The United States District Court for the Western District of New York recently granted an early dismissal of a class action lawsuit prior to class certification.  Mandala v. NTT Data, Inc., 18-CV-6591 CJS, 2019 WL 3237361, at *1 (W.D.N.Y. July 18, 2019). The plaintiffs in Mandala were two African-American men who applied for and were offered jobs with the defendant employer.  After the employer conducted a criminal background check on the plaintiffs and found they…

On July 11, 2019, the House Financial Services Committee, led by Chairwoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), considered The Restricting Use of Credit Checks For Employment Decisions Act (the “Act”) as one of four bills designed to reform the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and the credit reporting system.…

After a nearly six-year legal battle, the Fifth Circuit has struck down the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s 2012 Enforcement Guidance on the consideration of criminal history in employment decisions.  On August 6, a three-judge panel held that the Guidance was a substantive rule the EEOC had no authority to issue and that the EEOC can no longer enforce the Guidance or treat it as binding in any respect.…

As California braces for wildfire season, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health (“CalOSHA”) approved an emergency regulation on July 30, 2019, that requires California employers to monitor air quality for particle pollution, and reduce workers exposure to the potential harmful pollutants from wildfire smoke. What Is Particle Pollution or Particle Matter? The Air Quality Index (“AQI”) is calculated for four major air pollutants regulated by the Clean Air Act: ground level ozone, particle…

On June 5, 2019, Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak signed into law Assembly Bill No. 132 (“A.B. 132” or the “new law”), which is the first state law to curb pre-employment marijuana drug tests.  The new law has two primary effects: 1) it makes it unlawful for Nevada employers to fail or refuse to hire a prospective employee because the applicant submitted to a screening test and the results of the test indicate the presence of…

The Fifth Circuit recently joined a majority of its sister circuits in holding that the question of whether arbitration agreements authorize class arbitration should be decided by courts. In 20/20 Communications v. Lennox Crawford, the Fifth Circuit held that the availability of class-wide arbitration in a Fair Labor Standards Act case is a “gateway issue” of arbitrability.  The court reasoned that the fundamental differences between individual and class-wide arbitration required judicial determination as to which…