In an 8-0 decision delivered by Justice Kennedy, the Supreme Court held that a North Carolina law banning registered sex offenders from accessing social-networking websites like Facebook and Twitter was a violation of the First Amendment. The statute at issue made it a felony offense for registered sex offenders to access a “commercial social networking” [...]
A disabled employee’s obligation to participate in identifying reasonable accommodations for her condition was recently highlighted in Brown v. Milwaukee Bd. of Sch. Dirs., a case out of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. Sherlyn Brown, an assistant principal, injured her knee while restraining a student. After undergoing surgery, Ms. Brown returned [...]
As 2016 was coming to a close, employers scrambled to comply with the Department of Labor’s Final Rule that was set to take effect on December 1, 2016 and more than double the threshold salary for employees to be exempt from overtime. The DOL intended to increase the minimum yearly salary level for overtime exemption [...]
The United States Supreme Court recently rejected an appeal seeking review of a ruling that job applicants cannot bring disparate impact claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA). In Villarreal v. R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, et al., Mr. Villarreal, a 49 year old man, applied for a position with R.J. Reynolds. [...]
Since September 28, 2016, persons allegedly aggrieved by a violation of public records access can file a complaint under R.C. 2743.74 instead of initiating a mandamus action in common pleas court. While R.C. 2743.75 does not prescribe a standard of proof, the Court of Claims Special Masters and Judges seem to adopt to the “clear [...]
As part of the recently passed State Budget Bill, employers could soon face civil liability for violating R.C. § 2923.1210(A), the CCW law passed last year that allows individuals to store firearms in their privately-owned vehicles on employer property. That law has been in effect since March 2017, but an amendment in the Budget Bill [...]
In the latest bid to make Ohio a “Right-to-Work” state, the House introduced a bill that would eliminate any requirement that public employees must join or pay dues to any employee organization. Public employees are not currently required to join any employee organization under state law. However, under the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Law, collective [...]
The Ohio Legislature passed Senate Bill 27, in December 2016, which established a presumption that certain types of cancer were contracted by firefighters as the result of duty-related exposure. The law became effective on April 6, 2017, but was amended on June 30, 2017 with the passage of Sub. H.B. No. 27, the State's Biennial [...]
As a developing area of the law, there are three noteworthy updates for cases relating to LGBTQ discrimination under Titles VII and IX of the Civil Rights Act of 1964: First, in Hively v. Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana, the full Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found that discrimination on the basis of sexual [...]
The United States Supreme Court recently held that the Fourth Amendment allows unlawful pretrial detention claims to be brought under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, even if the detention occurs after the start of the legal process. Manuel v. City of Joliet, 85 U.S.L.W. 4130 (2017). The petitioner, Elijah Manuel, was discovered to be in possession [...]