By Marcy L. Rothman and Daniel Guerra – The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) and the Internal Revenue Code generally require employee benefit plans to file Form 5500 Annual Report/Report of Employee Benefit Plan. If a plan has more than 100 participants it is considered a “large” plan and the Form 5500 […]
ERISA 5500 Audits – Who Do They Protect?
Judge Blocks Overtime New Rules. So now what?
The stunning news: The new overtime regulations set to go into effect on December 1, 2016, are now on hold due to a Texas judge’s ruling yesterday November 22, 2016, barring implementation nationwide. How did we get here? So now what do employers do? In my little corner of the law, overtime has been a […]
What Trump’s Win Means For Employers
After pulling off a victory more surprising than Truman’s, Donald Trump will have the opportunity over the next four years to–among other things–change the landscape of employment law in the United States. With Republicans now controlling the House, Senate, and White House, there will undoubtedly be significant changes that will last well beyond Trump’s term. And […]
DOJ And FTC Issue Joint Guidelines For Human Resource Professionals
On October 20, 2016, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) (collectively the “Agencies”), who jointly enforce the antitrust laws, alerted human resource (“H.R.”) professionals that they might violate the antitrust laws by agreeing with competitors on the terms on which they will hire potential employees. The Guidelines are a reminder […]
Three Reasons You May Want Your Employees to Sign a Non-Compete
Not all employers need non-compete agreements. Jimmy John’s Sandwiches learned this the hard way, when some franchisees reportedly required sandwich makers or cashiers to sign non-compete agreements. These agreements kept cashiers or sandwich makers from working for any nearby business that obtained at least ten percent (10%) of its business from sandwich sales. Aside […]
Fifth Circuit holds bank overtime claims should be arbitrated, provides guidance on employer-friendly delegation clauses.
The Fifth Circuit’s October 4 decision in Reyna v. International Bank of Commerce, 2016 WL 5799283, has some valuable information for employers analyzing arbitration agreements with employees or facing Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) claims. In short: (1) if facing a FLSA class claim, consider moving quickly to enforce arbitration provisions before the class certification […]
Implementation of DOL’s New Overtime Regulations May Be Delayed
The new overtime regulations announced in May, which among other things raised the salary for the white collar exemptions from $23,660 to $47,476, were set to go in effect on December 1, 2016. But on Wednesday, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives voted 246-177 to pass a bill that would delay implementation of the new […]
OSHA Regulations: Admissible Evidence?
By Michael A. Logan and Amelia Coates Noncompliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations may not singularly establish a negligence per se claim, but such evidence may be relevant to proximate cause in a simple negligence action. In 2015, the Corpus Christi-Edinburg Court of Appeals in 4Front Engineered Solutions, Inc. v. Rosales considered […]
Hearing-Impaired Accommodations Required by Hospitality Industry
By Jaime DeWees and Michael Logan Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) gives rights of equal access to places of public accommodation. For people who are deaf or hard of hearing, Title III requires businesses to remove barriers to communication. Restaurants and other hospitality providers are required to provide “auxiliary aids and […]
DOL “Summertime Blues”: Texas Penalties Highlight Summer Child Labor Woes
School’s out and thousands of Texas teens are busy working their summer jobs. Think back to your first summer job – how old were you? Were you working in food service? Maybe as a lifeguard? Whatever your job was, you were probably not considering whether your employment was FLSA-compliant. The Fair Labor Standards Act permits […]