Employment Law

Against the backdrop of a year that saw the COVID-19 pandemic alter the American workplace in an unprecedented way, the employment law landscape in Virginia also underwent a recent sea change. Historically considered an employer-friendly state, the General Assembly shifted away from tradition by enacting several significant pieces of employee-friendly legislation, which will surely have a long-lasting impact on Virginia employees, businesses, and Virginia’s economy at large. This Article highlights these critical developments in Virginia employment law. It does not provide an in-depth analysis of every development but highlights the most significant changes affecting employers and employees in the Commonwealth. Part I of this Article provides a brief overview of the added employee protections from the federal legislation passed pursuant to the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses Virginia’s efforts in creating the nation’s first COVID-19 workplace safety mandate. Part II briefly highlights legislation enacted in 2019, which set the stage for the General Assembly’s activism in 2020, and then discusses in detail Virginia’s new employment laws. Part III then addresses two recent landmark employment law decisions from the Supreme Court of the United States of which employees and employers alike should be aware

America\u27s (Not So) Golden Door: Advocating for Awarding Full Workplace Injury Recovery to Undocumented Workers

This comment argues that awarding full damages to illegal immigrants who suffer workplace injuries better serves the United States\u27 federal immigration objectives

Analyzing the Virginia Workers\u27 Compensation Act\u27s Governance of Employer Non-Compliance

This essay attempts to resolve the current disconnect in the state judiciary‘s application of section 65.2-805(A) by analyzing the language of the statute as well as the various policy implications that undergird its establishment and accompany each interpretation. Part I provides a brief background of workers‘ compensation law generally, the Virginia Workers‘ Compensation Act (including section 65.2-805(A)), and the relevant case law involving section 65.2-805(A). Part II proceeds with the essay‘s argument, i.e., that section 65.2-805(A) should not be interpreted as imposing strict liability on non-compliant employers and thereby eliminating the obligation for a plaintiff-employee to plead a prima facie case of negligence. To the extent that this interpretation differs from the original intent of the General Assembly when it enacted section 65.2-805(A), or the current intent of the General Assembly for that matter, Part III invites the legislature to make an appropriate amendment through traditional means

A Survey of the History of the Death Penalty in the United States

Since the founding of Jamestown Colony in 1607, few topics in American life and culture have generated as much controversy, both in terms of persistence and volatility, as the death penalty. Foreign policy, economic recessions, and social movements come to the forefront of national discussion in their own respective ebbs and flows. Capital punishment, however, has been a staple of the American criminal justice system since the early inhabiting of the continent, and has remained a permanent vehicle through which we can enact retribution on the most heinous criminal offenders in our society, ridding ourselves of the worst among us

Spin-wave analysis of the transverse-field Ising model on the checkerboard lattice

The ground state properties of the S=1/2 transverse-field Ising model on the checkerboard lattice are studied using linear spin wave theory. We consider the general case of different couplings between nearest neighbors (J1) and next-to-nearest neighbors (J2). In zero field the system displays a large degeneracy of the ground state, which is exponential in the system size (for J1=J2) or in the system's linear dimensions (for J2>J1). Quantum fluctuations induced by a transverse field are found to be unable to lift this degeneracy in favor of a classically ordered state at the harmonic level. This remarkable fact suggests that a quantum-disordered ground state can be instead promoted when non-linear fluctuations are accounted for, in agreement with existing results for the isotropic case J1=J2. Moreover spin-wave theory shows sizable regions of instability which are further candidates for quantum-disordered behavior.Comment: 12 pages, 13 figure

Thoracolumbar injury classification and severity score: a new paradigm for the treatment of thoracolumbar spine trauma

BACKGROUND: Contemporary understanding of the biomechanics, natural history, and methods of treating thoracolumbar spine injuries continues to evolve. Current classification schemes of these injuries, however, can be either too simplified or overly complex for clinical use. METHODS: The Spine Trauma Group was given a survey to identify similarities in treatment algorithms for common thoracolumbar injuries, as well as to identify characteristics of injury that played a key role in the decision-making process. RESULTS: Based on the survey, the Spine Trauma Group has developed a classification system and an injury severity score (thoracolumbar injury classification and severity score, or TLICS), which may facilitate communication between physicians and serve as a guideline for treating these injuries. The classification system is based on the morphology of the injury, integrity of the posterior ligamentous complex, and neurological status of the patient. Points are assigned for each category, and the final total points suggest a possible treatment option. CONCLUSIONS: The usefulness of this new system will have to be proven in future studies investigating inter- and intraobserver reliability, as well as long-term outcome studies for operative and nonoperative treatment methods

Smoking, self-regulation and moral positioning: a focus group study with British smokers from a disadvantaged community

Smoking in many Western societies has become a both moral aand health issue in recent years, but little is known about how smokers position themselves and regulate their behaviour in this context. In this article, we report the findings from a study investigating how smokers from an economically disadvantaged community in the East Midlands (UK) respond to concerns about the health impact of smoking on others. We conducted ten focus group (FG) discussions with mixed groups (by smoking status and gender; N = 58 participants) covering a range of topics, including smoking norms, self-regulation, and smoking in diverse contexts. We transcribed all FG discussions before analysing the data using techniques from discourse anlysis. Smokers in general positioned themselves as socially responsible smokers and morally upstanding citizens. This position was bolstered in two main ways: ‘everyday accommodation', whereby everyday efforts to accommodate the needs of non-smokers were referenced, and ‘taking a stand', whereby proactive interventions to prevent smoking in (young) others were cited. We suggest that smoking cessation campaigns could usefully be informed by this ethic of care for others