Unincorporated associations, such as LLCs, present particular challenges for establishing federal diversity jurisdiction. In BRT Management LLC v. Malden Storage LLC, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently reversed a District Court judgment...
On June 8, Massachusetts’ highest court, the Supreme Judicial Court, held that a Massachusetts court had the authority (jurisdiction) to consider a case involving an out-of-state car manufacturer who sold cars in the Commonwealth. The case, Doucet v. FCA US LLC,...
The importance of careful contract review and communication with counsel were recently highlighted in the case of Dahua Technology USA Inc. v. Feng Zhang, in which the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts denied an employer’s attempt to...
Where an insurance policy provides coverage for damages because of, e.g., bodily injury, property damage, or advertising injury, does that insurance policy cover attorneys’ fees awarded as a result of a covered claim? The Supreme Judicial Court has just said that it...
In a recent decision, affirming the Superior Court, the Supreme Judicial Court concluded that civil enforcement actions filed by the Attorney General are not subject to the constraints of G. L. c. 213, § 59H, also known as the anti-SLAPP statute. In Commonwealth v....
In a recent decision awarding attorneys’ fees, a U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania explicitly considered the historic attorney gender pay gap. In that case – Ray v. AT&T Mobility Services, LLC – the plaintiff, Alison Ray, sought a total of $847,945 in attorneys’...
Last week, in a statement and a notice of withdrawal, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) officially withdrew its emergency temporary standard (“ETS”) that required large employers, with 100 or more employees, to implement COVID-19 vaccination...
The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts has held that group text messages between plaintiffs and third parties are not protected from disclosure in discovery as “concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual...
It is not uncommon for parties to a contract to decide which law will govern their contractual relationship, by including a choice of law provision in the contract. There are some significant differences between state laws: for example, the statute of limitations for...
The United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts recently ruled that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 – both of which prohibit sex-based discrimination – are separate enforcement mechanisms an...
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