As the COVID-19 vaccine becomes more readily available, employers are considering mandatory vaccination for their employees and in particular, how to respond to employee requests for accommodation, whether on the basis of disability or religion. In Horvath v. City of Leander, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit recently considered an employer’s proposed accommodations to a firefighter who refused a mandatory tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (TDAP) vaccine for religious reasons, and its…

The Consolidated Appropriations Act (CAA), 2021, enacted late in 2020, imposes a new requirement on group health plans to ensure compliance with the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act (MHPAEA). Unlike many of the other provisions of the CAA that affect group health plans, the MHPAEA requirement under CAA section 203 goes into effect very soon—on February 10, 2021. The MHPAEA prohibits group health plans that provide mental health and substance use disorder benefits…

In July 2020, the Safety and Health Codes Board of the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry approved an emergency temporary standard for COVID-19. In so doing, Virginia became the first state to issue such a temporary standard. On January 13, 2021, the Virginia Safety and Health Codes Board enacted a permanent standard for COVID-19. The “Final Permanent Standard for Infectious Disease Prevention of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus that Causes COVID-19” will be enforced…

In his first days in office, President Joseph R. Biden Jr. issued a flurry of executive orders. Notably, President Biden instructed the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) to issue new instructions to state unemployment agencies that will allow individuals to claim unemployment benefits even if they quit their jobs because they felt unsafe working during the pandemic. According to the White House fact sheet, the executive order states: Guarantee that No American Has…

Employees who claim that their employers misclassified them as exempt from the overtime requirements of Massachusetts law frequently attempt to recover overtime pay for hours worked outside the statute of limitations applicable to statutory overtime claims. In pursuing these claims, employees often argue that the statute of limitations should be tolled because their employers misrepresented their entitlement to overtime pay to them, and/or they assert common law claims that have a longer statute of limitations.…

COVID-19 continues to cause significant restrictions in many areas around the world, including workplaces: Employees are working in remote settings, they no longer share tools and supplies, partitions separate workspaces, employees may not gather in common areas, and in-person meetings are reduced to a minimum. With distribution of the first vaccines impending, employers may expect a return to pre-pandemic practices. There is wide variation internationally on the approach to vaccinations. Below are answers to employers’…