On September 14, 2023, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) released Employee Retention Credit (ERC) guidance placing a moratorium on processing new ERC claims due to a surge in questionable claim submissions.
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia recently rejected a school principal’s argument that remote work was a reasonable accommodation for her asthma and restrictive lung disease that she claimed were exacerbated by the poor condition of the school building in which she worked.
On July 27, 2023, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals held in Mosley v. Oakwood Lutheran Senior Ministries that verbal disclosure of an employee’s COVID-19 status does not support a violation of Wisconsin healthcare record disclosure laws or a cause of action for invasion of privacy.
The Supreme Court of California recently held that the California Workers’ Compensation Act does not bar an employee’s spouse from bringing a negligence claim against the employer where the employee contracts COVID-19 at the workplace and brings the virus home to the employee’s spouse. The court also held that an employer does not owe a duty of care under California law to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to an employee’s household members.
On July 11, 2023, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) declined to extend its early COVID-19 emergency orders to the time limits established for filing a complaint with the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD).
Fifth Circuit precedent recognizes the “general consensus among courts” that regular, in-person work is an essential function of most jobs. Yet the continued viability of this premise has been in question, given the ability of thousands of employees to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has in turn created hurdles for employers seeking to bring employees back into the physical workplace while facing a barrage of accommodation requests under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) to work from home.
Employers’ high deductible health plans (HDHPs) can continue to cover COVID-19 testing and treatment without violating the eligibility rules for health savings accounts (HSAs)—but only through 2024—under new Internal Revenue Service (IRS) guidance.
The California Legislature is poised to make it even more difficult for hospitality and business service providers to operate in California. Senate Bill (SB) No. 723 amends California Labor Code Section 2810.8, which provides recall rights to certain hospitality and business services employees laid off because of COVID-19 and is scheduled to sunset in December 2024. SB 723 eliminates the sunset provision and makes Section 2810.8 permanent.
Tennessee has permanently extended its COVID-19 statute under an enactment that removed the sunset provision of the state’s COVID-19 statute, which was set to expire on July 1, 2023.
On May 11, 2023, the COVID-19 public health emergency ended, creating uncertainty as to employers’ continued obligation to accommodate employees due to pandemic-related reasons. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has sought to address these questions through an update that it issued on May 15, 2023, to its COVID-19 technical assistance, “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws.”
The end of the public health emergency (PHE) began the sunsetting of the Colorado Healthy Families and Workplaces Act’s requirement for employers in Colorado to provide PHE leave stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that Colorado employees may use PHE leave through June 8, 2023.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has announced that the temporary COVID-19 accommodations for Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, will expire on July 31, 2023.
On May 1, 2023, the White House and U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced that beginning May 12, 2023, foreign nationals entering the United States via airports, land ports of entry, and ferry terminals will no longer be required to provide evidence of vaccination against COVID-19.
On May 1, 2023, the Biden administration announced that it will end the COVID-19 vaccine requirement for federal contractors on May 11, 2023—which is the day that the COVID-19 public health emergency will end.
On May 1, 2023, the Biden administration announced that it would be ending all of its various COVID-19 vaccination requirements on May 11, 2023, the same date as the COVID-19 national emergency and public health emergency will end, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)). The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has begun the process to terminate the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’s (CMS) interim final rule requiring CMS-certified healthcare facilities to implement and enforce a policy that all covered staff within their covered facilities be vaccinated against COVID-19.
In response to House Joint Resolution 7, which was signed into law on April 10, 2023, ending the National Emergency declaration that had been in effect since March 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. Department of the Treasury have clarified informally that they intend to continue to use May 11, 2023, as the relevant date in applying guidance on the end of the National Emergency.
Ogletree Deakins recently launched its OSHA Tracker, which compiles and filters inspection and citation data by Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) region, state, city, industry, and date. Employers in Region 4—covering Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee—may find the trends and, in some cases, surprises, among OSHA’s inspections, citations, and penalties data useful in planning and implementing their workplace safety programs.
As employers plan for the impact of the anticipated May 11, 2023, end of the two federal COVID-19 emergency orders, they have some important new clarity on test and vaccine coverage and on how to unwind COVID-19–era extended deadlines, including for COBRA continuing healthcare coverage elections.
On March 3, 2023, a new California state public health officer order regarding COVID-19 was issued with an effective date of March 13, 2023. The new order includes important information for employers doing business in California.
On February 15, 2023, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) withdrew its proposed rule that would have revoked the final approval status of Arizona’s state plan for occupational safety and health.
Newly released data from the U.S. Department of State shows that U.S. consular posts abroad have made significant progress in reaching pre-pandemic levels of immigrant and nonimmigrant visa issuance during fiscal year (FY) 2022.
With the pandemic winding down, deadlines for employee benefit plans governed by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) will be resuming. Two different emergencies affect employer-sponsored group health plans: the national emergency and the public health emergency.
On December 15, 2022, the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board adopted the COVID-19 Prevention Non-Emergency Regulation to replace the Emergency Temporary Standards (ETS), which were set to end on December 31, 2022.
On December 28, 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul signed into law an amendment to Section 2 of the New York Health and Essential Rights Act (NY HERO Act). The amendment, which took effect immediately upon signing, provides that “[a]n employer must recognize within five business days the establishment of a workplace safety committee.”
On January 17, 2023, a New York trial court judge struck down the state’s vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, ruling that the New York State Department of Health (DOH) acted outside its authority and noting that “the COVID-19 shots do not prevent transmission.”
On January 12, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld most of a district court’s injunction blocking the federal contractor vaccine mandate in Kentucky, Ohio, and Tennessee.
New COVID-19 prevention regulations adopted by the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board on December 15, 2022, were sent to the Office of Administrative Law (OAL) for approval. The new regulations will not take effect until approved by OAL, which has thirty working days to complete its review.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) COVID-19 rulemaking process has been quiet for a while, but recent activity appears to indicate we are now entering the final phase of a permanent COVID-19 standard for healthcare.
On December 19, 2022, a panel for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction blocking enforcement of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 federal contractor vaccine mandate. The 2-1 panel decision in State of Louisiana v. Biden found that to allow the mandate would result in an “enormous,” “transformative,” and “truly unprecedented” expansion of the powers of the president without clear authorization from Congress.
On December 9, 2022, a federal judge in Montana permanently blocked enforcement in healthcare settings of a first-in-the-nation law that had prohibited discrimination in employment and the provision of services based on vaccination status—including vaccination against COVID-19—finding the law is unconstitutional and preempted by federal law.
