Five years after actress Alyssa Milano brought the term #MeToo into the mainstream, the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act is officially federal law. Congress passed the law with bipartisan support on February 10, 2022, and President Biden officially signed it on March 3, 2022. The law is effective immediately.

On March 24, 2022, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (“SJC”) issued its highly anticipated ruling on a certified question in Patel v. 7-Eleven, Inc. (Docket No. 20-1999). On December 13, 2021, we wrote about looming implications for franchisors as the federal trial court’s concern focused on a perceived conflict in two laws:  first, the Massachusetts Independent […]

O’Hagan Meyer Partner Chuck Seyfarth has been recognized as a “Stand-Out Lawyer”

 by Thomson Reuters.  Thomson Reuters surveyed more than 2,000 senior in-house counsel

in large organizations seeking nominations for the most outstanding lawyers that client has worked with in the last three years.  Those recognized are noted for their high quality of work, business and commercial savvy, and ability to turn legal advice into practical solutions.

Companies in regulated industries are often required to submit information to state agencies, and sometimes those submissions will include commercially sensitive information considered to be proprietary and trade secret.  Legitimate concerns exist about maintaining the trade secret status of information after it is in the hands of a state agency, particularly considering public records laws […]

In Massachusetts, legislation pending in the wake of the #MeToo movement has consistently stalled, and it is unclear why.  However, if legislation similar to past efforts is pressed in the coming year, employers must take caution. February 19, 2022 marked the 1-year anniversary of the introduction of Senate Bills S-1020 and S-1021, legislation pending in […]

On Thursday, January 13, 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court satisfied anxious employers and attorneys by issuing opinions on two of the Biden Administration’s controversial vaccine mandates. In King Solomon-esque fashion, the Court divided the cases evenly by allowing the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (“CMS”) vaccine mandate to proceed but staying enforcement of the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard (“ETS”) applicable to businesses with 100 or more employees.

Please join us in congratulating our newest partners at O’Hagan Meyer! We are excited that Eileen Geller, J. Brandon Sieg, Sean Rohan, Johnny Antwiler, Lucas Sun, Andrea Rosenkranz, and Ryan Benson are continuing to grow with us.

Despite data confirming that the newer Omicron variant of COVID-19 is transmissible even to those who are double vaccinated and boosted, recent federal resuscitated President Joe Biden’s vaccine mandates.

On Friday, December 17, 2021, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals lifted the national stay of the OSHA ETS issued by the Fifth Circuit (https://ohaganmeyer.wpengine.com/2021/12/02/president-bidens-vaccine-mandates-put-on-hold/), finding that the potential harm COVID-19 poses to the Government and the public interest “outweighs any irreparable injury to the individual petitioners who may be subject to the vaccination policy.”

On Wednesday, December 15, 2021, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit scaled back the reach of the preliminary injunction against the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (“CMS”) COVID-19 vaccination mandate (“Mandate”) that a Louisiana federal district court issued two weeks earlier.  This CMS Mandate is the rule requiring that healthcare workers who work in health care settings that receive Medicare or Medicaid reimbursement be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 by January 4, 2022, or face termination.