The Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, recently authored a significant ruling that reaffirmed and strengthened the resolve of New Jersey’s whistleblower law, the Conscientious Employee Protection Act (“CEPA”). In Halliday v. Bioreference Laboratories, Inc., a Texas based employee, Halliday, of a New Jersey Company, Bioreference Laboratories, Inc. (“BLI”), raised numerous complaints regarding her employer’s Houston, Texas laboratory being out of compliance with the Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments (“CLIA”) and thus in violation of federal law. Ms. Halliday was fired wit ..read more

Last week, in the case of East Bay Drywall, LLC v. Department of Labor and Workforce Development, the State Supreme Court upheld a determination by the Commissioner of the Department of Labor and Workforce Development (DOL) that a drywall company had been misclassifying employees as independent contractors for several years, and as a result, now owes tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid unemployment and temporary disability contributions. The Court analyzed New Jersey’s Unemployment Compensation Law, N.J.S.A. 43:21-19(i)(6)(A)-(C), colloquially known as the “ABC test” to determine whether th ..read more

New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination provides some of the strongest protections against unlawful workplace discrimination against individual members of protected classes such as race, gender and sexual orientation. Unfortunately, even with strict anti-discrimination laws and a state-wide push towards inclusivity, numerous instances of homophobic workplace discrimination and harassment continue to rise. Recently, two New Jersey State Troopers have filed suit in the Monmouth County Superior Court,  alleging years of workplace discrimination within the NJ State Police Department, based on ..read more

The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit held on July 29, 2021, that a white employee’s lawsuit against his former employer for workplace retaliation under Title VII could move forward. This decision is especially notable because it is the first time the Third Circuit has issued a directive on race-based associational discrimination. In the case Kengerski v. Harper, No. 20-1307, 2021 WL 3199225 (3d Cir. July 29, 2021) the plaintiff employee alleges he was fired in retaliation for complaining about his supervisor’s racist remarks targeting his bi-racial grandniece and Black and ..read more

As domestic travel numbers rise and airports are once again filled with travelers, airlines continue to struggle to comply with accommodations for travelers with disabilities. Most recently, a viral social media video by Bri Scalesse, who is wheelchair-bound, shows her horror and distraught emotion when informed that Delta Airlines severely damaged her wheelchair during the course of her flight from Minneapolis to Newark, NJ. Unfortunately, this isn’t an uncommon occurrence.  In 2018, 36,930 disability-related complaints were made to airlines. Airlines were reported to have lost or broken ..read more

For the past year, employees have been undergoing medical screenings and answering questions about their personal health to gain access to their physical workplaces. Employers can lawfully request their health status or require them to take leave from work if they appear to have symptoms of COVID-19. Despite laws protecting employee privacy and the dignity of being in control of our own medical decisions, the public health emergency resulting from the spread of COVID-19 has drastically changed the landscape when it comes to employment decisions based on disability or perceived disability, the ..read more

On July 9th, President Biden issued an Executive Order in the spirit of promoting competition within the American economy, in hopes to lower prices of consumer goods and resources, increase wages for workers, promote innovation, and accelerate economic growth. This Order addresses nationwide threats of corporate power and anticompetitive practices, as the percentage of industries dominated by large companies continues to grow and the rate of new business formations steadily declines. Competition decline coincides with concerns for slowed productivity growth, business investment and innovation ..read more

SUPREME COURT UNANIMOUSLY RULES THAT SUPERVISOR’S USAGE OF RACIAL SLURS AGAINST EMPLOYEE ON ONLY TWO OCCASIONS ARE ENOUGH TO ESTABLISH SEVERITY IN A HOSTILE WORK ENVIRONMENT CASE In an unanimous opinion, the New Jersey Supreme Court has held that the use of offensive racist slurs on two occasions could meet the severe and pervasive standard required to establish a claim for hostile work environment under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination. The is being viewed by New Jersey employment lawyers as a victory to employee rights and their right to a work environment free of discrimination. &n ..read more

In an 8-1 decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled in favor of a Pennsylvania teenager in a closely watched free speech case, after the student was suspended from her high school cheerleading squad after posting a series of profane “stories” to her social media Snapchat account. This case reexamined the reach of the First Amendment as it applies to public school students when they are off school grounds.  Plaintiff Brandi Levy tried out for Mahanoy Area High School’s varsity cheerleading squad, and when she did not make it, she memorialized her dissatisfaction by posting two temporary ..read more

In a landmark decision, the New Jersey Supreme Court has held that employees who suffer from a disability do not need to show an adverse employment action in order to prevail on a failure to reasonably accommodate claim. The case is being considered by New Jersey employment lawyers as a major victory for workplace rights of disabled employees.  The case was brought under the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, which is widely considered one the country’s strongest state anti-discrimination laws in the country. While the Law Against Discrimination mirrors the Americans With Disabilities ..read more