In late 2018, in Sulyma v. Intel Corporation Investment Policy Committee, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held that a plaintiff’s access to documents disclosing an alleged breach of fiduciary duty did not trigger the Employee Retirement Income Security Act’s (ERISA) statute of limitations. According to the court, actual knowledge is required to start the limitations period. The plaintiff testified that he was not aware of the investments at issue or the documents disclosing…

On June 18, 2019, the Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) issued final regulations regarding the Massachusetts Paid Family and Medical Leave Law (PFML). This follows months of revisions, public hearings, and comments. The DFML has published an unofficial version of the regulations on its website and has stated that the official version will be available on or before Monday, July 1, 2019, from the Office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth. The…

Board Rules on Union Access. Late last week, the National Labor Relations Board issued a decision involving the balancing of employees’ statutory right to organize with employers’ private property rights. In the case, the Board overruled previous decisions that required employers to permit nonemployee union organizers onto portions of their property open to the public—such as cafeterias and restaurants—as long as they weren’t disruptive. The Board ruled that this standard went too far and that…

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) will be redistributing certain naturalization and green card cases to field offices with lighter caseloads for processing. In its announcement, the agency said that since the end of 2015, it has received more green card and naturalization applications than expected. The increased volume has affected some field offices more than others. The new plan aims to reduce the backlog at the busier locations by reassigning cases to offices…

On June 10, 2019, Kenneth T. Cuccinelli became the new acting director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), replacing L. Francis Cissna, who stepped down at the beginning of June 2019. Cuccinelli previously served as Virginia’s attorney general from 2010 through 2014. Despite support from the Trump administration, he is not expected to be formally confirmed as director of USCIS due to lack of support in the United States Senate. Cuccinelli was appointed to…

On April 30, 2019, Maryland governor Larry Hogan approved a series of amendments to the Maryland Personal Information Protection Act. The amendments, effective October 1, 2019, impact data breach obligations imposed on businesses that “maintain” computerized data containing personal information. “Personal information” under the Maryland privacy act includes a broad category of personal identifiers—such as an individual’s social security number, tax ID number, or biometric data—combined with his or her first and last name. Under…

Among the hardest-to-find workers in America today are restaurant and retail workers. The current labor market is the tightest in 49 years, and for the past year, there have been roughly a million more open positions in the United States than people looking for work. The hospitality sector always has faced recruitment challenges, but the recently shrinking applicant pool has forced employers to look for creative ways to lure workers to jobs in the food…