Fisher Phillips Legal Alert

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Since its first publication in 1983, Best Lawyers® has been widely regarded as the definitive guide to legal excellence. Best Lawyers lists are created from a comprehensive peer review. Nearly 87,000 leading lawyers worldwide are eligible to vote, and Best Lawyers has received nearly 10 million reviews on the legal skills of other lawyers based on their specific practice areas around the world. Lawyers are not required or permitted to pay fees to be registered; Therefore, inclusion in Best Lawyers is considered a unique honor. Corporate Counsel magazine called Best Lawyers “the most respected list of lawyer recommendations in practice.” Yes. All U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, and their immediate family members returning from a restricted country must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival. To ensure compliance, local and state health officials will contact individuals within days and weeks of arrival. We will continue to monitor this rapidly evolving situation and provide updates as required, including updating this FAQ as required.

Make sure you subscribe to the Fisher Phillips alarm system to gather the most up-to-date information. For more information, please contact your Fisher Phillips attorney or a member of our COVID-19 Task Force and visit our FP COVID-19 Employer Resource Center. This article provides an overview of some of the changes to state law. It is not legal advice for a particular factual situation and should not be construed as such. Click on the title of the article below for the latest information on COVID-19 litigation and workplace trends, or click here to subscribe to our notifications on COVID-19 or other topics. To establish eligibility for the UGRA, an employee must have a reasonable expectation that the employment will continue without interruption. USERRA regulations specify that uniformed service members are not legally isolated from a uniformly applied force reduction that can be implemented while the employee remains on active duty or protected duty. Of course, an employer may be required by law to continue to pay employees, for example, under an employment contract, collective agreement, policy or practice enforceable as a contract or under a state wage law. As a general rule, employees are not allowed to take FMLA to stay at home to avoid getting sick.

As with many labor laws, the worst thing an employer (or, as is often the case, an untrained supervisor) can do at times like these is to reject an unorthodox leave request immediately before the facts are known. When in doubt, it`s wiser to work with a lawyer to ensure regulatory compliance and minimize the risk of costly litigation. If an expat or employee is quarantined abroad, you should seek legal and other advice regarding the particular facts and circumstances of the situation. You need to develop a plan to meet your obligations to the employee and their family, as well as the needs of your business. Every situation will be different, so your advice must be tailored to the situation. The Best Lawyers ranking is entirely determined by peer review, from appointment to selection, and listed lawyers are evaluated based on their talent and skills in the legal industry. Of the firm`s listed lawyers, five received the prestigious 2023 Lawyer of the Year Award, which recognizes a single outstanding lawyer in each practice and geographic area. 2023 Fisher Phillips Lawyers of the Year include: No. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has approved all citizens, lawful permanent residents, and their immediate family members returning from restricted countries to pass through one of the following 13 airports where DHS has established increased immigration control capability: Employees requesting leave could potentially be protected by the Family Health and Family Leave Act (FMLA) as long as they respond to elsewhere to the FMLA eligibility criteria.

Even if there is no state or federal protection, an employer`s internal policies can extend protection to these individuals. Of course, there is nothing wrong with voluntarily extending an employee`s leave, even if there is no legal obligation. In general, U.S. immigration law only applies to a foreigner if that person is physically in the country. In most cases, it is not presumed that a person has not maintained their legal immigration status if they are not physically in the United States. However, the absence of the U.S. worker could trigger other collateral immigration problems. It is important to obtain specific legal advice for each case concerned. The COVID-19 Employment Litigation Tracker provides a comprehensive map view of state and federal workplace lawsuits against employers as a direct result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which can be searched by case type, industry, and company size. We also provide a long list of legal information that summarizes many of these cases and lessons learned from this litigation and related court decisions.

19. In March, the U.S. Department of State issued a Level 4 “Do Not Travel” recommendation, warning U.S. citizens to avoid all international travel due to the global impact of COVID-19. The United States, Mexico and Canada have also suspended all non-essential travel between the two countries. However, you cannot prohibit otherwise legal activities, such as an employee`s travel abroad. Although a federal appeals court recently ruled that firing an employee who refuses to cancel personal trips to an area of the world with a high risk of exposure to a life-threatening illness is not necessarily an ADA violation, you still risk legal exposure, lower employee morale, and negative publicity if you do. This includes pregnant employees or those with health problems. However, you should educate your employees before they travel to risky environments to find a solution, and you can – and should – monitor employees returning from such trips for signs of illness. Employers may apply these provisions for a period of 60 days beginning on March 20, 2020 OR within three business days of the end of the national emergency, whichever comes first. Employers bear the burden of proof to provide each worker with written documentation of their remote initiation and teleworking policies.

Any subsequent I-9 audit would use the “personal completion date” only for the employees involved as a starting point. According to the EEOC, whether a particular outbreak reaches the level of a “direct threat” depends on the severity of the disease. The EEOC directs employers that the assessment by the CDC or health authorities provide the objective evidence necessary for a disability-related examination or medical examination. During a pandemic, an employer does not need to wait until an employee develops symptoms to ask about exposure to pandemic influenza on the last trip. If the CDC or local or state health officials recommend that people visiting certain places stay home after travel, an employer may ask an employee what places they visited, even if the trip was for personal reasons. Travel restrictions can cause problems for green card holders who have been outside the United States for an extended period of time. Prolonged absences of U.S. green card holders may result in in-depth interviews upon their return or the conclusion that the green card holder has renounced their permanent resident status. OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH AND SAFETYTravis Vance, Co-Chair, Workplace Safety and Disaster Management Practice GroupTodd Logsdon, Co-Chair, Workplace Safety and Disaster Management Practice GroupHoward MavityNick Hulse Yes. The EEOC confirmed that the measurement of employees` body temperature is permitted in the current circumstances. While the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) limits the investigations an employer can conduct into an employee`s health condition, and the EEOC considers an employee`s temperature a “medical examination” under the ADA, the federal agency recognizes the need for this measure now that the CDC and state/local health agencies recognize the spread of COVID-19 in the community and appropriate have adopted precautionary measures.