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It has been a busy month for the federal courts in Texas, and a long one for the United States Department of Labor (the “DOL”). As we blogged here last week, on November 21, 2016, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas blocked implementation of the DOL’s rule that would have…

In this blog, we have previously covered the United States’ Department of Labor’s controversial efforts to effect a significant change to the so-called “Persuader Rule,” a regulation first proposed by the United States Department of Labor in 2011, and finally enacted in April of this year, to essentially eliminate the “Advice Exception” to the Labor…

In April, in Kilby v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., the California Supreme Court weighed in, at the request of the Ninth Circuit, on elements of two California Wage Orders that have, until now, received relatively little notice, and have escaped much judicial interpretation—the requirement that seating is to be made available to employees “when the nature…

The California Court of Appeal provided employers with a small New Year’s gift for 2016: on January 14, in Alvarado v. Dart Container Corporation of California, it affirmed that an employer’s formula for calculating overtime, based upon federal law rather than upon a formula in the California Department of Labor Standards Enforcement (DLSE) Manual, was…

Last year, we marked the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.  This year the Americans with Disabilities Act turns 25.  Two laws with a shared, broader goal—to level the playing field and eradicate unlawful discrimination—but also two laws with different pasts and likely different futures.  One of the key distinctions is this:…