By Alicia J. Samolis As seen in Law360 In the recent case of Whitmire v. Wal-Mart Stores Inc.,[1] the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona granted summary judgment on anti-discrimination claims in favor of the plaintiff and against Walmart under Arizona’s medical marijuana statute. The plaintiff, a former employee of Walmart, had been terminated...
Again? In a case of what must feel like déjà vu for employers, on March 7, 2019, after conducting “listening sessions” across the country and receiving tens of thousands of comments from the public, the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) issued a much-anticipated proposed rule (“Proposed Rule”) that, according to its estimates, would result...
(Editor’s Note: This is the second of a two-part column. See part 1 here.) By Alicia J. Samolis and Michael A. Gamboli As detailed in Part I, certain types of noncompetition agreements are now invalid under the new Massachusetts noncompete law (the Act). This is of course a double-edged sword for employers, who will now benefit from...
ArticlesEmployment & LaborAre You Ready To Steal Employees From Your Mass. Competitors
September 28, 2018
(Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part column. See part 2 here.) By Alicia J. Samolis Massachusetts has recently enacted a law that will render some restrictive covenants unenforceable. The law starts by broadly defining noncompetition agreements as any agreement between a company and a worker in which the worker “agrees that he or...
ArticlesEmployment & LaborCourt of Appeals Upholds Termination of Airport Security Employee
September 20, 2018
PS&H employment partner and Chair of the Labor & Employment Group, Alicia Samolis, provided comment to RI Lawyers Weekly on the recent 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Bonilla-Ramirez v. MVM, Inc., et al. The Court’s decision upheld the termination of an employee of a private security company providing services to U.S. Immigration and...
PS&H employment partner and Chair of the Employment & Labor Group, Alicia Samolis, provided comment to RI Lawyers Weekly on the recent 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision in Richard v. Regional School Unit 57. In a split decision, the Court upheld the lower court judge’s decision, after a bench trial, that the teacher’s termination was not...
By Alicia J. Samolis and Christopher M. Wildenhain A Rhode Island federal district court has ruled in an employer’s favor in a recent decision concerning an employee arbitration agreement, an intriguing split from a decision months earlier by a separate session of the court. More specifically, in Britto v. St. Joseph Health Services of Rhode...
Client AlertsEmployment & LaborWhy Your Company Will Be in Violation of the Massachusetts Equal Pay Law on July 1st – And How to Fix It
March 28, 2018
By Alicia J. Samolis and Michael A. Gamboli As described in our prior publications, an Act to Establish Pay Equity in Massachusetts (the “Equal Pay Law”) will go into effect on July 1, 2018. In basic terms, the Equal Pay Law requires Massachusetts employers to pay the same compensation to men and women performing “comparable” work. The Equal Pay...
Client AlertsEmployment & LaborProposed Rhode Island Sick Leave Regulations Fail to Provide Clarity and Will Increase Employer Headaches if Finalized
March 14, 2018
By Alicia J. Samolis and Michael A. Gamboli The Rhode Island Department of Labor and Training (DLT) has finally released its proposed regulations, 260-RICR-30-05-5 regarding the Rhode Island Healthy and Safe Families and Workplaces Act (the “Sick Leave Law”). As we alerted you in October, the text of the Sick Leave Law – which will require employers with 18...
By Alicia J. Samolis This article was originally published on March 6 by Law360. A federal judge in the Middle District of Florida has allowed a class action to proceed against Amazon, on allegations that Amazon engaged in unfair pre-employment background check practices. The cases, Hargrett v. Amazon and Austin v. Amazon DEDC LLC (Hargrett)[1], which involve...
