Employment Law News

The number of jurisdictions that have enacted so-called ?lactation? laws continues to grow. Determining how to accommodate employees who breastfeed their children is an issue that many employers will need to address. Creating and implementing polices to allow women to express breast milk at work will benefit female employees who choose to nurse their children and will help ensure compliance with breastfeeding laws.

The gender pay gap has always been a sore subject bubbling near the surface of law firms across the nation. Now it has boiled over the top. A recent report by the U.S. Census Bureau shows that women lawyers still earn far less than their male counterparts. The statistic didn't surprise anyone, but that didn't stop it from triggering a fresh round of debate on scores of blogs and within women's legal circles.

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ordered a lower court to certify a class action against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. in an employment case involving claims about meal breaks and the alleged nonpayment of wages. Chief Justice Margaret H. Marshall also ruled that the lower court judge "abused his discretion" by granting Wal-Mart's motion to exclude the plaintiffs' expert's testimony and by decertifying the class.

Four law firms have landed on

A federal judge has modified a recommendation from a magistrate judge and granted full summary judgment to Emory University in a race discrimination case brought by a former human resources manager at the law school. Although the magistrate judge's report and recommendation had called for Barbara Whitner's claim of retaliation to proceed against the school, Judge Thomas W. Thrash Jr. threw out that cause of action, along with discrimination and hostile work environment claims.

A tractor-trailer driver who claimed he suffered post-traumatic stress disorder when a set of wheels fell off his truck and struck a state police car, severely injuring the trooper inside, did not demonstrate the accident constituted abnormal working conditions, a panel of the Pennsylvania Workers' Compensation Appeal Board has found. The appeal board cited prior case law for the holding that incidents involving death and serious injury may not be abnormal working conditions in certain types of work.

Trial court's purported vacation and reentry of judgment of which appellant had no notice did not extend his time to appeal (per curiam)

Seaman injured while camping out in vessel owner's parking lot was not entitled to "maintenance and cure" (Woods, J.)