The Impact of the “Dukes” Case on Retail Employers

[Excerpt] In the past, the notion of a large class action discrimination suit against a national retailer has been a true threat- a tool in the arsenal of the employees- to be feared by the employer. With the Supreme Court decision in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes, that arsenal has been significantly depleted and the large retailer now treads on somewhat new ground when thinking about discrimination lawsuits. This paper will discuss some of the more recent class action discrimination suits against large U.S. retailers. It will then discuss the narrative behind the Dukes case, the way in which the opinion could potentially affect the substance of Title VII, and the consequences the Dukes decision holds for human resource departments at large retailers throughout the country

Is More Parental Leave Always Better?: An Analysis of Potential Employee Protections for Leave Offered Outside the FMLA

In the past few years, many large companies, including Netflix, Amazon and Facebook have implemented expanded—and very generous—parental leave policies. While on the surface these policies seem employee-friendly and even big-hearted, when one explores the potential consequences of taking such leave, the policies are fraught with potential dangers for employees. In a groundbreaking new study, researchers have found that employers view time off or flexible work arrangements made for an employee’s personal reasons as negatively reflecting on an employee’s work commitment. But what happens if a company decides to terminate an employee because they have taken leave and are viewed as less dedicated to the firm? Are any legal protections available for an employee in that position? This Article is the first to explore this timely and relevant topic. As it turns out, any legal protections an employee may have vary by state and, consequently, are largely inconsistent. Even where a cause of action is recognized, the contours of the protections vary greatly by the actual wording of the policies. This Article reviews such protections and suggests new theories under which employees could be protected from adverse consequences stemming from using a company’s parental leave. Ultimately, this Article concludes that viewing the policy as a type of unilateral contract potentially provides the most comprehensive protection for employees in this circumstance

Effect of remote ischaemic conditioning on clinical outcomes in patients with acute myocardial infarction (CONDI-2/ERIC-PPCI): a single-blind randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Remote ischaemic conditioning with transient ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm has been shown to reduce myocardial infarct size in patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary percutaneous coronary intervention (PPCI). We investigated whether remote ischaemic conditioning could reduce the incidence of cardiac death and hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months. METHODS: We did an international investigator-initiated, prospective, single-blind, randomised controlled trial (CONDI-2/ERIC-PPCI) at 33 centres across the UK, Denmark, Spain, and Serbia. Patients (age >18 years) with suspected STEMI and who were eligible for PPCI were randomly allocated (1:1, stratified by centre with a permuted block method) to receive standard treatment (including a sham simulated remote ischaemic conditioning intervention at UK sites only) or remote ischaemic conditioning treatment (intermittent ischaemia and reperfusion applied to the arm through four cycles of 5-min inflation and 5-min deflation of an automated cuff device) before PPCI. Investigators responsible for data collection and outcome assessment were masked to treatment allocation. The primary combined endpoint was cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure at 12 months in the intention-to-treat population. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02342522) and is completed. FINDINGS: Between Nov 6, 2013, and March 31, 2018, 5401 patients were randomly allocated to either the control group (n=2701) or the remote ischaemic conditioning group (n=2700). After exclusion of patients upon hospital arrival or loss to follow-up, 2569 patients in the control group and 2546 in the intervention group were included in the intention-to-treat analysis. At 12 months post-PPCI, the Kaplan-Meier-estimated frequencies of cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure (the primary endpoint) were 220 (8·6%) patients in the control group and 239 (9·4%) in the remote ischaemic conditioning group (hazard ratio 1·10 [95% CI 0·91-1·32], p=0·32 for intervention versus control). No important unexpected adverse events or side effects of remote ischaemic conditioning were observed. INTERPRETATION: Remote ischaemic conditioning does not improve clinical outcomes (cardiac death or hospitalisation for heart failure) at 12 months in patients with STEMI undergoing PPCI. FUNDING: British Heart Foundation, University College London Hospitals/University College London Biomedical Research Centre, Danish Innovation Foundation, Novo Nordisk Foundation, TrygFonden

A Subjective Approach to Contracts?: How Courts Interpret Employee Handbook Disclaimers

Although employment law in America generally operates under the presumption that employment for an unspecified term is at-will, recently courts have been creating exceptions to this rule in order to afford employees more legal protections. This paper will focus on the judicially created handbook exception under which courts find that an employee handbook can be contractually binding on an employee and, therefore, may transform an employment relationship from one that is at-will to one that is for-cause. Specifically, the paper will examine cases where courts have analyzed employee handbooks which include a disclaimer enunciating that the handbook is, indeed, not a contract, despite the fact that the handbook, itself, contains terms seemingly creating an employment contract. American courts handling such cases have come to very different conclusions as to the legal effect of these disclaimers. This paper will focus on six pairs of matched cases with similar fact patterns, but which ultimately conclude differently on the issue. I will try to parse out what I believe to be the courts\u27 underlying rationales in these cases in an attempt to see if there is any unifying theory under which courts either decide in favor of the employee or employer in such cases. Ultimately, I will conclude that courts whose decisions favor employers seem to focus on the intent of the employer in including the disclaimer in the handbook, while courts who find for employees seem to focus on the reasonable expectations of the employee as influenced by the entirety of the handbook. I will conclude by discussing recent studies on employee understanding of the at-will regime and how employees\u27 apparent misunderstanding of the concept of employment at will may necessarily have to affect the courts\u27 future reasoning in these cases

Is More Parental Leave Always Better?: An Analysis of Potential Employee Protections for Leave Offered Outside the FMLA

In the past few years, many large companies, including Netflix, Amazon and Facebook have implemented expanded—and very generous—parental leave policies. While on the surface these policies seem employee-friendly and even big-hearted, when one explores the potential consequences of taking such leave, the policies are fraught with potential dangers for employees. In a groundbreaking new study, researchers have found that employers view time off or flexible work arrangements made for an employee’s personal reasons as negatively reflecting on an employee’s work commitment. But what happens if a company decides to terminate an employee because they have taken leave and are viewed as less dedicated to the firm? Are any legal protections available for an employee in that position? This Article is the first to explore this timely and relevant topic. As it turns out, any legal protections an employee may have vary by state and, consequently, are largely inconsistent. Even where a cause of action is recognized, the contours of the protections vary greatly by the actual wording of the policies. This Article reviews such protections and suggests new theories under which employees could be protected from adverse consequences stemming from using a company’s parental leave. Ultimately, this Article concludes that viewing the policy as a type of unilateral contract potentially provides the most comprehensive protection for employees in this circumstance