As most readers know, the U.S. Department of Labor’s overtime rule, which was set to take effect yesterday, was preliminarily enjoined (temporarily blocked) on November 22 by U.S. District Court Judge Amos Mazzant III. The injunction in Nevada v. Perez applies nationwide, but the court’s decision is not final, and the DOL appealed yesterday. An article in the Washington Post

Last week, two lawsuits were filed in federal court in Texas seeking to block the Final Rule on white-collar exemptions to the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act, which was issued in May. Meanwhile, legislation that would delay the effective date of the rule until June 2017 just passed the U.S. House of Representatives, and there is other legislation pending in ...

Labor Day marked the beginning of the "serious" election season. In 2012, I posted on dos and don'ts for employers, but many of my old recommendations aren't going to work in today's labor law climate. Here's an updated guide to help employers and their employees survive to November 8, and beyond, which I think will comply with the latest positions of the National Labor Relations ...

We now have an April Fool's Day Persuader Rule challenge (but it's real). The National Federation of Independent Business leads this group of plaintiffs, and has filed suit in federal court in Texas, which is in the Fifth Circuit. The other two lawsuits were filed in Arkansas and Minnesota, both in the Eighth Circuit.

Here's our scorecard:

PERSUADER RULE SCORECARD

March 30

If your employee isn't a professional driver but spends a lot of time on the road, how "essential" a job function is driving for ADA purposes? Is driving "essential" at all?

In what I consider to be a very significant result under the Americans with Disabilities Act, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit recently ruled that driving might not be an ADA ...

http://polldaddy.com/poll/9273052/

The best answer is "In all likelihood." A minor tear that can be repaired may not be a disability (it depends), but a severe injury, or one that is inoperable with residual limitations, probably is.

http://polldaddy.com/poll/9273130/

The best answer, again, is "Maybe yes, and maybe no." The big point here is that you can't count on being able ...

Last week I heard David Lopez, General Counsel of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, speak about EEOC litigation developments at the annual North Carolina/South Carolina Labor and Employment Law conference.

The EEOC has been litigating like a house afire, so I knew you would want to hear what he had to say. Mr. Lopez - who reads this blog and likes it! - gave me permission to ...

One of the marks of a good trial lawyer is knowing when to sit down and shut up.

Maybe these lawyers knew that, and were just desperate.

CorpCar Services of Houston (Texas) lost a racial harassment lawsuit filed by two employees based on a dancing gorilla (played by a white woman) who was hired to "entertain" at a mandatory safety meeting. The gorilla's schtick included referring to her ...

Here's a lesson: Don't call your employee an "old fart," especially if you think you may need to fire him someday.

And don't call his co-workers "old farts" right before you fire the co-workers.

And don't give your "old fart," who has only a first-level warning on his record, three or four "progressive" warnings on the day that you fire him.

And don't try to invoke "employment at ...

Thanks very much to David Phippen from our Metro D.C. Office for letting me get some depositions taken this week and allowing me to republish his analysis here.

As we have previously reported, the National Labor Relations Board in recent years has put employee handbooks and policy manuals under a magnifying glass, searching for any provision that might, in its view, violate the ...