Although the Elder Justice Act took effect in 2010 and the newness has worn off a bit, health care facilities should periodically look at the Act and its requirements. Compliance with the Act’s requirements is not a one-time event.

If Governor Martin O’Malley signs it, a bill passed by the Maryland Legislature will make Maryland the first state to prohibit employers from asking or requiring their prospective or current employees to give access to their personal online accounts.

The National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") is spending more time considering social media issues under the National Labor Relations Act (the "Act"). The NLRB’s Acting General Counsel just released a second report on recent social media cases. Employers (union and non-union alike) are covered by the Act and should pay attention to the NLRB’s actions in this evolving area of law.

As we mentioned in a previous post, the National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") created new posting requirements for employers and then delayed implementation of the posting requirement until January 31, 2012. If you already posted the required notice, you not only have complied with the requirement, but you are ahead of the game. If you did not post the notice, however, you just got a reprieve. NLRB has again delayed the posting requirement until April 30, 2012. But, if you continue to delay posting and assume there will be another extension, this time may be different. President Obama’s recent appointment of two new members of the NLRB may now keep the posting requirement on schedule.

Effective January 31, 2012, all employers who are covered by the National Labor Relations Act ("NLRA") – whether union or non-union – will be required to comply with new National Labor Relations Board ("NLRB") notice posting requirements. Most employers will be covered by this requirement, as the NLRA applies to almost all private-sector employers engaged in interstate commerce.

Governor O’Malley has signed into law the Maryland Job Applicant Fairness Act (the "Act") , which takes effect on October 1, 2011. This highly debated legislation will greatly restrict an employer’s ability to use a credit report in making employment decisions.

On March 3, 2011, Kathie Gant testified during a legislative hearing of the Maryland General Assembly in support of a proposed workplace abuse statute.  While fighting back tears, she described a shocking story that oddly enough did not involve discrimination or any other recognized form of illegal workplace conduct.  Gant explained in detail how her employer, a Maryland attorney, systematically terrorized Gant for more than a year at the office.  Examples of the abuse included: locking Gant in a dark closet; throwing office supplies at Gant’s head; verbally denigrating Gant on a regular basis in front of clients and peers; and physically intimidating Gant.  She further explained that her complaints to human resources were ignored and that the persistent abuse ultimately forced her into psychiatric counseling.

Imagine one of your employees, driving a company vehicle, rolls through a stop sign and smashes into another driver.  The other driver was speeding and was dialing a number on her cell phone.  So who is at fault?  And most importantly, who has to pay?

Contrary to popular belief, a limited liability company (LLC) does not offer absolute protection.  As with corporate officers and agents, members and managers of LLCs can be personally liable for wrongful acts they commit, even when acting on behalf of the LLC.  The protection a LLC does offer was further diminished by Maryland’s highest court when it decided that a member of a LLC may be personally liable for lead paint injuries suffered by children who occupied a dwelling that the LLC owned. 

The good news, if there is any in the case, is that the holding appears limited to the specific context:  housing in Baltimore City.  To be liable, the individual must have a duty as an “owner” of the dwelling and personally participate in the action, or inaction, causing the injury, in this case failing to remediate lead paint.

The bad news here is that the LLC, and the manager held liable as an individual, had no intention of allowing people to occupy the dwelling and, in fact, took action to prevent people...

Principal contractors in Maryland can breathe a sigh of relief – the Maryland Workers’ Compensation law does not make them responsible for the injuries that a subcontractor’s employees suffer on an out-of-state jobsite.  Nor do they have to ensure the subcontractor maintains workers’ compensation insurance policies in multiple states.  You may find yourself asking what the big deal is – after all, principal contractors have never had these requirements.  Maryland’s highest court recently decided that a principal contractor was not liable for the workers' compensation benefits of an employee of its subcontractor, when the employee suffered an accidental injury while working on a jobsite in the District of Columbia.  The employee filed a claim for worker’s compensation benefits in Maryland.  The subcontractor had workers' compensation insurance coverage in the District of Columbia but not in Maryland.  The court had to decide whether the principal contractor or Maryland’s Uninsured Employers' Fund would pay the employee’s benefits.  ...

Effective October 1, 2010, the Maryland Legislature enacted the Maryland General and Limited Power of Attorney Act (Act).  The Act creates a statutory form power of attorney and provides that no one can require an additional or different form of power of attorney for any authority granted in the statutory form power of attorney (this includes anyone -- banks, insurance companies, title companies, and anybody else dealing with a power of attorney).  Failure to accept an appropriate acknowledged statutory form power of attorney may subject you to liability for attorneys’ fees and costs incurred in an action or proceeding to confirm the validity or mandate acceptance of the statutory form power of attorney.  To avoid liability for noncompliance with the Act, be familiar with and able to recognize the new statutory form power of attorney and be sure to accept it.

For more information on the Act, see Maryland’s Statutory Power of Attorney – Learn It, Accept It, or Get Ready for Liability. ...

In a recent controversial opinion that allowed insurers and business owners to breath a huge sigh of relief, Maryland’s highest court upheld the constitutionality of Maryland’s cap on non-economic damages, meaning that a plaintiff’s claim for pain and suffering damages is limited regardless of what a jury awards. In the summer of 2006, a five-year-old boy accidentally drowned in a country club swimming pool in Anne Arundel County.  The boy’s parents sued the swimming pool management company for negligence.  The parents won and the jury awarded them over $4 million for their mental anguish from the death of their child.  Because of Maryland’s law that sets a cap on non-economic damages (pain and suffering, as opposed to medical expenses and lost wages), the trial court reduced the verdict to just over $1 million.  The parents appealed and argued that the statutory cap was unconstitutional. The court rejected the parents’ argument on the basis that it had already decided the same issue years before.  In two...

In a recent bankruptcy case, the debtor bought goods from the vendor and paid the vendor $1.9 million for the goods.  A court held that the vendor had to return those payments because the payments were not properly authorized by the bankruptcy court.  The payments - for the purchase of inventory from the vendor in the ordinary course of business - were made from the debtor’s operating account, and had to be repaid by the vendor even though the vendor gave the debtor equivalent value in inventory.  This painful lesson for that vendor is a warning to all that a vendor’s obligation to return payments from a bankruptcy debtor is absolute when the payments have not been authorized by the bankruptcy court.  There are no “harmless” or “innocent vendor” exceptions to a bankruptcy trustee’s power to recover such payments.

In a bankruptcy, cash collateral is cash or its equivalent, in which both the debtor and another entity, usually a secured lender, have an interest.  A debtor cannot use its cash collateral unless...

Employees in the health care field are protected from retaliation by their employers for complaining about violations if those violations affect public health or safety.  In fact, the Health Care Worker Whistleblower Protection Act generally provides that an employer in the health care field may not retaliate against an employee based on an employee’s disclosure of (or threat to disclose) his or her employer’s violation of law, if the violation “poses a substantial and specific danger to the public health or safety.”  If an employer does retaliate, the employee can sue the employer for damages, including attorney’s fees.  The reverse also holds true.  If an employee frivolously sues his or her employer claiming retaliation, a court can require that the employee reimburse the employer for attorneys’ fees incurred in defending the case.

Last year, Maryland’s highest court interpreted the Act for the first time.  In that case, a nurse employed by a hospice company complained to her supervisors that her coworkers...

At long last, the EEOC has issued final regulations to implement the Genetic Information Non-Discrimination Act of 2008 (“GINA”).  These regulations take effect today, January 10, 2011.

Your corporate headquarters is in Maryland; you have another location in Northern Virginia.  Are your non-compete agreements written according to Maryland law or Virginia law?  If you said Maryland, read "Competition Challenges" to find out why Virginia law may also matter.  Inside Counsel contacted our own Melissa Jones when writing this story, and she shares her experiences with them.
 

“The Cloud.”  If you don’t know the term, get used to hearing it.  Today’s technology offers extensive opportunities for sharing, storing, and backing up data remotely – data sent to and stored on servers you do not own, control, or, probably, even have the ability to monitor. Where is the data?  It’s in “The Cloud.” 

In July, the Department of Justice ("DOJ") issued wide ranging regulations under the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA").  Now, the DOJ will hold public hearings on potential additional rules relating to electronic resources, such as web sites, used by places of public accommodation such as hotels, shopping centers, hospitals, and entertainment venues.

Filing an immigrant or non-immigrant petition for an employee soon?  It is probably going to be a little more expensive.  Facing a large budget shortfall, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (“USCIS”) is changing filing fees effective November 23, 2010.  While most fees are increasing (some substantially), USCIS appears to have taken some pity on petitioner employers and actually decreased some categories of fees.

On September 27, 2010, President Obama signed the Small Business Jobs Act (the Act) into law.  The Act will benefit small businesses in several ways, including extensions of Small Business Administration (SBA) lending programs and tax breaks.

Unlike previous years, employers hiring specialized foreign workers now have it easy in some ways.  For example, the number of petitions received by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services for H-1B specialty occupation visas is well below the established cap for fiscal year 2011, allowing for new filings even as the fiscal year starts.  With some good news, however, comes some bad.

This is a time of joint ventures and partnerships.  With commercial financing still difficult to come by, business owners are entertaining loans and investments from private parties and joint ventures/partnerships with other businesses.  So, lots of Non-Disclosure Agreements ("NDAs") are being used. 

The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has issued a notice informing employers that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) is targeting industry groups, specifically the health care industry, in its investigations of FLSA compliance.

In an effort to create new Maryland jobs for unemployed Maryland residents, Governor Martin O'Malley signed emergency legislation enacting the Job Creation and Recovery Tax Credit.