Dear Congressperson:

I know you are busy, but I am hoping you can take a few minutes out of your sequester stuff to help with the Family and Medical Leave Act, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, as amended again by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2010, as amended yet again by the Airline Flight Crew Technical Corrections Act of 2010.

Here's ...

The U.S. Department of Labor yesterday issued its Final Rule on the Family and Medical Leave Act. This will replace the rule issued by the Bush Administration that became effective in 2009 and is primarily intended to address amendments to the FMLA that were enacted by Congress after the the 2009 rule took effect. However, the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for the newest version, issued ...

Employers, has this ever happened to you?

An employee in a critical-but-inflexible position -- say, a customer service representative -- asks for "intermittent" leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act. If the intermittent time off is "scheduled," it's usually not too big a problem. Most employers can manage to work around a situation if they know what to expect. They may be able to ...

This has not been a good week for lawyers. First, we heard about the married Minnesota lawyer who had a sexual relationship with a client (a major ethical violation in itself) and then had the nerve to bill her for his time! Whether a special billing rate applied to criminal conversation is not disclosed. Hey, by the way, which task code would this fall under?  "Appear for/Attend ...

Happy new year, everybody! Although I've been on vacation, the news never sleeps, and the Mayans were wrong. Accordingly, I have a few items to catch you up on.

"Ha-ha! We were just kidding!"

UPDATE: Thanks to reader John Perkins, SPHR, for the 2013 Mayan Calendar. Most educational!

"Near occasion of sin" is a legitimate ground for termination, Iowa court says. You've probably already ...

Many thanks to Nathan Johnson for submitting this guest post!

Here is a brief breakdown of this week's 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Christopher v. SmithKline Beecham Corp., which held that pharmaceutical reps are subject to the "outside sales" exemption to the overtime requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The Court split along the expected lines: Justice Samuel Alito wrote ...

What a year, am I right or am I right? Here is a catalog of the major employment and labor law developments from 2011. And, just to keep it entertaining, I've started off each month with a weird but true off-topic story that was in the news that month. Many thanks to Drudge Report archives for the strange stuff. Thanks also to Esquire magazine's annual Dubious Achievement Awards (sadly ...

Happy Memorial Day weekend, everybody! Top stories this week:

When are employers liable for the bad behavior of their customers? The sexual assault charges against Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former head of the International Monetary Fund, who allegedly attacked an African-immigrant maid in his hotel room in New York City, have spurred some interesting discussion about female ...