“We Shall Overcome,” a song that was the “unofficial anthem to the civil rights movement,” was wrongly placed under copyright and should be put in the public domain, according to a lawsuit filed today in federal court. The complaint (PDF) was filed by the same group of lawyers who succeeded at putting the world’s most famous song, Happy Birthday, into the public domain after years of …
Just as California businesses begin to implement a law requiring equal pay for workers regardless of their gender, already the toughest of its kind in the nation, a state lawmaker is seeking to expand it to protect employees from racial discrimination. The proposal by Sen. Isadore Hall would build on California’s existing fair pay law by adding “race or ethnicity” to …
One of Justice Antonin Scalia’s chief policy concerns — some might call it an obsession — was class actions, which he saw as excuses for plaintiffs’ lawyers to make money by aggregating small individual claims to the detriment of corporate defendants. On Tuesday the U.S. Supreme Court hinted that, in Scalia’s absence, class-action law might not continue to be interpreted narrowly. It …
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday sided with thousands of workers at an Iowa pork processing plant who had sought to band together in a single lawsuit to recover overtime pay from Tyson Foods. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, writing for the majority in the 6-to-2 decision, said the plaintiffs were entitled to rely on statistics to prove their case. The ruling limited the sweep of the …
Donald Trump’s model wife on her path to citzenship Donald Trump’s modeling agency has profited from the very same visa program that the presidential candidate himself has slammed — and appears to have violated federal law in the process, a CNNMoney investigation has found. Throughout his campaign, Trump has loudly opposed the practice of U.S. companies using foreign workers instead of …
With their claim, “When you’re here, you’re family,” Olive Garden has become synonymous with America’s proliferation of family-style restaurants. Olive Garden is the largest retail brand of Darden Restaurants, the world’s largest full-service restaurant conglomerate, and the world’s largest employer of tipped employees. Beyond size, however, Olive Garden has made a name for itself by using the …
Credit: Janitors / photo on flickrRecently the ridesharing company Lyft, Uber’s largest competitor, settled a pending lawsuit for $12.25 million. Lyft can continue to classify its drivers as independent contractors—a designation that is crucial to the sharing economy’s success. But the settlement may lead to additional difficulties for other sharing-economy companies.
by Ian Millhiser Feb 1, 2016 8:00 am Lochner v. New York is one of the Supreme Court’s great anti-precedents. Typically taught in law schools as an example of how judges should not behave, Lochner rested on a fabricated “right to contract” that, in effect, gave employers broad license to exploit their workers. The so-called right invented in Lochner and similar cases later formed the basis for …
Disney just got hit with two class-action suits. Leo Perrero and Dena Moore say they were illegally replaced by foreign workers. Both were laid off from their IT jobs at Walt Disney World in Orlando in January 2015.
Last week, 6,000 workers of a Pennsylvania company achieved a small victory. A federal judge ruled that their employer, American Future Systems Inc., has to pay up for making them clock out for bathroom breaks. The company will have to put out about $1.75 million in back pay and damages for forcing employees to clock out at offices in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Ohio between July 2009 and …