Judge Issues Temporary Injunction Blocking Implementation of San Antonio’s Sick and Safety Leave Law

In one of his last acts as governor, former-Governor Deval Patrick signed into law on January 7, 2015 an amendment to the previous Massachusetts Maternity Leave Law that extends eight weeks of unpaid leave to both male and female employees to care for a newborn, newly placed, or newly adopted child. The previous version of the law as written only entitled mothers to leave, but the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination had interpreted the law to apply equally to men and women.

The federal appellate court with jurisdiction over Illinois recently addressed the “joint employer” issue under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for the first time. According to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the worker’s FMLA retaliation claim was properly dismissed because she failed to establish that the non-profit corporation she worked for was a joint employer with the city and county that financed and sponsored the corporation.

On September 30, 2020, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) published a new series of answers to its “COVID-19 Frequently Asked Questions” (FAQs) guidance relating to an employer’s obligation to report work-related hospitalizations and fatalities that occur as a result of COVID-19. The new FAQs clarify that the work-related “incident,” which triggers an employer’s reporting obligation, is an employee’s exposure to the coronavirus in the workplace.