News
On April 5, 2024, Jackson Hewitt tax preparers submitted a $10.8 million proposed class action settlement for preliminary court approval in the matter of Robinson v. Jackson Hewitt Inc., Case No. 2:19-cv-9066, pending in the U.S.…
On April 1, 2024, a federal district court in New Mexico preliminary approved a class action settlement on behalf of approximately 250 budtenders employed by Medicine Man Technologies Inc. (doing business as Schwazze) in New Mexico and…
A former dispensary employee has filed a class action lawsuit against “Yuma Way LLC,” a company that owns and operates nine marijuana dispensaries in the state of Colorado. The lawsuit, filed March 20, 2024, in the Colorado District…
Employees in New York City now have the right to sue directly in court if their employers violates the New York City Earned Safe and Sick Time Act (ESSTA). The ESSTA gives employees the right to use leave for the care and treatment of…
Recently, UFC fighters settled a decade long antitrust case against the Ultimate Fighting Championship (“UFC”) and its parent company. The fighters alleged that the UFC, a mixed martial arts organization, has monopoly power to suppress…
A former employee of cannabis company Glass House Brands Inc. filed a proposed class action against the company, its subsidiaries, and 50 individual defendants on behalf of himself and other current and former employees of the company…
108 Workers for a Virginia Home Care Agency recovered nearly a million dollars from their employer recently, as a result of the Agency’s failure to pay them for overtime that they had worked. The home care industry is rife with abuse,…
In a ruling that will likely affect the rights of college athletes for years to come, a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) official ruled on February 5, 2024, that men’s basketball players at Dartmouth are “employees” of the…
On February 9, 2024, a “Fleet Deckhand” working for Archer-Daniels-Midland Company, a food processing company, filed suit against his employer in the Northern District of Illinois, seeking unpaid overtime, liquidated damages, and…
On February 15, 2024, MSE Managing Partner Greg McGillivary moderated a wide-ranging discussion of developments at the U.S. Department of Labor, including the status of the DOL’s rulemaking and guidance on independent contractors and…
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that whistleblowers bringing claims for retaliation under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act do not need to prove that they were victims of intentional retaliation. The Court also reinstated a $900,000 jury verdict…
On February 1, 2024, a worker at a Georgia Wendy’s sued the owner of the franchise where she worked, as well as the Wendy’s parent company, alleging that she and breastfeeding workers nationwide had been given insufficient time and…
On January 30, 2024, the New Jersey Supreme Court affirmed a jury decision finding that the State of New Jersey was liable for $10 million in punitive damages due to its discrimination against and failure to accommodate a female…
Amazon will pay $950,000 to settle a case involving California remote workers and their home internet expenses. A remote worker sued Amazon in the federal District for the Northern District of California. The worker alleged that Amazon…
On January 10, 2024, a panel of the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) upheld an administrative law judge’s opinion putting two fired employees back to work, ruling that the employer’s asserted basis for their termination violated…
On January 2, 2024, the Court of Appeals in California upheld the finding and a $23.9 million dollar damages award that Andrew Rudnicki, an in-house attorney for Farmers Insurance Exchange and Farmers Group, Inc. (Farmers), was…
On January 3, 2024, the United States Court of Federal Claims ruled in favor of Customs Officers seeking overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) and the Customs Officer Pay Reform Act (“COPRA”) for their time spent…
As a new year began on January 1, 2024, the federal minimum wage remained $7.25 per hour. However, new state minimum wage laws took effect around the country, including in the following states (the increases are effective on January 1,…
Two laws protecting marijuana users will come into effect in California in the new year. The first, AB 2188, prohibits employers from taking any adverse action against employees who have used marijuana off-the-job and away from the…
On December 12, 2023, a California jury agreed that Kaiser Permanente fired neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse Maria Gatchalian in retaliation for raising concerns regarding patient health and safety and awarded her approximately…