Article
Published 09/01/2020
Blog Post
Published 09/01/2020
By Lisa M. Koblin
Alert
Published 08/31/2020
By Lisa M. Koblin
Services Labor and Employment
As employers nationwide continue to grapple with the longstanding impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, a looming obstacle that awaits in early Fall 2020 is an employer’s obligation to provide WARN Act notices to employees who were furloughed or temporarily laid off six months earlier due to business decline from the coronavirus. The Federal Workforce Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act requires covered employers to provide a specific kind of written notice to workers who suffer employment loss due to a plant closure or mass layoff . Generally, this notice musts be provided 60 days...
Alert
Published 08/27/2020
Services White Collar and Government Enforcement
As the country struggles with COVID-19, many companies have applied for and received funds under the CARES Act and its Payment Protection Program (“PPP”). Those companies must understand there are significant risks tied to their receipt of federal money. Indeed, in June the United States Senate confirmed Brian D. Miller as the Special Inspector General of Pandemic Recovery (the “SIGPR”). As Saul Ewing Arnstein & Lehr attorneys have previously explained , the SIGPR’s primary duty is to audit and investigate the distribution of funds under the CARES Act. Although the SIGPR is new,...
Alert
Published 08/27/2020
By Matthew M. Haar
Industries Insurance
On August 25, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court split 3-3, with one Justice recused, on an appeal from a trial court’s insurance bad faith decision imposing $18 million in punitive damages and $3 million in attorney’s fees which had been reversed by an intermediate appellate court. Berg v. Nationwide Mut. Ins. Co., Inc. , No. 33 MAP 2019 (Pa. Aug 25, 2020). The dispute traces back to a car accident on September 4, 1996, and subsequent issues about whether the insured’s car was a total loss and whether the insurer acted appropriately in having the car repaired. Over the more than 20-year...
Alert
Published 08/26/2020
By Pamela J. Scott
Industries Real Estate
Governor John Carney and New Castle County Executive Matt Meyer have announced the launch of the DE Relief Grants Program, a joint initiative of the State and County to assist Delaware’s small businesses and nonprofit organizations which have been impacted by COVID-19. The funds being made available, in the amount of $100 Million, come from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security (CARES) Act as part of more than $300 Million received by New Castle County through the CARES Act. The DE Relief Grants Program will be administered by the Delaware Division of Small Business. To qualify,...
Alert
Published 08/26/2020
By William W. Warren, Jr., Esq.
Industries Construction
Public construction in Pennsylvania and elsewhere continues to present substantial challenges to local governmental entities. While some projects have been deferred in the current health and economic climate, at some point, and we hope sooner rather than later, the normal course of public construction programs will resume. Local governments, and their architects, engineers and other design professionals can take advantage of what observations and experience have taught us about better ways to undertake and complete public construction projects. From these observations, we have developed what...
Alert
Published 08/21/2020
By Marshall B. Paul, Jacqueline A. Brooks, Eric G. Orlinsky
Services Corporate
Ending almost 23 years of confusion, the Maryland Court of Appeals, in an opinion issued on July 14, 2020, unequivocally ruled that Maryland recognizes an independent cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty, erasing any doubt as to whether a fiduciary duty claim must be coupled with another cause of action dealing with the same conduct in order to be maintained. In Plank v. Cherneski , WL3967980 (2020), the Court, in a necessarily lengthy but clear Opinion that explained the last twenty-three years’ history and the basis for its conclusion, stated that: “If a plaintiff describes a...
Blog Post
Published 08/21/2020
By Lauren A. Farruggia, Jonathan A. Havens
Alert
Published 08/20/2020
By David Waxman, Joseph Sweeney
Services Product Liability
Employers, landlords and any party potentially subject to a premises liability action would be well advised to consider the consequences when COVID-19 is contracted on their property and then spread from the infected party to a family member. A new lawsuit highlights the unresolved intersection between traditional tort law duty analysis and the expansive view of foreseeability in so-called secondary exposure torts to address the scenario where COVID-19 was allegedly brought home from work, with tragic consequences. In the action recently filed in Kane County, Illinois (a Chicago “Collar...
Alert
Published 08/20/2020
By Cathleen M. Devlin, Melissa A. Clarke
Services Environmental
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s embattled temporary Policy issued on March 26, 2020, which modified the agency’s enforcement discretion in light of the COVID-19 crisis, continues to spawn litigation despite EPA’s announced intention to terminate the Policy on August 31, 2020. Most recently, on August 18, 2020, the Center for Biological Diversity, Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc. and Riverkeeper, Inc. filed suit against EPA, arguing that EPA violated the Endangered Species Act, 16 U.S.C. § 1531 et seq. (ESA) by issuing its Policy without first engaging in a formal consulting process...
Alert
Published 08/18/2020
By William W. Warren
Industries Health Care
Services Environmental
Agencies of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania regularly publish regulations and policy statements in the Pennsylvania Bulletin. The Departments of Human Services, Health and Environmental Protection are among the agencies that are the most prolific document publishers. Administrative law practitioners have long been aware that some agencies choose to issue policy statements, the process for promulgation of which has little oversight, and thereby avoid the more rigorous process of promulgating regulations. The problem arises when the policy statements as drafted or as applied go beyond...
Alert
Published 08/17/2020
By Erik F. Williams, Jeffrey S. Lin and Kevin M. Levy
Industries Real Estate
Institutions of higher education have undergone vast changes over the last several months from closing down campuses with a few days’ notice to shifting coursework online and transitioning to function as a “Zoom University.” Over the summer months, colleges and universities have had to prepare to implement the new Title IX regulations as well as review and implement federal and state COVID-19 guidance, sometimes mandatory and sometimes advisory, to plan their return to campuses. As colleges and universities ready to resume operations for the fall semester, they will receive repeated questions...
Blog Post
Published 08/17/2020
By Ruth A. Rauls, Gillian A. Cooper
Services : Labor and Employment
Alert
Published 08/10/2020
By Andrew Bollinger
Industries Higher Education
Participating or Attempting to Participate In order to file a formal complaint, the complainant must be “participating in or attempting to participate in” the recipient’s education program or activity at the time the formal complaint is filed. A complainant may be ‘‘attempting to participate’’ in a program or activity in a broad variety of circumstances that do not necessarily depend on being enrolled as a student or employed as an employee. For example, a complainant may be “attempting to participate” when (a) the complainant has withdrawn from the school due to alleged sexual harassment and...
Alert
Published 08/10/2020
By Zachary Kizitaff
Industries Higher Education
Each recipient must designate at least one employee as Title IX Coordinator who coordinates the recipient’s compliance with Title IX obligations. § 106.8(a). The Title IX Coordinator is not prohibited from delegating his or her responsibilities under Title IX to deputy or assistant Title IX Coordinators or to administrative personnel. 85 FR 30118. Similarly, a recipient may designate and authorize multiple Title IX Coordinators. Id. The Department’s goal is to allow each institution the flexibility to maintain Title IX compliance within the institution’s resources, size of student population...
