On December 7, 2021, Judge R. Stan Baker, a federal judge for U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, issued a nationwide injunction to block the enforcement of a vaccine mandate for federal contractors and subcontractors issued in response to President Biden’s Executive Order (EO) 14042, “Ensuring Adequate COVID Safety Protocols for Federal Contractors.”
In the copyright world, the general rule is that the creator of a work owns the copyright in that work. However, this general rule does not apply to all copyrightable works, including so-called “works for hire.” The copyright “work for hire” doctrine provides that the employer automatically owns the copyright in a work for hire created by its employee within the scope of the employee’s employment, absent a written agreement to the contrary. However, there are many misconceptions regarding “works for hire” under U.S. copyright law. First and foremost, the “work for hire” doctrine applies only to a very narrow category of works, as defined in Section 101 of the U.S. Copyright Act (Title 17 of the U.S. Code). Moreover, it only applies to copyrightable works, and does not extend to works protected by trade secrets, patents, or trademarks.
Last month, New York Governor Hochul signed into law a bill that will require employers to notify new employees of electronic monitoring of telephone, email and internet access and usage, and to obtain their written acknowledgement of the notice. This new law (the “Act”), which goes into effect on May 7, 2022, applies to all private employers, regardless of size, with a place of business in New York State.
All U.S.-bound international air travelers must obtain a negative one-day COVID-19 test result, regardless of citizenship and vaccination status, prior to embarkation
A document retention policy is a set of practices adopted by a company to guide how documents, records and other important information are to be stored, saved and destroyed. Companies adopt document retention policies for any number of reasons, but many do so in order to comply with state and federal laws mandating either specific retention periods for certain types of records or document destruction protocols. A comprehensive policy also plays a critical role in helping to determine the existence and location of certain records in the event of litigation. At a minimum, these policies can help to control document storage costs by eliminating retention of any records whose maintenance may no longer be necessary or required by law.
Lakshmi Sarma Ramani (a Member of our Washington D.C.-based team) and co-author Anita Drummond discuss joint ventures between tax-exempt organizations and for-profit entities in their new 2-part series featured in the ACC Docket's Nonprofit Knowledge column.
In response to the COVID-19 “Omicron” variant outbreak unfolding in several southern African regions, President Biden has issued a Proclamation that, effective November 29, 2021, suspends entry into the U.S. for certain nonimmigrants who were physically present in Republic of Botswana, the Kingdom of Eswatini, the Kingdom of Lesotho, the Republic of Malawi, the Republic of Mozambique, the Republic of Namibia, the Republic of South Africa, and the Republic of Zimbabwe during the fourteen (14) day period preceding their entry or attempted entry.
Effective January 1, 2022, a new California law imposes criminal penalties on employers who intentionally withhold wages and tips from their employees. The law was passed on September 27, 2021, when California Governor Gavin Newsom signed into effect Assembly Bill 1003, making an employer’s intentional theft of wages - in an amount greater than nine hundred fifty dollars ($950) from any one employee, or two thousand three hundred fifty dollars ($2,350) in the aggregate from two or more employees, in any consecutive 12-month period - punishable as grand theft.
