A handful of states have laws specifically requiring employers to provide sexual harassment training to certain employees, those states are noted below.

In addition, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, backed up by a number of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, states that all covered employers should provide anti-harassment training that covers all forms of prohibited harassment, not just sexual harassment. (Under federal law, for this purpose a covered employer is one that has 15 or more employees.)

The EEOC "Enforcement Guidance: Vicarious Employer Liability for Unlawful Harassment by Supervisors," provides the following:

"An employer should ensure that its supervisors and managers understand their responsibilities under the organiza

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Under the laws of most if not all states, you can sign most contracts via e-mail, if you have the necessary intent to do so.

A recent judicial opinion applying New York law provides an illustration.

SD Protection, Inc. V. Del Rio

The court in SD Protection, Inc. v. Del Rio concluded that it was possible for an employee to "sign" an employment contract containing a non-compete clause via an exchange of e-mail with the employer.

Edward Del Rio was hired by SD Protection, Inc., as a field manager in its tour services business. Before Del Rio was hired, SD apparently sent him a printed contact. The printed contract contained a non-compete cl...Read More

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As expected, the Department of Homeland Security announced the final adoption of new rules governing employer responses to Social Security Administration "No-Match" letters. Under the new regulations, effective on September 14, an employer that does not follow up on a No-Match letter risks being charged with knowingly employing an unauthorized worker.

What is a No-Match letter?

A No-Match letter is generated when the name and social security number of an employee, submitted by an employer on a W-2 form, do not match the record of the Social Security Administration. A No-Match letter is a notification of that fact from the SSA to the employer, or from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) that the immigration-status or employment-authorization documentation ...Read More

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Sometimes it is important for employers to know what Congress did do, and sometimes it's important to know what Congress didn't do. Congress adjourned for the summer yesterday, and what it didn't do is enact controversial immigration reform legislation. But that doesn't mean that nothing new is happening with immigration law.

As discussed in this news article, last summer the U.S. Customs and Immigration bureau in the Department of Homeland Security proposed new regulations governing what employers must do when the Social Security Administration flags an employee's social security number. This is referred to as receiving a "no-match" letter. 
But the proposed regulations were placed on hold while Congress debated immigration reform legislation. Now that the reform legislation h...Read More

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In the twenty-first century, the average American family no longer fits the "working dad, mom at home" stereotype portrayed in sitcoms from Leave It To Beaver to Everybody Loves Raymond. One result of the change in family demographics is that employee caretaking responsibilities, both childcare and eldercare, present workplace issues with which employers must deal. And deal with evenhandedly, or else run afoul of federal antidiscrimination laws.

New federal guidelines

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has decided to address these issues in a new document, Unlawful Disparate Treatment of Workers with Caregiving Responsibilities. The guidance deals with employer responsibilities under Title VII, which prohibits disparate treatment based...Read More

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You can’t copyright your clothing designs themselves, but you can copyright certain of the design elements of your clothing. The distinction between the clothing itself and such design elements has to do with some basic principles of copyright law.

Useful articles

Copyright extends to original, non-useful works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium of expression. “Non-useful” means that you cannot obtain a copyright on a work that has a functional purpose. The so-called “useful article” doctrine is a barrier to copyrighting clothing designs, because clothing is considered to be “inherently functional.”

But certain elements of clothing designs can be copyrighted. The design embossed or imprinted on textiles or fabrics—as opposed to the style, shape, or pattern of the finishe...Read More

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Perhaps you aren’t doing so deliberately. But if your website collects date of birth information as part of a user registration process or otherwise, and you don’t take affirmative steps to screen out users under the age of 13, then you are required to comply with the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).   

COPPA compliance basics

COPPA applies to operators of websites and online services that either (1) are directed to children under thirteen or (2) have actual knowledge that such children are providing information through the website. If you are collecting date of birth information, then you are considered to have the requisite actual knowledge of the age of users from whom you are collecting that information, including children.

If either of the two stated conditions is present, the...Read More

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This is the kind of question that is likely to greatly annoy you as you struggle with the toil and expenses of keeping your small business going. While you may vehemently defend your hard work as a start-up business, there’s more to it.  In fact, it’s a question that the Internal Revenue Service may very well ask when you claim a deduction for business losses. If the deductions pertain to a claimed business activity that is deemed by the IRS to be a hobby, then such deductions can’t be used to offset other income.

Deductions for business expenses

The Internal Revenue Code Section 162 allows taxpayers to deduct the “ordinary and necessary expenses paid or incurred during the taxable year in carrying on any trade or business.” The I...Read More

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Many highly successful businesses begin in a garage or at a kitchen table, with an employee workforce of one or a small, hard-working coterie clacking away behind laptops. As any business grows, legal complications multiply, along with the number of employees that are hired along the way. That’s because small businesses are often exempt from various legal and regulatory requirements, based upon the number of people employed in the business.

How many employees?

For the small business person, life would be easier if there was only one "magic" number that you need to keep in mind, say 5 or 10 or 15 employees. But of course, that’s not the case. The "compliance threshold," i.e., the number of employees that triggers the...Read More

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Mixing business with family relationships makes great television drama, as fans of shows from Dallas to The Sopranos can attest, but it often results in real-life disagreements that flare up during Thanksgiving dinners and end up in court. This is especially so if the family members are unable or unwilling to formalize their business arrangement in written agreements.

In McKee v. McKee, decided last month, the Chancery Court of Delaware (a lower Delaware state court that hears matters and causes in equity, mainly corporate, commercial and contractual matters) considered a husband's claim that his wife promised to give him half of her business – but unfortunately for the husband and his heirs, that promise was never redu...Read More

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A "litigation hold" is a suspension of a company’s document retention/destruction policies for those documents that may be relevant to a lawsuit that has been actually filed, or even one that is "reasonably anticipated." A "litigation hold" ensures that relevant data is not destroyed and that key employees are notified of document preservation requirements. Even informal procedures for managing print or electronic documents, such as recycling e-mail backup tapes, must change when a company is sued, or even threatened with suit.

When does the duty to preserve arise and what does it cover?

The duty to preserve arises, in general, when a party is alerted that certain information is likely to be sought in discovery. This may occur, for example, upon receipt of a complaint, upon rece...Read More

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Today, many professional newsletters are delivered electronically.  Because it’s so easy to do, it’s tempting for a company to obtain only a single-user electronic subscription to a professional newsletter and then forward it to around the office, thereby saving the cost of a more expensive group license.  This practice may save money in the short-run, but it is likely a violation of the single-user subscription agreement and could potentially open up the company to liability for copyright infringement, including large monetary damages. 

Damages for copyright infringement

Under the federal Copyright Act, copyright protection extends, among other things, to “literary works,” which, for our purposes, includes an electronic newsletter. Courts have held that forwarding an electronic newsletter to another reader ...Read More

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