Employment – Misclassification – Class certification
Where a motion for class certification was allowed in a suit brought by plaintiff delivery drivers alleging misclassification as independent contractors, the defendant’s decertification motion should...
View ArticleLabor – Accretion – Confidential position
Where a union representing a bargaining unit of full-time and regular part-time non-academic professional staff at the Amherst (UMA) and Boston (UMB) campuses of the University of Massachusetts has...
View ArticleEmployment – Citations – Penalties
Where four civil citations were issued against two petitioners for failure to pay the proper overtime rate, failure to furnish true and accurate payroll records, misclassification of employees as...
View ArticleRetirement – Group 2 status
Where the petitioner, a “Physical Therapist II” at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, applied for reclassification to Group 2, a decision by the State Board of Retirement to deny that application must be...
View ArticleEmployment – Wages – Set-offs
Where two petitioners were cited for failing to make timely payment of $9,759.44 in wages to seven employees, the citation should be upheld because the petitioners’ accusations of employee thefts do...
View ArticleEmployment – Independent contractor arrangement – False Claims Act
Where a False Claims Act complaint has been filed against a defendant that converted its orthopedic medical device sales representatives from employees to independent contractors, compensating them...
View ArticleNew pay transparency law seen as kinder than analogs elsewhere
At the end of its recently concluded session, the Legislature hopped aboard a trend that gives employees and applicants more information about the pay ranges for jobs they are seeking or already hold.
View ArticleEmployment – Vaccination – Religious objection
Where a defendant hospital, after adopting a mandatory vaccination policy during the COVID-19 pandemic, denied a request for an accommodation sought by a plaintiff employee who asserted a religious...
View ArticleReligious bias suit over vaccination reinstated by 1st Circuit
A Title VII religious discrimination claim filed by a hospital employee who was terminated for not being vaccinated should not have been dismissed, as she has sufficiently pleaded a religious belief...
View ArticleRetirement – Group 2 – Mental illness
Where the State Board of Retirement denied a petitioner’s application to be classified in Group 2, that decision should be reversed because the petitioner spent a majority of her working hours caring...
View ArticleRetirement – Stipends – ‘Regular compensation’
Where the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System determined that three types of stipends that a petitioner received in her final three years of employment did not qualify as “regular compensation”...
View ArticleEmployment – FMLA – Retaliation and interference
Where a plaintiff has asserted interference and retaliation claims under the Family and Medical Leave Act, the defendants are entitled to summary judgment, as the plaintiff has not shown that she was...
View ArticleEmployment – Non-solicitation agreement – Forgery
Where a defendant has filed a counterclaim alleging that her signature on a non-solicitation agreement was forged, the counterclaim should be dismissed without prejudice because the defendant neither...
View ArticleEmployment – Gender discrimination – Causation
Where summary judgment was awarded to the defendants on a plaintiff’s claims of gender discrimination, the judgment must be vacated because the judge used an incorrect standard in determining that the...
View ArticleEmployment – Retaliation – Title VII
Where a defendant university was awarded summary judgment on a plaintiff employee’s Title VII retaliation claim, that judgment should be affirmed because the plaintiff cannot satisfy the requirements...
View ArticleEmployment – FLSA – Certification
Where two plaintiffs who worked as appraisers for the defendant insurance company have moved for conditional certification of their proposed collective pursuant to the Fair Labor Standards Act, that...
View ArticleRetirement – Stipends – Teacher
Where the Massachusetts Teachers’ Retirement System declined to treat certain stipends as part of a petitioner’s regular compensation for retirement purposes, the stipends were not mentioned in the...
View ArticleEmployment – Sexual assault – Investigation
Where a plaintiff who worked as a flight attendant for the defendant airline filed a Title VII claim alleging that she was sexually assaulted by another airline employee during a layover in Dallas, a...
View ArticleEmployment – Retaliation – Continuing violations
Where a public school employee claimed retaliatory harassment, the plaintiff cannot rely on the continuing violations doctrine to save her untimely claims, while the dismissal of her timely claims...
View ArticleLabor – Merger – Penson fund contributions
Where a union sued for the collection of outstanding financial obligations owed to the union’s ERISA pension benefit plan, a judge’s decision to award the union damages and counsel fees should be...
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