Updates 3/8

Supreme Court Adopts Heightened Undue Hardship Standard in Title VII Religious Accommodation

Paul Peter Nicolai

Aug 1, 20234 min read

Supreme Court Adopts Heightened Undue Hardship Standard in Title VII Religious Accommodation

Employers must modify their practices when evaluating requests for religious accommodations under Title VII. Undue hardship is no longer...

Lease Not Frustrated by Pandemic Shutdown

Paul Peter Nicolai

Jul 25, 20231 min read

Lease Not Frustrated by Pandemic Shutdown

A trial court ruling favoring a commercial landlord was affirmed because shutdown orders issued during the COVID-19 pandemic did not give...

INFORM Consumers Act Requires Verified Unauthorized Third-Party Seller Information

Paul Peter Nicolai

Jun 13, 20232 min read

INFORM Consumers Act Requires Verified Unauthorized Third-Party Seller Information

Anonymous unauthorized third-party sellers are a nagging problem for most brands. Although some online marketplaces have taken steps to...

Delaware Court Confirms Corporate Officers Owe the Same Fiduciary Duties as Directors

Paul Peter Nicolai

May 30, 20231 min read

Delaware Court Confirms Corporate Officers Owe the Same Fiduciary Duties as Directors

The Delaware Court of Chancery denied a motion to dismiss filed by a former employee of the former employer’s claims that he breached his...

$17 Billion in Damages for Fingerprinting Employees

Paul Peter Nicolai

May 16, 20232 min read

$17 Billion in Damages for Fingerprinting Employees

The Illinois biometric privacy law says no private entity may collect, capture, purchase, receive through trade, or otherwise obtain a...

Paul Peter Nicolai

May 9, 20231 min read

Product Disparagement Claim Survives

A medical device company that designs and manufactures customized hip and knee replacements sued an insurance company that characterized...

Paul Peter Nicolai

May 2, 20231 min read

COVID-19 Worker Compensation Denied

A registered nurse filed a Massachusetts worker's compensation claim for temporary total incapacity benefits saying she contracted...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Apr 28, 20231 min read

Profit from selling an urban redevelopment project is not subject to taxes

According to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, the state cannot impose taxes on the capital gain earned from the sale of an urban...

Burden of Proving Overtime Exemption Toughened

Paul Peter Nicolai

Apr 18, 20231 min read

Burden of Proving Overtime Exemption Toughened

The US District Court gave an employer a summary judgment in an overtime case, concluding that the dispatchers and controllers fell...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Apr 4, 20231 min read

Commercial Lease Damages Denied

A tenant defaulted on a commercial lease two months after entering into a five-year lease. As is frequently the case in commercial...

Right to Modify Employee Handbook Voids Arbitration

Paul Peter Nicolai

Mar 21, 20232 min read

Right to Modify Employee Handbook Voids Arbitration

An employer who puts an arbitration agreement in an employee handbook cannot enforce it if it maintains the right to modify the handbook....

Home Improvement Contractor Law Expanded

Paul Peter Nicolai

Mar 14, 20231 min read

Home Improvement Contractor Law Expanded

A contractor mismanaged funds paid by homeowners so that he needed more money to finish the project, failed to pay subcontractors, and...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Mar 7, 20231 min read

Wage Act Damages & Fees

An employer failed to pay $8,952.15 in accrued vacation pay when it discharged an employee. It paid the accrued vacation pay three weeks...

Disclosure Of Secrets To A Competitor Not Actionable.

Paul Peter Nicolai

Feb 21, 20232 min read

Disclosure Of Secrets To A Competitor Not Actionable.

A federal court affirmed the dismissal of a trade secret lawsuit where the plaintiff disclosed confidential information on a call with an...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Feb 14, 20231 min read

Pop-Up Arbitration Notice Fails

A plaintiff was injured when an Uber driver collided with another vehicle. Uber asked to compel arbitration. It was denied because the...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Feb 14, 20231 min read

Corporate Veil Protected

Homeowners sued a corporation and its owner over a remodeling project gone bad. The homeowners said the company owner should be liable...

CGL policy doesn’t cover 93A attorneys’ fees

Paul Peter Nicolai

Feb 7, 20231 min read

CGL policy doesn’t cover 93A attorneys’ fees

The plaintiffs in the underlying case hired a company to clean up a sewage spill, after which the wife experienced ongoing respiratory...

Workplace Drug Policies and State Marijuana Laws

Paul Peter Nicolai

Jan 17, 20232 min read

Workplace Drug Policies and State Marijuana Laws

Over the last two decades, over two-thirds of the states have passed laws authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes by...

Printing While Traveling Means No Privilege

Paul Peter Nicolai

Jan 10, 20231 min read

Printing While Traveling Means No Privilege

A plaintiff withheld an email saying the attorney-client privilege protected it. The plaintiff’s CEO received the email from the...

Paul Peter Nicolai

Jan 3, 20231 min read

Embarrassing Emails Go Public

A court of appeals affirmed the district court’s ruling by concluding that emails were judicial records to which the common law right of...