On August 29, 2023, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit gave an encouraging sign to employers seeking to protect their customer lists from use or disclosure by former employees. In Allstate Insurance Company v. Fougere, the Court held that a customer list...
Employment
First Circuit Affirms $1.7M Award in Noncompete Suit
In NuVasive, Inc. v. Day, the First Circuit recently affirmed a $1.7M award of damages and attorneys’ fees in a noncompete suit brought by a medical device company against one of its former sales representatives. In the appeal, Timothy Day challenged the district...
Non-Competition Agreement’s Geographic Scope Limited by Court
In a recent decision, Genzyme Corp. v. James C. Melvin, the Suffolk Superior Court (J. Salinger) significantly narrowed the geographic scope of a non-competition agreement from the entire United States to the Metro Atlantic Region in response to a motion by Genzyme...
Employer Cannot Reform or Rescind Employment Contract in Which Employee Mistakenly Entitled to Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars Monthly
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...
In disability discrimination lawsuit, former employee held bound by inconsistent statement made in Social Security Disability benefits application
Under the principle of judicial estoppel, a party to a lawsuit is precluded from asserting a claim that is inconsistent with a prior statement or position. In Thompson v. Gold Medal Bakery, Inc., the First Circuit recently applied this principle in the context of a...
Employees Beware: Appeals Court Allows Termination for Exercising Statutory Right
Massachusetts law gives employees the right to place a written statement in their personnel file if they disagree with information their employer has put into the file that has or may negatively affect the employee's qualification for employment, promotion, transfer,...
Massachusetts Federal Court Rules on Employee Status Under the Fair Labor Standards Act
In a decision recently issued in the case of Maldonado et al. v. Cultural Care, Inc. et al., a group of "local childcare consultants" ("LCCs") brought a class action suit against Cultural Care, a company that places foreign au pairs with host families located in the...
Payment of Wages and Earned Vacation Not Due Until Actual Date of Discharge, Even If Employee Stopped Working Earlier
In Knous v. Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc., the United States District Court for the District Court of Massachusetts awarded summary judgment to an employer on the employee's claims of unpaid wages and earned vacation at the time of discharge. As a result of...
Superior Court Holds That, Even With Advance Notice To Its Employees, An Employer May Not Avoid Its Obligations Under Sullivan v. Sleepy’s LLC To Pay Separate and Additional Overtime
In the recent Superior Court case of Martinez v. Burlington Motor Sports, Inc., et al., a defendant auto dealership moved to dismiss a commission-based employee's claim for overtime wages pursuant to G. L. c. 151, §§ 1A and 1B, arguing that the Massachusetts...
Massachusetts District Court Applies Precondition Test to Determine That Employees Are Not Entitled to Overtime Pay for Employee-Required Training
In a recent Memorandum and Order, the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts District Court granted summary judgment to a group of defendant banks after applying a "precondition" test established by the First Circuit regarding overtime pay to...
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