Last month, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy signed into law the Jake Honig Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act (the Act), amending the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (NJCUMMA). The Act expands job protections for employees and applicants who use medical marijuana. With this new law, New Jersey joins a growing list of states (including Massachusetts and New York) offering employment protections for authorized users of medical marijuana. The NJCUMMA had expressly excluded…

On July 25, 2019, Acting Gov. Sheila Oliver signed NJ A1094 (“the Law”) banning salary history requests in New Jersey. The Law will take effect on Jan. 1, 2020. The Law makes it unlawful for an employer to (1) screen a job applicant based on the applicant’s salary history, (2) require that the applicant’s salary history satisfy any minimum or maximum criteria or (3) use an applicant’s refusal to volunteer compensation information as…

As we reported in our blog post, and our summer newsletter, in late June, the New York Legislature passed a bill that vastly changed the discrimination and harassment landscape for employers. Today, Gov. Cuomo signed that bill into law.   As a result, employers likely now need to change their New York state-required anti-harassment policies and training. Specifically, policies and training should be reviewed to ensure that any reference to the severe and pervasive standard be…

The California Supreme Court has ruled that a former employee’s retaliation or discrimination claim can be dismissed at the initial stages of litigation via California’s anti-SLAPP statute. In Wilson v. CNN, decided July 22, 2019, the court overturned decisions of several courts of appeal that held otherwise and returned a strong tool to employers in defending against suits challenging an employee’s termination. Anti-SLAPP background California’s anti-SLAPP statute (SLAPP stands for “Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Policy”),…

We previously reported that the NYC Commission on Human Rights issued legal enforcement guidance for employers regarding racial discrimination on the basis of hair under the New York City Human Rights Law (NYCHRL). Although that guidance does not reflect a change in the NYCHRL, it makes clear that employers’ grooming and appearance policies may not prohibit hairstyles historically associated with certain racial communities, such as those who identify as “African, African American, Afro-Caribbean, Afro-Latin-x/a/o or…

This is an update to a previous post from June 24, 2019. Earlier today, Dallas became the last of the three Texas cities to face a legal challenge to its paid sick leave ordinance, which is scheduled to take effect this Thursday, August 1. The lawsuit and request for preliminary injunction were filed by two north Texas businesses in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, and attack Dallas’ ordinance on substantially…

Earlier this month, Oregon passed its own paid family and medical leave act (the act), making it the eighth state in the country to pass such a law. Oregon joins California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut and the District of Columbia in providing paid family and medical leave benefits to employees. In contrast to other states, Oregon’s new law is particularly expansive. Among other things, the act broadly defines “family,” grants employees…