Massachusetts Employment Law Blog

While some American employers and employees may complain about languages other than English being spoken in the workplace, mandatory English-only policies may not be legal. The law states that an employer must demonstrate a “business necessity” to put an English-only policy into action, but that necessity must be extremely serious or the business runs the…

Mario Batali is well known as a celebrity chef, educating many in the fine art of cooking. Now he can add to that resume an education in properly paying employees, as he has just settled a class action suit alleging that his restaurants illegally withheld tips from approximately 1,100 captains, servers, waiters, bussers, back waiters,…

An unusual correction just took place in Atlanta. Last year, the US Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit in Atlanta found that conversational uses of the term “boy” with black men, which were “nonracial in context” could not support a claim of discrimination. The court’s decision overturned a $1.4 million jury award to former…

Big companies often avoid class action liability by forcing arbitration and blocking grouped claims. Recently, the US Supreme Court limited class action relief in job and consumer cases. Many workers lost access to fair recovery because companies spread harm in small, low-value claims. So, firms avoided payouts for widespread issues. Massachusetts Sets a Strong Limit…

All hours worked are important hours, and no employer shall fail to pay employees the minimum wage. But, what happens when an employer decides not to pay employees for certain working hours? Some courts have found that so long as an employee received at least the minimum wage, averaged out over all hours worked in…

Employers and their powerful lobbyists sought limits on how often employee can access their own employment files, and they got what they asked for – with a bit of good news for employees, too. A new law says that employees may no longer request access to their personnel records more than two times per calendar…

Seeking to put an end to the landmark discrimination verdict, Novartis and the plaintiffs representing the 5,600 women who worked there from 2002 until 2007 agreed to settle the case for $152 million, with an additional promise to spend $22.5 million over three years to improve its policies. The fairness hearing is set for November…

Massachusetts employees working for a Massachusetts company receive the benefit of the Massachusetts Wage Act even if they work at the company’s facility in Connecticut. The Federal District Court focused on language in the Wage Act that refers to any “employer” in the Commonwealth, not to any “employee” in the Commonwealth. Given that the employee…

President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act today, and part of the legislation protects mothers. The legislation amended federal law to require that nursing mothers be provided with “reasonable break time” to express breast milk “each time” its needed, for up to one year after birth. Employers must also provide working mothers…

In a landmark class action verdict against Novartis, a New York jury awarded $250 million in punitive damages for sexual discrimination on behalf of 5,600 women who worked for Novartis from 2002 to 2007, along with $3.3 million in compensatory damages for the 12 women who brought the complaint. The case is the largest gender…