New England employers have seen a restricting on their ability to use non-compete agreements in recent weeks with the passage of new laws in Maine, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island. In a previous post, we profiled the non-compete legislation passed in Massachusetts. The bills in Maine and New Hampshire are…
A student loan debtor sued her loan servicer, arguing that the servicer had violated Illinois consumer fraud law by asserting that its customer representatives were experts in repayment options and acted in a borrower’s best interest when they were in fact instructed to steer borrowers into payment options that benefited…
The government enforces a separation of church and state, but what about a separation of church and employer? Joel Dahl, who founded and runs Dahled Up Construction, requires all his workers to attend Christian Bible Study as a condition of continued employment. Ryan Coleman, a convicted felon, said attending Bible…
If you recently received money as part of a settlement or award for a lawsuit, have you thought about how that settlement or award will affect your taxes? Depending on the nature of your claim, you’ll probably have to pay taxes on that money, just like you would on any…
Ford started installing a new dual-clutch transmission (referred to as the DPS6 transmission) in its Focus and Fiesta models back in 2010 and as many as 1.5 million of the allegedly defective vehicles remain on the road today. The new transmission allowed the cars to reach 40 mpg, but according…
Worldwide, the impact of global change is being felt. While some people deny that climate change is even happening, the courts are, in fact, seeing the effects in the litigation scene. Suits concerning the issue are trending upwards. Jurisdictional restraints and distance are not stopping litigants from coming forward to…
Although many financial planning companies rely on the relationship between the financial planner and the customer, E-Trade’s customers primarily conduct business online – usually without communicating directly with any of the company’s financial planners. Even so, the company includes a non-solicitation agreement as part of their employment contract with their…
Earlier this year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Lamps Plus, Inc. v. Varela that an ambiguous arbitration agreement does not provide a sufficient basis to conclude that parties agreed to class arbitration. In a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court reversed the Ninth Circuit’s decision that the arbitration agreement between…
It has become increasingly common over the past few years for employers to include non-compete agreements in their employment contracts. In most cases, they are required to have geographic and time limits, meaning they can only be enforced in a certain geographical area for a certain period of time (usually…
When two founders of a company sued the company that had come into possession of the founders’ patents and intellectual property rights, the district court dismissed their suit for lack of personal jurisdiction. The appellate court affirmed on appeal, finding that the plaintiffs’ lawyer contrived to create personal jurisdiction by…