While virtually everybody enjoys the convenience that emails provides as a means of communications, plaintiff-side employment lawyers, myself included, are especially grateful for the prevalence of emails in the workplace. Indeed, emails are often the equivalent of the proverbial ‘smoking gun’ that have huge implications in employment litigation.
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Federal District Court Judge Morris Lasker recently ruled that mandatory employment dispute resolution programs may not block class action claims. In the case, Skirchak v. Dynamics Research Corp., Inc., employees alleged that the employer willfully failed to pay them, and a class of other similarly situated employees categorized as exempt, time-and-a-half their regular pay rate for time worked in excess of 40 hours per week.
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Chief Justice Marshall decided, in Gasior v. Massachusetts General Hospital, that a claim that an employee was wrongfully dismissed in violation of Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 4(16) survives the plaintiff’s death, as do all of the remedies available to the employee under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B.
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The United States 1st Circuit Court of Appeals recently ruled that an employee may be entitled to leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (”FMLA”) despite having a break in his employment.
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