Don't mess with Texas.

In Lubbock yesterday, Judge Sam R. Cummings permanently enjoined the U.S. Department of Labor's Persuader Rule, which is great news for employers. David Phippen has the full story here. The DOL can appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit (it's already appealing the preliminary injunction issued in June), but with the coming change in ...

UPDATE (10/25/16): They did, they did! Judge Marcia Crone has issued a preliminary injunction against the Rule, which blocks it from going into effect. She agreed with the plaintiffs on just about every point (although she declined to block the paycheck transparency provisions). Here is a copy of the Order.

Many federal contractors are on the verge of having to ...

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has delayed for a second time the enforcement date of its new "Reasonable Reporting Procedure" rule as it pertains to post-accident drug testing and safety incentive programs. The new enforcement date for the rule is December 1.

The rule was scheduled to take effect on August 10, and then OSHA extended the ...

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 ...

Thanks to Law360 for alerting us to this!

Straight from the courthouse to you -- I haven't even read this yet, but here is a copy of the lawsuit, which was filed today in federal court in the Eastern District of Texas.

UPDATE (4:41 p.m. EDT): Here's another one, filed in the same court - this one is some trade groups and a slew of Chambers of Commerce in Texas!

  ...

A number of employers and employer groups -- including the National Association of Manufacturers and Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. -- filed suit last week in a federal court in Texas seeking to block parts of the new OSHA rule set to take effect in August.

UPDATE (7/14/16): OSHA has announced that it is going to delay enforcement of the anti-retaliation provisions of its ...

U.S. District Court Judge Sam R. Cummings in Lubbock, Texas, has issued a preliminary injunction, which blocks the U.S. Department of Labor's "Persuader Rule" from going into effect on Friday. I have not had a chance to read the decision yet, but here it is. This is great news for employers. Many thanks to my law partner, Mel Haas, who had the inside scoop and shared it with the rest of us ...

I was on vacation last week, and so we have a lot of catching up to do. Here's what's been going on, from most to least recent:

*David Phippen has been keeping us up to date on the U.S. Department of Labor's Persuader Rule and what that will mean for employers. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Minnesota refused to preliminarily block enforcement of the rule. There are two other challenges ...

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

None of us is immune from the Streisand Effect. Not even employers.

A real estate firm in Dallas sued its ex-bookkeeper, Jacqueline, for embezzling approximately $400,000 over a four-year period by writing checks to phony vendors and all the usual tricks. She generally denied the allegations, and apparently the parties didn't do much discovery, so they went to trial without knowing ...