Employment Law

No. In Manhattan, NYC, a company may not deduct from an employee’s paycheck, charge against an employee’s wages, or require an employee to reimburse the company for, monetary losses to the company, even if the employee’s carelessness caused the losses. For example, if an employee loses or damages a laptop computer or other property belonging to the company, the company may…Read More

Though it is not required by law, the best practice for a company in Manhattan, NYC is to retain its employees’ personnel files for the length of the employee’s employment plus five years. This is the case, among other reasons, because an individual may file a lawsuit under the New York City Human Rights Law, N.Y. City Admin. Code §§ 8-101…Read More

We sure would appreciate you voting for our law firm’s blog, the New York Business Litigation and Employment Attorneys Blog. Our law firm’s blog has been nominated by LexisNexis for its Top 25 Labor and Employment Law Blogs of 2011. Votes and comments posted online will help determine the winning blogs. You do not need to be a lawyer to vote. So if you…Read More

The federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (the "ICRA") preempts "any State or local law imposing civil or criminal sanctions (other than through licensing and similar laws) upon those who employ, or recruit, or refer for a fee for employment, unauthorized aliens" (emphasis added).  8 U.S.C. § 1324a(h)(2).  This post sometimes refers to the italicized clause as the "savings clause" of…Read More

Effective June 1, 2011, a new statute in New Jersey prohibits businesses from excluding unemployed individuals in advertisements for job vacancies.  The new statute does not require companies in New Jersey actually to consider hiring the unemployed. Specifically, on or about April 24, 2011, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie signed into law a statute, Public Law 2011, Chapter 40, codified as…Read More

The New Jersey Law Against Discrimination, N.J.S.A. §§ 10:5-1 – 10:5-30 (the "NJLAD"), bars all public and private employers from paying unequal wages on the discriminatory basis of, among other protected characteristics, age or gender.  The statute of limitation for civil lawsuits brought under the NJLAD is two years.  Montells v. Haynes, 133 N.J. 282, 285-286 (N.J. 1993).  For further discussion of…Read More

On November 3, 2010, the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”) issued proposed regulations implementing the SEC’s securities whistleblower bounty program. That bounty program was established by section 922 of the recently enacted Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act” or “Dodd-Frank”), H.R. 4173. The proposed regulations will be set forth in Parts 240 and 249 of Title 17 of the Code…Read More

On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed into law, effective July 22, 2010, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act,” “Dodd-Frank,” or the “Act”), H.R. 4173. Sections 922 and 929A of the Dodd-Frank strengthen and expand the whistleblower provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (“SOX”) by, among other changes, prohibiting publicly-traded companies’ subsidiaries and affiliates from retaliating against…Read More

On July 21, 2010, President Obama signed into law the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act (the “Dodd-Frank Act,” “Dodd-Frank,” or the “Act”), H.R. 4173. By January 2011, section 342 of the Dodd-Frank Act requires each of the 30 federal financial agencies and departments, including the Securities and Exchange Commission and all 12 Federal Reserve banks, to establish an Office of…Read More

No. In New Jersey, a company may not deduct monetary losses to the company, for which the worker arguably was at fault, from the worker's paycheck. For example, if an employee gets parking tickets while driving a company car for business, the company may not deduct the parking fines from the employee's paycheck. Similarly, an employer may not withhold, from…Read More