Employment Law Notebook

Trenton, NJ

By Lisa I. Fried-Grodin

This Thursday June 23, 2016, the New Jersey Senate is scheduled to vote on a bill that would make New Jersey the third state in the country to increase the minimum wage to $15 per hour.  The New Jersey Assembly passed the bill in May. If approved, the bill would be sent to Governor Chris Christie. 

Yesterday, the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected an employer’s attempt to control the number of potential discrimination lawsuits by contractually requiring employees to bring such claims within six months.  Referencing the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination’s (“NJLAD”) critical role in eradicating discrimination in the workplace, the Court in its new decision, Sergio Rodriguez v.

Today's announcement means that many more people will be entitled to overtime. I expect the largest impact to be among administrative assistants, "assistant managers", and the like who have office or non-manual jobs.

Regardless one's view on whether $15 per hour minimum wage is a good thing or not (which, is something that fundamentally should be decided by lawmakers), even the most business-friendly Justices had to reject a super-tenuous argument based on discrimination against small business vs.

The following story shows the immediate impact of the death of Justice Scalia. Had he not died last month, this decision would surely have gone the other way and changed the landscape of the law surrounding competing principles between right to work vs.

This is the first case of it's kind that I am aware of that has been allowed to proceed. It's hard to tell how it will ultimately be decided.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has just issued a ruling that deals a serious blow to the practice of tip pooling. It remains to be seen of other federal circuits (or SCOTUS) will follow suit. I expect that this is where the trend is heading.

On March 10, 2016 (12:30pm EST), Jonathan Meyers will present a CLE seminar, through Lawline.com, which will be a Primer on Employee Handbooks in New Jersey.  Follow the link to see the program summary or register:

http://www.lawline.com/cle/course/a-primer-on-nj-employee-handbooks

Meyers Fried-Grodin LLP has been accepted into the 2016 Legal Directory for the New Jersey Business & Industry Association (NJBIA).  You can check out the NJBIA at http://www.njbia.org/

The New Jersey Appellate Division issued a decision holding that arbitration clauses (i.e., an agreement by an employee to arbitrate legal claims and give up the right to a jury trial in court), are invalid if they are contained in an employee manual which contains an at-will disclaimer -- which almost all prudent employers do include in t