By Christina Pazzanese and Thomas E. Egan The parties to a municipal collective bargaining agreement could not include an “evergreen” clause purporting to continue the terms of the CBA during the period of negotiations for a successor agreement, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ruled in a split decision. One of the parties, the Boston Housing ...
Court: ‘evergreen’ clause in CBA can’t be enforced
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Confidentiality clause is found to be overbroad
A temporary employment agency could not enforce a confidentiality provision barring workers from disclosing the terms of their employment to “other parties,” the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has decided.
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FYI: wave of whistleblower claims on the way
Publicly traded companies and their subsidiaries and affiliates would be well-advised to start preparing now for the wave of Sarbanes-Oxley whistleblower claims that is currently sweeping the nation.
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Expanding mode of operation approach: up next, hospital cafeterias
Hospital risk managers in Massachusetts may be blind-sided by a new wave of tort claims coming their way. The claims are not the malpractice actions that hospitals so often see. They have nothing to do with medical care and don’t arise out of activities in the ER, operating room or radiology lab.
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Be aware of the hidden costs of self-collection
Many in-house counsel and the law firms they engage to represent their companies continue to self-collect electronic data, even though they recognize the legal issues and potential dangers involved.
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‘Therasense’: raising the bar for inequitable conduct
Addressing the standards necessary to prove inequitable conduct in patent cases, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, sitting en banc, recently added new contours to a doctrine that, in its words, “has plagued not only the courts but also the entire patent system.”
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Hearsay
A contentious employment lawsuit involving a major Boston law firm and a client’s child pornography collection has been quietly put to rest in court.
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DLA Piper asks judge to dismiss secretary’s lawsuit
Things are starting to get interesting in a long-running lawsuit between DLA Piper and a former secretary who says the firm failed to properly investigate her sexual harassment accusations against a real estate partner in 2008. Nearly two years after Shonnett Sisco filed her complaint in U.S. District Court in Boston, lawyers representing the international ...
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Cyber security concerns changing attorneys’ roles
The cyber attacks that the Cybersecurity Act of 2012 cautions against might sound like the plot of a new “Mission Impossible” movie, but for in-house lawyers at a wide variety of companies, such concerns soon might be unavoidable.
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Plaintiffs face uphill battle for self-leave FMLA suits
State employees seeking to file suit under the Family and Medical Leave Act’s self-care provision face an unlikely future after a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling.
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Need for illumination of maximum recovery rule warrants interlocutory appeal
Chief Judge Patti B. Saris of the District of Massachusetts recently issued an order paving the way for the Trustees of Boston University to seek an interlocutory appeal to clarify the Maximum Recovery Rule for remittitur. Back in November 2015, a jury awarded BU lump-sum damages of $9,300,000 from Epistar and $4,000,000 from Everlight after finding Epistar ...
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In autoimmune disorder diagnosis patent case, Section 101 motion to dismiss denied
In a recent decision from the District of Massachusetts, Judge Indira Talwani denied a motion to dismiss a patent suit under Rule 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim due to patent ineligibility under 35 U.S.C. § 101 . In their motion, defendants Mayo Collaborative Services LLC and Mayo Clinic (collectively “Defendants”) argued that the ...
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Are legal hold notices immune from discovery?
Why do lawyers write “Privileged & Confidential” at the top of a legal hold notice? Most courts have decided that legal hold notices are immune from discovery, but not because of the header or title. What generally protects a legal hold notice from discovery is the substantive language used in the notice and the process ...
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Halo shines bright in D. Mass.
An order from the District of Massachusetts sheds light on how the Supreme Court’s June 2016 decision in Halo Electronics v. Pulse Electronics is being interpreted by the district courts. The Memorandum and Order by Chief Judge Patti B. Saris denied a request for enhanced damages by plaintiff, Trustees of Boston University (“BU”). BU moved for enhanced damages after a ...
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Board defers to arbitrator’s award upholding management rights–but for how long?
Seyfarth Synopsis: In Weavexx, LLC the Board deferred to an arbitrator’s finding that the employer had the right to change its payday and pay cycle without first bargaining. The bigger question is how much longer will such charges be deferred pending arbitration, and the extent to which the Board will defer to an arbitrator’s award. ...
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Appeals Court upholds confidentiality of mediation, highlights the art of dealing with distress
The Massachusetts Appeals Court recently issued an opinion in ZVI Construction Co. v. Levy, et al., 90 Mass. App. Ct. 412 (2016) refusing to override the terms of a written confidentiality agreement entered into between parties to a mediation. The opinion is noteworthy because it upholds the expectation of confidentiality in mediation. In addition, the ...
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New overtime rule goes into effect on Dec. 1, 2016
On December 1, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor’s new overtime rule will take effect. Most significantly, effective December 1, 2016, the minimum salary a worker must be paid to qualify for the executive, administrative, and professional exemptions will increase to $913 per week (or $47,476 per year). The final rule also raises the compensation ...
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CFTC proposes new rule allowing it to obtain trading firm’s trade secrets without due process
As the Obama administration winds down, its regulators are showing no signs of letting up. Last week the Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) decided that it should no longer be constrained by its subpoena power when it seeks to obtain highly confidential and propriety algorithms used by electronic trading firms. In a 2-1 vote, the ...
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Federal court blocks new overtime rule
On November 22, 2016, a federal judge in Texas issued a nationwide injunction preventing the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) from implementing its new overtime rule. The rule – which would have raised the salary threshold below which employees must be paid overtime to $47,476/year – was scheduled to go into effect on December 1, ...
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Supreme Court to rule on case addressing bathroom access based on gender identity
On October 28, 2016, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal in the matter of Gloucester County School Board v. G.G., which asks the Court to weigh in on the issue of restroom access for transgender students. The Supreme Court’s ruling is anticipated to address whether the U.S. Department of Education (“DOE”) may ...
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