Publications — Page 22 of 51 — Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. Firm News & Events

Community Associations – Practical Guidance During the Coronavirus Shutdown

Published on: April 17, 2020 | by Blake C. Width

New Jersey residents are now one month into the statewide shutdown, as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to disrupt nearly every aspect of our daily lives. At this time, property managers and boards have developed practices to provide for social distancing and routine cleaning, however there are a host of potential issues on the horizon that communities should be aware of, and prepared for.

As a primary matter, associations need to stay informed of the ongoing executive orders, as well as state, and federal legislation. Relevant laws are being issued on a rapid and ongoing basis. Although Governor Murphy’s most significant Executive Orders, No. 107 and 108, issuing the directive to stay at home, and invalidating conflicting local ordinances, there are a variety of other orders and laws that present issues unique to community associations.

FINANCIAL IMPACT – FLATTEN THE CURVE

When an Employee Needs Leave Under the FFCRA, What Documentation Does the Employer Require to Receive Tax Credits?

Published on: April 7, 2020 | by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C.

Our employee says they need Paid Leave under the FFCRA. What documentation can the company require from the employee to ensure these payments qualify for employer tax credits?

Under the Families First Coronavirus Protection Act (FFRCA), employers are eligible for tax credits for any payment of qualified Emergency Sick Leave or Emergency Family and Medical Leave benefits mandated by the new law. Going forward, employers must be sure to require and maintain appropriate documentation from employees requesting leave to substantiate to the IRS that the employer credit is warranted. Additional information about what constitutes a “qualified” use of Emergency Sick Leave or Emergency Family and Medical Leave can be found here.

Eligible employers are entitled to retain a 100% credit for the payment of all qualified sick leave and family leave wages, plus allocable qualified health plan expenses and the employer’s share of Medicare taxes, rather than depositing them with the IRS. Employers must retain records and documentation related to and supporting each employee’s leave to substantiate the claim for the credits, and retain the Forms 941, Employer’s Quarterly Federal Tax Return, and 7200, Advance of Employer Credits Due To COVID-19, and any other applicable filings made to the IRS requesting the credit.

Administering COVID-19 Relief – Guidance for Employers: Fact Sheets, FAQs and Q&As from Federal Agencies

Published on: April 2, 2020 | by John H. Schmidt, Jr. and Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C.

The speed in which the Congress and various federal agencies have acted in response to the coronavirus outbreak has caused confusion among employers about what they must do to comply with these new laws and regulations. To assist employers we have compiled a list of fact sheets, Q&As and FAQs produced by several governmental agencies that will hopefully provide some clarity.

As always, you can contact Lindabury’s Labor & Employment group with any questions you may have.

US DOL Employee Rights Under the FFCRA poster required to be posted by employers: The FFCRA mandates that employers prominently display this poster in the workplace by April 1, 2020. The poster can be downloaded here.

New Jersey Expands Earned Sick Leave, Family Leave, and Temporary Disability Benefits in light of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Published on: April 2, 2020 | by Lisa Gingeleskie

On March 26, 2020, Governor Murphy signed into law S-2304 expanding the scope of the New Jersey Earned Sick Leave Law, the New Jersey Family Leave Act, and the New Jersey Temporary Disability Benefits Law to broaden benefits available to employees who are absent from work due to epidemics such as the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These changes, as set forth more fully below, became effective immediately.

New Jersey Earned Sick Leave Law

Under New Jersey’s Earned Sick Leave Law, employees may use earned sick leave for absences related to, among other reasons, the closure of the “employee’s workplace, or the school or place of care of a child of the employee, by order of a public official due to an epidemic or other public health emergency, or because of the issuance by a public health authority of a determination that the presence in the community of the employee, or a member of the employee’s family in need of care by the employee, would jeopardize the health of others”.

Town Hall Discussion – Families First Coronavirus Response Act

Published on: April 1, 2020 | by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C.

On April 1, 2020 James Estabrook and Kathleen Connelly of the firm’s Labor & Employment group hosted a webinar discussion for members of the Northern New Jersey and Southern New Jersey chapters of the National Electrical Contractors Association.

The webinar addressed questions regarding employee leave rights and benefits under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).

You can watch and listen to a recording of the webinar on our firm’s YouTube channel here.

Employee Benefits Provisions of the CARES Act

Published on: April 1, 2020 | by James K. Estabrook and Elizabeth Engert Manzo

On March 27, 2020, the Coronavirus, Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (the “CARES” Act) was passed, making it the third federal law to address the coronavirus (COVID-19) public health pandemic. The Act, designed to provide additional relief to those affected by the pandemic, contains multiple provisions that specifically implicate multiemployer plans as set forth more fully below.

Coronavirus Related Distribution

The Act allows defined contribution plans to adopt provisions allowing for early distributions, up to a maximum of $100,000, for qualified individuals who have been adversely affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Qualified individuals include the following:

Legal Considerations for Telehealth in the Age of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Published on: March 31, 2020 | by Monica Vir

As the response to the coronavirus pandemic continues to evolve, it is imperative that healthcare providers stay informed about the latest legal developments that may affect their practices.

In the middle of a pandemic and with instructions from all levels of government to practice social distancing, visiting your healthcare provider virtually may seem like an obvious choice. And yet, a patchwork of federal and state regulations governing telehealth has complicated such visits.

As just one example, licensure of physicians is on a state-by-state basis. Each state has its own regulations making it difficult to implement a national telemedicine program. Adding to that are limits on physicians being able to treat patients in a state in which they are not licensed, as well as different state drug prescription and privacy laws.

Managing Contracts in the Time of the Coronavirus Pandemic

Published on: March 31, 2020 | by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C.

The coronavirus pandemic has come in like a wrecking ball on a path of destruction, creating an unprecedented public health crisis and bringing the economy to a near crawl.

Several legal fallouts have only begun to take place and will likely continue for some time. One of the legal challenges coming to light as a result of this pandemic is that many businesses, particularly those dealing in goods and services, or relying on goods, face inevitable inability or extreme difficulty in fulfilling their contracts both during the pandemic and for an unknown period of time thereafter.

How do businesses continue to fulfill their contractual obligations when governments have ordered nonessential workers to stay home and goods that they regularly relied upon have become suddenly unattainable?

DOL Issues Guidance on Emergency Sick Leave and Emergency FMLA Leave Under The FFCRA

Published on: March 31, 2020 | by Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C.

Last week in our publication entitled Employer’s Guide to Federal and State Employee Leave Rights and Income Protection for Coronavirus Related Absences, we addressed the new Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (“Emergency FMLA Leave”) that employers must provide to employees as of April 1, 2020 under the new Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA). As indicated in that publication, the US Department of Labor was expected to issue additional guidance of compliance with these new paid leave obligations.

Since the passage of the FFCRA, the U.S. Department of Labor has issued several versions of a Questions and Answers publication that clarifies some of the issues that were not directly addressed in the FFCRA. Below is a summary of some of those clarifications.

Documentation Employees Must Submit to Support a Paid FFCRA Leave Request. The FFCRA mandates Emergency Paid Sick Leave if the employee is able to work/telework for one of 6 Covid-19 related absences (refer to the Guidance link above for the list of 6 qualifying reasons) and paid Emergency FMLA Leave if the employee is unable to work due to a child’s school or daycare closure (or unavailability of daycare provide). The DOL makes it clear that employers must require employees to provide documentation to support an Emergency Paid Sick Leave or Emergency FMLA Leave, including:

6 Tips for Every Business Dealing with Remote Access and Teleworking Employees

Published on: March 29, 2020 | by Eric B. Levine

By the time you are reading this guidance, your business has likely been operating under a shelter in place order or perhaps even a governmental quarantine in response to the Coronavirus pandemic, and your staff has been operating remotely for an extended period. While it may be too soon to fully assess whether remote access and teleworking is functioning optimally for your business, it is not too soon to ensure that the process of remote access and telework is being undertaken on the enterprise level in a safe and diligent fashion. Indeed, this is a responsibility that should be addressed from the Board of Directors and C-suite level down to the factory floor.

While the topic of remote access and its impact on cybersecurity could fill up volumes, there are two aspects of remote access and telework that businesses of all sizes need to acknowledge and address immediately. First, while remote access and telework were on the rise before the Coronavirus Pandemic, they are now most assuredly an integral part of your business for the foreseeable future. Your customers and staff expect you to be able to keep your business open through remote operations, and the harsh reality is that businesses that cannot operate remotely in some capacity have less chance of success during periods of shelter in place orders, governmental quarantines and social distancing.

Second, with more staff utilizing remote access and telework during the pandemic, the likelihood of your business’s information technology and the data stored thereon being exposed through cyber-breaches and attacks has grown exponentially. There are countless articles explaining the inherent dangers of remote access and telework, but the theme that permeates them all is that working remotely comes with its own set of dangers and that hackers and cybercriminals who have already been relentlessly attacking businesses through email and phishing scams, DDoS attacks, ransomware and social engineering, have already increased their attacks on businesses using remote access. Simple changes in your staff’s routines caused by new procedures can throw them off balance and create an opportunity for a hacker to exploit.