Articles and Blogs

Update as of 9/14/20: As we anticipated below, the US Department of Labor has issued revised regulations in response to the SDNY decision. Please see our post here for details. Update as of 9/10/20: As discussed below, previously, a federal judge in New York’s Southern District invalidated several aspects of the DOL’s guidance regarding... READ MORE

The U.S. Supreme Court recently expanded its unanimous 2012 ruling in Hosanna-Tabor Evangelical Lutheran Church,[1] where it first applied to a parochial school teacher the “ministerial exception” to federal anti-discrimination employment laws. The exception is an outgrowth of the First Amendment’s Free Exercise and Free Establishment clauses, which protect the right of religious institutions... READ MORE

The U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) Wage and Hour Division has updated its FMLA forms in order to make them more usable and streamlined after receiving substantial input from employers, industry associations, individual employees, worker advocacy groups, law firms and other interested members of the public. The DOL also announced that it would be... READ MORE

The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (“OFCCP”) published a final rule amending its regulations concerning its jurisdictional authority over health care providers that participate in TRICARE. Effective immediately, and in direct opposition with its prior legal position, OFCCP has confirmed that it lacks authority to regulate health care providers solely because they participate... READ MORE

In the past few weeks, the National Labor Relations Board (“Board”) has issued several crucial decisions impacting union elections in the health care setting. At the close of April 2020, the Board declined to find that COVID-19 justified the stay of a union election at an acute care hospital. In its Order denying the... READ MORE

On June 12, 2020, CMS and the Office for Civil Rights of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) posted a display copy of a new final rule that implements Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”)(“Final Rule”). This Final Rule supersedes significant portions of the current 2016 rule (“2016 Rule”) that interpreted and implemented... READ MORE

In a recent opinion, the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals addressed the employer’s and the employee’s responsibilities in relation to claims alleging a failure to accommodate religious beliefs. The employee in question worked for a hospital as a clinical technician (“CT”) in the Oncology Department, which typically required the CTs to work every other... READ MORE

On Monday, June 15, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court resolved three cases addressing whether discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity is illegal under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court determined that they are. It, therefore, reversed the Eleventh Circuit’s decision in Bostock v. Clayton County and remanded... READ MORE

As expected COVID-19 related litigation steadily increases, a lawsuit recently filed in the Northern District of Indiana presents a novel approach regarding the potential applicability of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (the “FFCRA”) to large employers who are otherwise not covered under the FFCRA. The employer, with more than 500 employees, was not... READ MORE

On May 18, 2020, Governor Whitmer issued Executive Order 91 (the “Order”), effectively creating an enforceable set of workplace standards applying to all businesses across the state.[i] In addition to standards set for all business, the new Order provides standards for workplace environments, such as offices and research laboratories.[ii] Per the Order, any Michigan... READ MORE