Melissa Legault

Connect: Read more about Melissa Legault
Firm/Organization: Squire Patton Boggs
Blogs: Employment Law Worldview

Latest Articles

After considering the petitions at eleven separate private conferences, on April 22, 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari in three cases involving the extent of protection provided by Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 – if any – against employment-based discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity.  As we previously reported here, this issue has been watched closely by the nation, with multiple federal courts, government agencies,…
According to the most recent data from the Center for Disease Control, more than one-third of American adults are obese.  A person is considered obese when their weight is higher than what is considered as a healthy weight for a given height.  With obesity impacting such a large portion of the American public, employers are left with many questions regarding their responsibilities to obese applicants and employees. The answers to these questions depend on…
As we previously reported here, on March 4, 2019, a federal court issued an order lifting the stay implemented by the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) regarding the pay data collection component of the EEO-1 report, finding that the OMB failed to demonstrate good cause for the stay.  The order left many open questions concerning how and when employers would be required to respond with pay data in their EEO-1 filings. …
Expanding on their previous post on the subject, on April 3, 2019, Law360 published the following article authored by Squire Patton Boggs labor and employment attorneys Laura Lawless Robertson and Melissa Legault. The U.S. Department of Labor recently issued a trio of opinion letters offering employers guidance in implementing the Family and Medical Leave Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act. The letter with the broadest application to U.S. employers is FMLA2019-1-A which deals with the issue…
On March 14, 2019, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”), Wage and Hour Division, released an opinion letter, FMLA2019-1-A, stating that employers cannot delay the designation of FMLA-qualifying leave or designate more than 12 weeks of leave (or 26 weeks of military caregiver leave) as FMLA leave.…
On March 4, 2019, a federal court issued an order lifting the stay implemented by the White House Office of Management and Budget (“OMB”) regarding the pay data collection component of the EEO-1 report, holding that the OMB failed to demonstrate good cause for the stay. As we previously reported here, in 2016, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) changed the pay data reporting requirements under the EEO-1 report, requiring employers with 100…
Minimum Wage Updates On January 17, 2019, New Jersey’s governor and state legislators agreed to a deal that will raise the state’s minimum wage to $15.00 by 2024. The current minimum wage in New Jersey is $8.85 an hour.  Under the new law, the state’s minimum wage will increase to $10.00 an hour on July 1, 2019, and to $11.00 on January 1, 2020, with a steady one-dollar increase occurring every January 1 until 2024.…
Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”), employers are required to pay non-exempt employees a minimum hourly wage of $7.25.  However, employers with “tipped employees” are able to pay such employees a cash wage of $2.13 per hour and take a “tip credit” toward their minimum wage obligation to make up the difference between the cash wage and the federal minimum wage.  Importantly, the FLSA differentiates between tipped employees who perform “dual tasks,” such as…
In 2006, Arizona voters approved a ballot measure which resulted in the passage of the Arizona Minimum Wage Act and established a state-wide minimum wage (currently $11.00/hour).  This law also permitted individual Arizona counties, cities, and towns to regulate both the minimum wage and the employee benefits to be provided by private employers located within their geographic boundaries.  That meant that local governments could establish a minimum wage higher (but not lower) than the statewide…
Would-be plaintiffs in two employment decisions – one from the Fifth Circuit, one from the Ninth Circuit – were recently reminded that, no matter how solid the facts of their case, they can still lose on a technicality. The first case, Lee v. Venetian Casino Resort, LLC, considered whether a plaintiff’s Title VII claim was time-barred because he did not file suit within 90 days of receiving a right-to-sue notice from the U.S. Equal…