public employer demotes an employee out of a desire to prevent that employee from engaging in First Amendment protected activity, the employee can challenge...more
The Supreme Court of the United States issued a decision in one case on April 26, 2016: - Heffernan v. City of Paterson, No. 14-1280: Petitioner Jeffrey Heffernan was a police officer in Paterson, New Jersey. Heffernan...more
On April 26, 2016, the Supreme Court decided Heffernan v. City of Paterson, No. 14-1280, holding government employees who are demoted because their employer believes they are engaging in constitutionally protected political...more
In a 6-2 decision, the Supreme Court today held that the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects both actual and perceived political speech and expression by public employees. The unsurprising decision squares with...more
The Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) prohibits publically-traded companies from retaliating against employees for complaining about issues that could affect the shareholders of the company. On Monday, the Fourth Circuit Court of...more
Samuel Johnson, the 18th-century English writer and lexicographer, observed that “words are but the signs of ideas.” While not intended as such, Dr. Johnson’s insight neatly summarizes one of the catalyzing principles for the...more