The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 1st Circuit (whose rulings apply to all Rhode Island employers) recently affirmed summary judgment (dismissal without a trial) in favor of Amtrak on an employee’s claim of race discrimination.
The Rhode Island federal court recently held that a buyer of an employer’s assets can be liable for the seller’s violations of federal and state wage laws, even if the buyer is a separate entity with distinct management and ownership from that of the seller. If the buyer continues the seller’s business operations, it should conduct careful due diligence and confirm that the seller will have sufficient assets after the sale to satisfy any lingering debts.
Perhaps you have heard the maxim “ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
We represented an individual who was falsely charged with a first-degree sexual assault.
On January 20, 2017, the First Circuit Court of Appeals vacated a decision from the National Labor Relations Board, which had concluded that our client violated the law by maintaining a policy that gave hiring preference to its non-union employees for non-union positions that was similar to the preference that the client’s union employees received under their collective bargaining agreement for positions within their bargaining unit.