Yesterday, the Fourth Circuit granted the federal government’s motion to stay (temporarily suspend) a lower court’s preliminary injunction that had blocked the enforcement of two Executive Orders issued by President Trump in January 2025. I wrote about that injunction in a prior post on our firm’s sister blog. These Executive Orders direct federal agencies
Last week, Law360 quoted me in an article on marital status discrimination. (They timed it for Valentine’s Day; make of that what you will.)
The gist of the article is that marital status discrimination is something for employers to be mindful of.
And for that premise, I’m in agreement. Several states, including Connecticut, explicitly
The Connecticut Appellate Court has an interesting case coming out officially early next week about an employer’s obligations to provide leave as a “reasonable accommodation”. You can download Barbabosa v. Board of Education here.
In it, the Court concludes that when attendance is an essential function of the job (as it will be for most
Today is the last day of the Connecticut General Assembly regular session. So it’s a good time to take a look at some of the bills pending or passed. Strangely, things seem pretty quiet on the employment law front. But after the dust settles, I’ll have another update. Here is where we stand as of
As I have for over a decade now, I attended the American Bar Association’s Annual Meeting last week serving on the ABA’s House of Delegates – the organization’s main governing body. My exact position is actually State Delegate — a position that nominally makes the lead delegate of Connecticut’s delegation, though in practice it’s much
Did you enjoy the fireworks last week?
I’m not talking about the real Independence Day fireworks; rather, it’s a new Second Circuit decision that should have employment lawyers popping this morning.
For a while, we’ve been talking about interns. Indeed, back in 2013, I talked about how a wage/hour case involving interns on the movie “Black Swan” had the potential to change how employers use interns.
In that case, a federal district court judge essentially adopted a six-factor test used by the U.S. Department of Labor to determine if an intern was really an employee.
Flash forward to last Thursday. In somewhat of a surprise, the Second Circuit — which covers cases in Connecticut — reversed that federal district court court’s decision and rejected the DOL’s six-factor approach.
In its place, the court adopted what Jon Hyman properly termed, a “more flexible and nuanced primary-benefit test.”
[T]he proper question is whether the intern or the employer is the primary beneficiary of the relationship. The primary beneficiary test has two salient features. First, it focuses on what the intern receives in exchange for his work.… Second, it also accords courts the flexibility to examine the economic reality as it exists between the intern and the employer.…
In the context of unpaid internships we think a non‐exhaustive set of considerations should include:
1. The extent to which the intern and the employer clearly understand that there is no expectation of compensation. Any promise of compensation, express or implied, suggests that the intern is an employee—and vice versa.
2. The extent to which the internship provides training that would be similar to that which would be given in an educational environment, including the clinical and other hands‐on training provided by educational institutions.
3. The extent to which the internship is tied to the intern’s formal education program by integrated coursework or the receipt of academic credit.
4. The extent to which the internship accommodates the intern’s academic commitments by corresponding to the academic calendar.
5. The extent to which the internship’s duration is limited to the period in which the internship provides the intern with beneficial learning.
6. The extent to which the intern’s work complements, rather than displaces, the work of paid employees while providing significant educational benefits to the intern.
7. The extent to which the intern and the employer understand that the internship is conducted without entitlement to a paid job at the conclusion of the internship.…
Capitol Watch — The Hartford Courant’s political site – tweeted the following yesterday:
Gov. Malloy has signed a bill protecting interns from workplace harassment and discrimination.
— Capitol Watch (@capitolwatch) June 22, 2015
And a review of the Governor’s website reflects that approval in the bill
Over the past month, after the Supreme Court’s Hobby Lobby decision, much has been made in the press about how it is unprecedented for the court to consider a company’s religious beliefs in making its decisions.
The issue of taking into account a corporation’s religious belief in the workplace has been also catapulted to
This is shaping up to be an interesting year for the Connecticut General Assembly. The budget forecasts are projecting massive deficits. As a result, I would not be surprised to see the budget debates dominating the agenda of the Connecticut legislature.
Nevertheless, other bills will still be proposed, debated, and certainly passed during the several