The Chartwell Chronicles: Employment Law
Managing the Size and Structure of Your Post-Pandemic Workforce
#WorkforceWednesday: OSHA ETS on Hold, Retaliation Claims Increase, "Vaccination Ambassadors" - Employment Law This Week®
Civil litigation by private parties alleging False Claims Act (“FCA”) violations related to Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) fraud appears to be heating up. On September 22, 2021, a former restaurant manager filed a...more
Fisher Phillips’ COVID-19 Employment Litigation Tracker continues to report that the healthcare industry is the hardest hit by COVID-19 employment litigation. As of the beginning of June, more than one in five of every...more
On April 6, 2021, the total number of COVID-19-related employment complaints filed in United States courts passed the 2,000 mark. Although it took eight months to reach the first 1,000 complaints (March–November 2020), it...more
On March 31, 2021, in United States ex rel. Felten v. William Beaumont Hospital, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that an employer’s allegedly retaliatory conduct directed at an employee after the employee’s...more
On March 3, 2021, in Rohrer v. Oswego Cove, LLC, the Oregon Court of Appeals reversed the lower court’s dismissal of an employee’s common-law wrongful discharge claim for seeking legal advice about her employment....more
The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed a whistleblower lawsuit last week against L’Oreal USA Inc., the personal care company, and the American subsidiary of L’Oréal, S.A. (“L’Oreal”), over the...more
Critical Guidance on Managing Covid-19 and More High Stakes Issues Coming Across Your Desk. As industry grapples with unprecedented risk and uncertainty, in-house counsel and private practitioners are set to attend ACI’s...more
Under the Tennessee Public Protection Act (TPPA), also known as “the whistleblowing statute,” it’s illegal to fire an employee if the sole cause for the termination was for refusing to either remain silent about or to...more
Under Oklahoma law, employees who are terminated from their jobs in violation of Oklahoma public policy may, in some cases, file a wrongful discharge lawsuit against their former employer. Increasingly these lawsuits involve...more
As industry grapples with unprecedented risk and uncertainty, in-house counsel and private practitioners are set to attend ACI’s Virtual Conference on Complex Employment Litigation & Risk Management on August 20th. There...more
On June 16, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court opened a new avenue for employees to file retaliation claims. In a majority decision, the court held that the Pennsylvania Human Relations Act (PHRA) is not the only pathway...more
On October 31, 2019, the ARB held that an employee who merely “hints” that he or she intends to file a whistleblower complaint has not engaged in protected activity sufficient to invoke the whistleblower protection provision...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The DOL’s ARB rejected an employee’s SOX retaliation claim where he inadvertently provided information to his employer and only “hinted” that he was filing a SOX-protected complaint. The ARB seems unwilling...more
We’re delighted to report that we secured two summary judgments in two separate alleged discrimination cases on behalf of our client Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in matters that were pending in the Los Angeles Superior Court....more
Arizona is an “at-will” employment state. This means an employer can terminate you for any reason or no reason, except an unlawful reason. If you are terminated for an unlawful reason, then you may have a claim for wrongful...more
Bass, Berry & Sims attorney Chris Lazarini provided insight about a Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower retaliation case brought by a plaintiff claiming she was unjustly terminated. Finding the plaintiff did not timely file an OSHA...more
On April 23, 2018, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that a plaintiff’s SOX claim precluded his claim for common law retaliatory discharge. Cohen v. Power Solutions International, Inc., No....more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey recently held that the proper time for a plaintiff to elect whether to proceed with a statutory whistleblower claim under CEPA, or a common law Pierce...more
On January 22, 2018, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a jury verdict awarding approximately $1.5 million in damages to a radiation oncologist after finding that she had been constructively and wrongfully terminated in...more
Who is a “whistleblower” entitled to protection under the anti-retaliation provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act (the “Act”)? In Digital Realty Trust, Inc. v. Somers, the United States Supreme Court will answer that question by...more
Ghosts, ghouls, and ghastly liability; the last is certainly enough to spook any employer. For this Halloween, we take a trip down Elm Street to revisit the most startling nightmares we’ve ever covered....more
...On July 25, 2017, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced it was awarding nearly $2.5 million to a government employee who tipped off the SEC to a company’s wrongdoing. Although the SEC does not...more
On June 7, 2017, a California jury returned a 9-3 verdict, dismissing whistleblower claims brought by a former Space Exploration Technologies Corporation (“SpaceX”) employee. Jason Blasdell v. Space Exploration Technologies...more
On June 1, 2017, the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) whistleblower retaliation claim brought by a former Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (“Company”) employee because the employee lacked a...more
On May 11, 2017, the Northern District of New York applied the Second Circuit’s standard for evaluating a Dodd-Frank retaliation claim in response to a motion to dismiss under F.R.C.P. Rule 12(b)(6). The court denied the...more