Posts
Minnesota restores substance to key employment law
May 14th, 2013
Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton recently signed into law amendments to the Minnesota Payment of Wages Act to confirm that the statute enables employees to recover unpaid compensation – as well as statutory penalties, attorney’s fees, and litigatio…
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Categories: Blog
Supreme Court curtails human rights enforcement
April 28th, 2013
In another 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ventured into the public policy thicket and came out on the side of defendants. In Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the Supreme Court held that the Alien Tort Claims Act (“ATCA”) generally no longer prov…
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Categories: Blog
A wake-up call for those addressing corporate wrongdoing
April 15th, 2013
One of the most important tools for ending misdeeds and for compensating the resulting victims is litigation prosecuted on a class-wide basis. Consistent with its apparently escalating hostility toward such systemic legal action, the Supreme Court re…
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Categories: Blog
Closing the courthouse doors?
March 22nd, 2013
In another example of legal maneuvering, lawyers representing employers and other defendants in civil matters are seeking to change the rules of the game so that it is more difficult to have one’s day in court. These corporate agents want to change…
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Categories: Blog
Who is a whistleblower
March 15th, 2013
Many talk about a whistleblower being a current or former employee who recovers damages from an employer because of retaliation in response to a report about apparent or actual employer misconduct. As a matter of common sense, that is an accurate und…
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Categories: Blog
Class actions under arbitral attack
February 20th, 2013
The Supreme Court has continued to exhibit a preference for arbitration over court litigation in a number of recent rulings, including those that have limited the ability to pursue class actions and collective actions. The Supreme Court’s agenda se…
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Categories: Blog
Immigration reform: short on details, long on consequences
February 11th, 2013
With the re-election of Barack Obama as President, Washington, DC and much of the country have refocused attention on the nation’s broken immigration system. The renewed attention on how we should best address the presence of approximately 12 milli…
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Categories: Blog
A turn for the worse in retaliation cases?
January 30th, 2013
The United States Supreme Court has agreed to review Univ. of Texas Southwestern Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, which raises the question of what legal standard applies to causation under Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision and similarly worded statut…
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United we stand or divided we fall
January 16th, 2013
The Chicago Teachers Union recently filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of African-American members, alleging that the Chicago Public School’s “turnaround” policy discriminates against African-American employees. Under this “turnaround”…
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Tribute to pioneer highlights the crucial link between labor and civil rights
December 26th, 2012
Beginning on January 24, 2013, the History Theatre will feature 19 wonderful performances about the life and times of Nellie Stone Johnson. The production, entitled Nellie, shows the protagonist to be a true trailblazer, knocking down seemingly insur…
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Categories: Blog