Sooner rather than later, medical marijuana will be a reality in Ohio. Currently, there are three separate efforts to enact this law: two ballot initiatives and one piece of legislation.
What does this mean for Ohio employers? Let’s start with the legislation, H.B. 523.
There is little argument that the U.S. lags behind the rest of the civilized world on paid sick leave. As the federal government has failed to act on this issue for all but a small minority of federal-contractor employees, the state and local governments have started to pick up the slack.
Now, Ohio is considering getting in the game. H.B. 511—the Family and Medical Leave Insurance Benefits Act [pdf]—would, in essence, create state-administered short-term disability insurance for employees who need time off for an FMLA-covered reason.
The Browns still can’t beat the Broncos, and, it appears that Ohio’s proposed off-duty conduct law is a whole lot worse for employers than Colorado’s similar (but very different) statute.
I received an email from a long-standing reader, asking if I could reconcile my opinion that Ohio’s proposed off-duty conduct law would prohibit an Ohio employer from terminating an employee for off-duty marijuana use if Issue 3 [pdf] passes, with the decision of the Colorado Supreme Court in Coates v Dish Network [pdf], which held that Colorado’s off-duty conduct law did not prohibit such a termination despite that state’s legalization of pot.
It all comes down to statutory language.
Raise your hand if you think that it needs to be easier for workers to unionize? If I could look through my computer screen, I’d see very few of my readers’ hands raised.
Two hands that would be raised, though, are those of Washington Senator Patty Murray and Virginia Congressman Bobby Scott (both Dems), who, last week, introduced and sponsored the Workplace Action for a Growing Economy (WAGE) Act.
What would the WAGE Act do?
What else do you need to know about the WAGE Act? It’s supported by the AFL-CIO, the Teamsters, the Communication Workers of America, The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, The Century Foundation, and other worker-rights groups.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka described the legislation:
The WAGE Act puts corporations who abuse working people on notice that there will be real penalties for lawbreaking. Penalties like triple back pay, strong civil penalties and preliminary reinstatement.
Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa added:
For too long employers have manipulated and abused the system under the NLRA. The WAGE Act offers real reform to our current laws and provides worker protections through significant penalties that will discourage employers from acting illegally. It is long past time to bring our labor laws into the 21st century.
The Act’s co-author, Senator Murray, continued:
Too often, as workers are underpaid, overworked and treated unfairly on the job, some companies are doing everything they can to prevent them from having a voice in the workplace. The WAGE Act would strengthen protections for all workers and it would finally crack down on employers who break the law when workers exercise their basic right to collective action.
This bill has no chance to become law. But that’s not the point. The labor movement is setting up the 2016 election to be a referendum on the American working class. This bill is a symptom of this problem, not the solution. Nevertheless, it illustrates the class divide that could lead to a greater resurgence of organized labor.
As just-back-from-Sierra-Leone Kaci Kickox continues to fight efforts to bind her to a mandatory 21-day Ebola quarantine, states around the country continue to figure out how to deal with these very new issues.
Ohio (which was Ebola ground-zero only a few weeks ago) has entered the fray with H.B. 647. The bill would:
The bill has only just been introduced, and has not yet even been assigned to a committee. If any action is taken on this bill, I will pass it along.
In the meantime, employers need to be flexible with employees who have potentially been exposed to Ebola or other dangerous infectious diseases. If you send the employee home, do it with pay. Otherwise, you are inviting legislative fixes to what should be common-sense issues.
Way back in 2012, the New York Times published an op-ed titled, A Civil Right to Unionize, which argued that Title VII needs to be amended to include “the right to unionize” as a protected civil right. At the time, I argued that including “unionism” as a protected class was the worst idea ever. Apparently, at least one Congressman disagrees with me.
MSNBC is reporting that later this week Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn) “plans to unveil legislation that would make unionization into a legally protected civil right,” on par with “race, color, sex, religion and national origin.” His goal is to make it “easier for workers to take legal action against companies that violate their right to organize.”
I agree with Representative Ellison that employees should never be fired for “expressing an intent to support union activity.” The problem with his idea, however, is that this is a right that the law already protects. Sec. 8(a)(3) of the National Labor Relations Act makes it an unfair labor practice for an employer … by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment or any term or condition of employment to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.”
So there is no mistake on how I feel about this proposal, here’s what I said in March 2012, in response to the Times’s op-ed on this issue:
With apologies to union supporters, there is no reality in which “unionism” exists on the same level as race, sex, disability, or the other protected classes. The “greatest impediment” to unions isn’t “weak and anachronistic labor laws.” It’s intelligent and strong-willed employees who understand that whatever benefit they might receive from a labor union is not worth the dues that come out of their paychecks.
And, the reality is that despite all of this pro-union rhetoric, labor unions are doing just fine without any additional help. Unions wins more than two-thirds of representation elections. All this proposal does is increase the burden for employers, without providing any appreciable benefit to employees — which is why I feel comfortable asking if this proposal is the worst idea ever.
There is no chance this bill will go anywhere but the legislative trash heap if it’s introduced as promised. Nevertheless, it serves as a good reminder that there exists legislators who want to make you job as an employer harder than it already is.
One question employers ask me all the time is whether they can provide employees comp time (extra time off) in lieu of overtime. For private-sector employers, my answer is always the same—no.
I am hoping, however, that I soon may have to change my answer. Earlier this week, the Working Families Flexibility Act of 2013 [H.R. 1406] was introduced in Congress.
This bill would do all of the following:
The FLSA already provides similar rights to public sector employers. It’s about time that the law is changed to provide the same rights to those in the private sector. I’ll keep everyone updated if there is any movement on this bill.
Last week, seven Ohio democratic senators introduced Senate Bill 45, which would prohibit employers “from requiring an applicant or employee to provide access to private electronic accounts of the applicant or employee.” It is identical to last year’s S.B. 351, which never made it out of committee. I have a feeling this year’s S.B. 45 will meet a similar fate, which is a good thing. For an analysis of what this bill says, you can read last year’s blog post on S.B. 351.
This bill has lots wrong with it.
It attempts to add to Ohio’s protected classes. It would elevate asking an employee for a social media login or password to the same level of importance as discrimination based on race, sex, religious, national origin, age, disability, and military status. For a practice in which few, if any, employers engage, such protections are over reaching and beyond ridiculous.
It contains no exceptions for internal investigations. Suppose, for example, Jane Doe reports that a co-worker is sending her sexually explicit messages via Facebook. You have an absolute duty under both Title VII and Ohio’s employment discrimination statute to investigate and take whatever remedial action is necessary to ensure that any misconduct ends. Yet, this bill would prohibit you from even asking the accused to provide access to his Facebook account as part of your investigation.
It contains no exceptions for regulated industries. For example, registered representatives have special rules that dictate what they can or cannot say to clients and prospective clients via social media. FINRA requires employers to track and maintain records of the communications between registered reps and the public. Yet, this bill would prohibit a securities firm from requiring its registered reps to turn over these communications. It would also prohibit the firm from even asking for access to a rep’s social media account to investigate a customer complaint or regulatory issue.
Check out the penalties. In addition to civil fines, violations bring into play the full panoply of damages available under Ohio’s civil rights statute, including compensatory damages, pain and suffering, emotional distress, and punitive damages.
Just because something is a bad HR practice does not mean we need a law to regulate it. Nevertheless, the solution proposed by S.B. 45 has so many problems that, as proposed, it presents an unworkable and dangerous solution to an illusory problem.
photo credit: totumweb via photopin ccAs Senate Bill 383—Ohio’s attempt at comprehensive employment discrimination reform—weaves its way through the legislative process, a lot of blood is going to be spilled. In fact, it started yesterday in the comments to my post discussing the legislation.
One of the key battlegrounds will be the issue of whether Ohio’s discrimination law should provide for liability of managers and supervisors for their own individual acts of discrimination. My friends from the plaintiffs’ bar (and, yes, they are my friends) accuse me of protecting those who should be punished. Nothing could be less accurate.
To put this issue into context, I need to take a step back and explain why individual liability is an issue at all. It is universally accepted that Title VII does not provide for the individual liability of supervisors and managers. Ohio’s counterpart, however, is different. In 1999—in Genaro v. Central Transport—the Ohio Supreme Court held that contrary to federal law, Ohio’s state employment discrimination statute renders supervisors and managers personally liable for their own discriminatory acts.
S.B. 383 eliminates this difference, and brings Ohio’s statute in line with its federal counterpart by eliminating individual liability.
Opponents of this legislation argue that individual liability for managers and supervisors is needed to properly deter discriminatory and harassing behavior and hold accountable those who perpetrate it.
This argument is a fallacy. Employees aggrieved by invidious and intentional discrimination or harassment have claims available against the individual perpetrators—assault, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, invasion of privacy, and defamation, to name just a few. These civil remedies are in addition to criminal penalties that one can seek for the most egregious misconduct.
Opponents of this legislation argue that it protects sexual predators.
In addition to being offensive, headline grabbing hyperbole, this argument also is a fallacy. If you believe that the employment discrimination laws should punish predatory behavior, then the availability of a remedy should neither depend on the employment status of the accused, nor the statute under which the suit is brought. Yet, currently, only managers and supervisors can be held liable. One can never sue a non-supervisor or non-managerial co-worker for discrimination, no matter how bad the conduct. Moreover, one can bring suit against a manager or supervisor under state law; federal law provides no such remedy. If we are really concerned about punishing predators, then we shouldn't differentiate between supervisors and non-supervisors, or between state and federal laws.
Opponents of this legislation argue that the only reason employers want to eliminate individual liability is to expand the availability of the removal of cases to federal court.
This argument is also a fallacy. When an Ohio plaintiff sues a non-Ohio company in state court under state law, the employer can take the case to federal court. Adding a local manager or supervisor as a defendant eliminates this possibility. The reality is that if a plaintiff wants to keep a case in state court, he or she will find a cause of action to name a non-diverse individual defendant, whether or not a statutory claim exists against that individual under the employment discrimination statute.
By focusing on the rare example of a workplace sexual predator, opponents of S.B. 383 gloss over the real harm caused by individual liability. Consider this example. Jane Doe, a supervisor for ABC Company, has to fire a poor performing employee. She has counseled the employee repeatedly for the past two years, but his performance has not improved. Unfortunately for Jane Doe, this employee happens to be the only African-American in her department. Five years after the termination, Jane Doe’s doorbell rings at 9 p.m. She answers her apartment door to find a process server, lawsuit in hand. The employee she had terminated five years earlier has sued Jane Doe, in addition to her company, for race discrimination. Ms. Doe had done nothing other than her job. Now, she is forced to defend against allegations of discrimination and bigotry.
This example is much more common than the workplace sexual predator that the opponents of S.B. 383 hold out as the standard bearer. There is little, if any benefit to keeping individual liability as a part of Ohio’s employment discrimination statute, and it is a key facet of this reform that must become part of the law of this state.
On September 19, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act [pdf] was introduced in the Senate. It is identical to the bill by the same name introduced in the House back in May. The bill would amend Title VII to to require an employer to make a reasonable accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. At the time, I critiqued the bill as unnecessary:
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act [already] requires employers to treat pregnant employees the same (no better and no worse) as other employees based on their ability or inability to work. In other words, the law already requires that employers provide the same accommodations for an expectant worker that you do for any un-pregnant employee unable to perform his or her regular job duties.
Have you ever offered light duty to an employee returning from an injury? Have you ever reassigned job functions to assist an injured worker? Unless you are among the tiniest minority of employers that provides no accommodations for any employees’ medical issues or injuries, then the PDA already requires you to accommodate your employees’ pregnancies.
Last Friday, HuffPost Live ran a story on the re-introduction of this legislation. The host, Nancy Redd, cited my May blog post as support for the argument that this bill is unneeded. Some on the panel took issue with those that argue against the need for this legislation.
So that my position is crystal clear, I am not saying that pregnant women should be discriminated against. What I am saying, however, is that because the law requires employers to accommodate pregnant women at least at the same level as they accommodate any other employee with a similarly disabling short-term medical condition, Title VII already guarantees the rights laid out in the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
In other words, we do not need legislation to duplicate rights that already exist. If employers are not granting these rights, and pregnant workers are not receiving the accommodations they need and are requesting, then pregnant workers should be filing discrimination lawsuits. The answer lies in educating employers on their obligations under existing laws, not passing new, duplicative ones.
It was only a matter of time before Ohio joined the list of states to introduce legislation that would prohibit employers from asking for social media passwords. Senate Bill 351, introduced late last week, would amend Ohio’s employment discrimination statue to make it an “unlawful discriminatory practice” for employers to do any of the following:
The bill defines “private electronic account” as “a collection of electronically stored private information regarding an individual, including such collections stored on social media internet web sites, in electronic mail, and on electronic devices.” It then broadly defines “social media internet web site” as “an internet web site that allows individuals to do all of the following”:
The bill does not prohibit an employer from monitoring the electronic accounts of employees or applicants on the employer’s own Email or Internet system.
As far an enforcement, the bill would permit aggrieved individuals to file a charge of discrimination with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission, or a private cause of action in court. It also allows the OCRC to levy fines of up to $1,000 for the first violation and up to $2,000 for each subsequent violation.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, this is not a problem that needs fixing. Companies simply aren’t engaging in the type of conduct this bill seeks to legislate. I am troubled that the path this legislature chose is to seek to make this an unlawful discriminatory practice, on the same plane as race, sex, age, and disability discrimination. Moreover, there are no exceptions for industries that might have a legitimate reason to know what applicants or employees are doing on social sites (schools, police departments, financial services). The lack of any exceptions is a glaring omission from this legislation.
This bill is in its infancy. I will continue to monitor its status and update you with any movement in Columbus.
On the New York Times’s Motherlode blog, KJ Dell’Antonia discusses her belief that we need another law to protect pregnant women in the workplace:
Pregnancy is specifically not covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act, which requires that employers provide reasonable accommodations to disabled employees who need them to do their jobs…. But to have a healthy pregnancy, women must make adjustments—call them accommodations—for the baby they’re carrying…. Pregnant women are protected by the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act, but protection against discrimination does not require accommodation. Sometimes equal treatment is not enough to allow a woman to stay on the job—and no one benefits from pregnant women being forced to choose between her doctor’s advice and her supervisor’s demands.
Ms. Dell’Antonia then lends her support to a nascent piece of federal legislation, The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.
I take issue with Ms. Dell’Antonia’s central premise that the Pregnancy Discrimination Act does not require accommodations for pregnant workers. The PDA requires employers to treat pregnant employees the same (no better and no worse) as other employees based on their ability or inability to work. In other words, the law already requires that employers provide the same accommodations for an expectant worker that you do for any un-pregnant employee unable to perform his or her regular job duties.
Have you ever offered light duty to an employee returning from an injury? Have you ever reassigned job functions to assist an injured worker? Unless you are among the tiniest minority of employers that provides no accommodations for any employees’ medical issues or injuries, then the PDA already requires you to accommodate your employees’ pregnancies.
We do not need legislation to require an employer to make a reasonable accommodation for pregnancy, childbirth, and related medical conditions. The PDA already implicitly allows for these accommodations. I’m not taking a stand against the rights of pregnant women (which I support). I am, however, taking a stand against duplicative legislation, regardless of the soundness of the policy or the worthiness of the beneficiary.
The public outcry against employers requiring the job applicants turn over their Facebook passwords has resulted in legislation. Maryland has become the first state to prohibit employers from requiring or seeking user names, passwords, or any other means to access Internet sites such as Facebook as a condition of employment. Demonstrating the outrage over this issue, the measure passed both house of Maryland’s General Assembly with 96% support.
The law—entitled, “User Name and Password Privacy Protection and Exclusions” (full text here [pdf])—prohibits Maryland employers:
The law exempts employers that are conducting investigations into compliance with securities or financial laws or regulations, and investigations into the unauthorized downloading of the employer’s proprietary information or financial data to an employee’s personal website.
Eric Meyer, at The Employer Handbook blog, nicely summarizes the main critiques of this bill:
[T]he Maryland Chamber of Commerce opposed the prohibition because the bills did not acknowledge there could be legitimate issues for some employers to want to review applicants' or workers' social media messages.
What concerns me is that there are no carve-outs for public agencies that protect and serve the public. I can understand why a police department may need to fully vet its candidates by making sure that applicants and officers don’t have hate speech towards a particular protected class, for example, on their Facebook page. As I imagine that this information could be used to overturn arrests and indictments.
While I agree with Eric’s take, my critique is more about the small percentage of employers who engage in this practice:
Legal issues aside, this story raises another, more fundamental, question—what type of employer do you want to be? Do you want to be viewed as Big Brother? Do you want a paranoid workforce? Do you want your employees to feel invaded and victimized as soon as they walk in the door, with no sense of personal space or privacy? Or, do you value transparency? Do you want HR practices that engender honesty, and openness, and that recognize that employees are entitled to a life outside of work? … Requiring passwords is not smart.
This law affects you only if: 1) you engage in business in Maryland; and 2) you are among what I believe is the small minority of business that are requiring applicants and employees to turn over social media logins and passwords. Nevertheless, I would expect other states to follow suit, and use the Maryland legislation as a model.
Even if few public sector employers, and fewer private sector employers, are engaging in this practice, this issue bears monitoring.
[Hat tip: The Hill]
Dear Connecticut,
I read on the Connecticut Employment Law Blog that your state legislature passed its controversial paid sick leave bill. Your Governor supports the measure and is expected to sign it. Beginning January 1, 2012, the law will mandate that many of your state’s employers with 50 or more employees provide 40 hours per year of paid sick leave to most full-time employees.
A few years ago, we Ohioans expected to vote on a similar measure via a statewide referendum. Our then-Governor (a Democrat) recognized the detriment such a measure would pose to our state’s ability to attract and retain the businesses we so sorely need. He struck a deal with the sponsoring labor unions pulling the Health Families Act from the ballot. Our state’s economy still isn’t great, but it’s better than it would have been if the Act had passed three years ago.
Connecticut Republican Representative John Rigby shares the same concerns about your state’s ability to attract and retain businesses (as quoted on NPR.org), “They’re going to have to shed jobs…. They’re going to have to let people go. They’re going to have to make a decision about whether to open the next brew pub in Connecticut or in Massachusetts or Rhode Island—states that are considered more business-friendly than our state.” Adds Kia Murrell, assistant counsel for the Connecticut Business & Industry Assoc. (as quoted on MSNBC.com), “Today is the worst possible time to add one more thing…. It’s one more nail in the proverbial coffin.”
Connecticut, when your businesses are ready to flee to avoid this stifling mandate, we are happy to take them and the jobs they bring along.
Love,
Ohio, your (not quite) neighbor to the West
P.S.: Please help support a fellow labor & employment blogger, Daniel Schwartz, and click over to his Connecticut Employment Law Blog, which he re-launched yesterday with a brand new look and some cool new features.
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.
One of the biggest wage and hour mistakes a company can make is assuming that it is legal to pay comp time in lieu of overtime for any hours employees work in excess of 40 in a work week. Make no mistake, with the exception of state and local governments, it is illegal to pay comp time as a replacement for overtime wages.
Ohio House Bill 61, currently under consideration, is trying to change this rule for Ohio’s small businesses. HB 61 would allow workers to bank up to 240 hours of comp time per year. At the end of a year, employers would have to pay out overtime wages for any unused comp time. Covered workers would have the right to chose between comp time and overtime pay. Employers would be prohibited from requiring workers to elect comp time, in addition to threatening, intimidating, or firing workers who choose overtime wages.
Here’s the catch: this bill only applies to those small businesses covered by Ohio’s Fair Wage Standards Act but not covered by the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act—those that have gross annual gross sales between $150,000 and $499,999.99. Nevertheless, according to PolitiFact Ohio, this bill has the potential to reach at least 10,000 Ohio small businesses.
HB 61 is a significant move in the right direction to making Ohio a more business-friendly environment. By allowing small businesses the ability to offer comp time to employees, Ohio’s small businesses will be able to provide workplace flexibility that currently does not exist and that employees covet. This benefit will help Ohio attract and maintain the small businesses we need as the backbone of our economic recovery.
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.
The Democrats swept into office in January 2009 with promises of paradigm-shifting labor and employment law reforms: card check union recognition, Title VII coverage for sexual orientation and gender identity, expanded FMLA coverage, the end of arbitration agreements, and paid sick leave are but a few of the campaign issues on which the Democrats won the the White House and substantial majorities in both halves of Congress.
Yesterday, the Senate failed to vote to close debate on the Paycheck Fairness Act. That vote, coupled with the incoming Republican majority in the House, means that we likely have seen the end of any significant employment law reforms by the Obama administration’s first (only?) term. The scorecard is stunning. The lone significant employment law legislation to become law under Obama’s watch is the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which, in and of itself, is not all that significant. It affects the timeliness of discrimination claims, and potentially exposes businesses to more lawsuits. Yet, if you ranked the various pieces of legislation discussed and debated over the last two years, Ledbetter would rank pretty low in terms of societal impact.
In comparison, President Bush passed three key pieces of employment legislation during his last year in office: the FMLA military leave amendments, the ADA amendments, and the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. The significance of these three laws will be felt for years to come.
In early 2009, I joined the chorus of employment lawyers who believed that President Obama would change the landscape of labor and employment law. No one ever likes to be wrong. For the sake of American businesses, many of which are still trying to climb out of the worse recession in 80 years, I have never been so happy to have been off the mark.
Today, I am traveling to Columbus for the Ohio Chamber of Commerce’s Employment Law Committee meeting. For the uninitiated, the Ohio Chamber is our state’s voice for businesses and their policy interests. The Employment Law Committee tracks, dissects, and lobbies regarding employment-related legislation pending at the Statehouse. According to the agenda for our meeting [available as a pdf] we will discuss the following legislation:
Protect the rights of employees to decide whether to be represented by a collective bargaining unit through a private ballot process.
Reduce inconsistencies and duplication between state and federal employment laws.
Push for a law that allows an employer to offer the existence of an anti-discrimination policy as an affirmative defense to a discrimination claim.
Maintain the solvency of the state’s unemployment compensation trust fund by promoting measures that return unemployed workers to the workforce.
Advance legislation that models the federal process for claims filed at the Ohio Civil Rights Commission.
Later this week, I’ll report specific items of interest discussed at the meeting.
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.
Yesterday, the nation’s largest private employer asked the Supreme Court to review the class certification of the nation’s largest employment discrimination lawsuit. The case—Dukes v. Wal-Mart—is remarkable for several reasons:
Steven Greenhouse, at the New York Times, frames the dispute on the class certification issue:
Mr. Boutrous [one of Wal-Mart’s lawyers] said that even if the seven lead plaintiffs had suffered discrimination, that did not mean there was across-the-board bias at thousands of stores nationwide. He said the women’s claims should be tried individually, or if a manager discriminated against a store’s 200 women employees, then perhaps as a 200-member class action for those women.
Joseph Sellers, a lawyer for the plaintiffs, said the case should be a class action because Wal-Mart had and still has a common set of personnel policies at all of its stores. “We regard them as cookie-cutter operations that are similar to each other,” he said.
Wal-Mart—which strongly disputes liability and describes itself as “a leader in fostering the advancement and success of women in the workplace”—has asked the Supreme Court to review the propriety of a class action seeking money damages under the class action provision for injunctive or declaratory relief. The New York Times has available for download a PDF of Wal-Mart’s brief.
There is a lot at stake for businesses in the Supreme Court’s decision of whether to accept review of this class certification. A refusal by the Supreme Court to hear this case, or, worse yet, an affirming of the class by the Court, would greatly increase the risk for employers defending employment decisions (and resulting class actions) that involve disparate groups of employees, reporting to different managers, and working in different facilities. It would result in larger classes with a higher potential for recovery, neither of which is good for companies. It’s safe to say that the class action epidemic in this country would get a whole lot worse.
I am certain I will be one of many blogger commenting today on this case. For a snapshot of what some others have already said, take a look at the following:
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.