Louisiana Law Blog

Insight and Information on Louisiana Law, Litigation, and Legal Culture

Subscribe
Visit Blog
By: Kean Miller

Blog Authors

Alan J. Berteau
Steven Boutwell

Latest from Louisiana Law Blog

By A. Edward Hardin, Jr. Most private employers with 100 or more employees are required to submit an annual EEO-1 report to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regarding the number of workers employed in different categories, broken down by race, sex, and ethnicity.  The Obama administration proposed adding pay data to the required report, as a means of quantifying pay disparities.  The collection of pay data was initially approved by the Office of Management and…
By Blake Crohan In In the Matter of 4-K Marine, No. 18-30348 (5th Cir. Jan. 30, 2019) the U.S. Fifth Circuit held that the owner of a stationary, “innocent” vessel is not entitled to reimbursement of the medical expenses of an employee who fraudulently claimed his preexisting injuries resulted from an allision. In June 2015, the M/V TOMMY, owned and operated by Enterprise Marine, was pushing a flotilla of barges on the Mississippi River when…
By Brian R. Carnie The Trump Administration has released the new proposed rule changes to the salary requirements to be exempt from the overtime pay requirement under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Under the new proposed rule, the U.S. Department of Labor wants to increase the minimum salary threshold that must be paid in order for most executive, administrative or professional employees to qualify for exemption from $455 per week ($23,660 annually) to approximately…
By Katherine King, Randy Young, Carrie Tournillon, and Mallory McKnight Fuller This report was last updated on February 22, 2019 The following is prepared by the Kean Miller LLP Utilities Regulation team on important topics affecting consumers of electrical power in Louisiana.  For more information, please contact us at client_services@keanmiller.com (LPSC Rulemaking) New Generation Deactivation Transparency Rule:  In March 2017, the Louisiana Public Service Commission (“LPSC”) initiated a proceeding to consider (1)…
by G. Trippe Hawthorne The Louisiana State Licensing Board for Contractors has updated and revised its rules, found in Title 46, Part XXIX of the Louisiana Administrative Code. The Board characterizes these revise rules as intended to simplify and streamline the application and examination process for licensed contractors and those seeking to become licensed contractors. A brief summary of the changes can be found in the Licensing Board’s Bulletin 19-01 here. For commercial contractors,…
By: R. Chauvin Kean Generally, a contract is the law between parties, which has long been the position of the U.S. Supreme Court. However, as most well know, this principle is not without limitation. On January 15, 2019, in New Prime v. Oliveira, the Court unanimously held that disputes concerning contracts of employment involving transportation workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce cannot be compelled to arbitrate. 586 U.S. —, 4, 2019 WL 189342, at…
Personal data protection, sensitive personal data protection and GDPR concepts.
By the Data Security & Privacy Team Introduced by Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI), the ranking member of the Communications Technology Innovation and Internet Subcommittee of the United States Senate, the Data Care Act of 2018 (the “Act”) seeks to enact Federal privacy legislation that will incentivize “online service providers” to protect certain types of personal data or risk civil penalties brought by both Federal and State agencies.[1] Introduced to the Senate on December 12,…
By Jessica C. Engler, CIPP/US Whether you keep up with the Kardashians or you are just a casual Instagram user, you have probably been exposed to social media influencer posts. Due to social media’s increased marketing importance, companies will offer free products, money or other compensation to social media “influencers”, i.e. users that boast at least 2,000 or more genuine followers. “Macroinfluencers” with millions of followers can often command $10,000 or more for a single…
By: Tod J. Everage Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court granted the Writ of Certiorari in the Dutra v. Batterton case, setting the stage for a resolution of the Circuit Split between the US Fifth and Ninth Circuits on whether punitive damages are available to a seaman on an unseaworthiness claim. A more thorough review of the Dutra case and the anticipated fight can be found in our previous blog post here.  …
By Lauren J. Rucinski On Tuesday, December 11, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) and U.S. Army Corp. of Engineers (“ACE”) proposed a rule revising the definition of “waters of the United States.” The so-called WOTUS rule defines the scope of Clean Water Act (“CWA”) jurisdiction and the permitting requirements thereunder, and has been in the hot seat for the past two years under both the Trump Administration and a bevy of litigation. The Obama…