Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. is please to announce that 15 of the firm’s have been selected for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America 2023.
We are proud to announce 4 of our attorneys have been selected to the 2022 New Jersey Super Lawyers® list, and 2 have been selected to the 2022 New Jersey Rising Stars® List. This recognition in The Super Lawyers© 2022 and Rising Stars® 2022 lists, identifies each attorney for their leading legal talent in their corresponding practice areas.
The following Lindabury attorneys were named as Super Lawyers honorees:
Lindabury Labor & Employment attorneys John H. Schmidt, Jr., Kathleen M. Connelly, and Lisa Gingeleskie have co-authored a chapter for Chambers on New Jersey Employment Law. This write-up has been published and is now available online.
The chapter explores six areas of New Jersey Employment Law, such as:
We are proud to announce 11 of our attorneys have been named to the 2021 Best Lawyers® list, two of which were named “Lawyer of the Year.” This recognition in The Best Lawyers in America© 2021, identifies each for their leading legal talent in their corresponding practice areas.
The following Lindabury attorneys were named as Best Lawyers honorees:
This informative webinar addresses New Jersey businesses that have been shut down or operating on a limited capacity due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Our Labor & Employment attorneys, John H. Schmidt, Jr. and Lisa Gingeleskie, map out a prediction of the ‘new normal’ and discuss what post-pandemic reality may entail, including how and when to bring employees and customers back safely. While we can expect the road ahead to be potentially long and difficult, we offer guidelines and strategies for preparing for and documenting reopening procedures.
Topics of discussion include:
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.
On March 19, 2020, Governor Murphy signed a new law that grants immediate protection to employees who have or are likely to have an “infectious disease” caused by “a living organism or other pathogen, including a fungus, bacteria, parasite, protozoan, virus or poison, which may or may not be transmissible from person to person, animal to person, or insect to person.” The coronavirus is an infectious disease within the meaning of the law.
Employer Mandates: The law mandates that an employer may NOT terminate the employment of any employee who requests or who takes time off from work based on a written or electronically transmitted recommendation from a New Jersey medical professional that the employee should take time off for a specified period because the employee has or is likely to have an infectious disease. Additionally, the employer may NOT refuse to reinstate the employee to work after the expiration of the leave specified by the medical professional. Reinstatement must be to the same position held when the leave commenced without any additional penalties.
Violations: Any employer violating this new law will be compelled to reinstate the employee to his/her prior position and is subject to a fine of $2,500 for each violation.
Employers doing business in New Jersey have been subject to both the federal and state Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (“WARN”) for more than ten years. Under the prior laws, if an employer were to close a facility employing more than 50 fulltime employees, it was required to provide those employees with at least 60 days’ advanced notice of the closure or face a penalty that required the employer to pay severance compensation to each of the terminated employees. Amendments to the New Jersey legislation signed into law by Governor Murphy in January 2020 not only require employers to provide more notice to employees, but will also impose new economic burdens upon the employers.
These amendments to New Jersey’s WARN Act require employers who plan to close one or more establishment(s) within the state that will result in the layoff or termination of 50 or more employees (fulltime and/or part-time employees) from that establishment(s), are required to provide the affected employees with at least 90 days advanced notice of the layoff or termination of employment. Additionally, employers will be obligated to pay severance compensation to each of the affected employees in an amount equal to one week of severance compensation for each year of service. The severance compensation must be paid on or before the last day of employment. If an employer fails to pay the appropriate severance compensation, the employer will fact a penalty obligating it to pay an additional four weeks of compensation to each employee not correctly paid.
Amendments to the Act also define severance compensation as compensation due for back pay associated with the termination in an apparent attempt to characterize the severance compensation as wages for the purposes of bankruptcy.
New Jersey has one of the most progressive laws prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, as well as in places of public accommodation. That law’s protections against race discrimination have been further expanded under recent legislation signed into law by Governor Murphy. The new act is commonly known as the “Crown Act.”
Under the new law, it is now illegal to discriminate against anyone because of their race, inclusive of traits historically associated with race “including but not limited to, hair texture, hair type, and protective hairstyles.” The new law further defines protective hairstyles to include “such hairstyles as braids, locks and twists.” In short, you cannot refuse to continue to employ any current employees or refuse to employ prospective employees if they are sporting hairstyles that are characteristically associated with a particular race of people.
How many of us remember the iconic holiday party in the movie “Scrooged?” As Bill Murray is passing out mail, the staff is drinking more than they should, employees are groping each other, and how can anyone forget the employee who is copying their bottom while sitting on the Xerox machine? “Enjoy yourself, it’s the Christmas party.”
How many of us have attended such events? Probably more than we would like to admit.
Regardless of your point of view, times have changed. Sexual harassment is the law. Drunk driving jeopardizes public safety and can cause you and/or your employees to end up in jail. Social mores no longer condone the conduct demonstrated in that now famous “Scrooged” party.
Lindabury, McCormick, Estabrook & Cooper, P.C. Firm News & Events