The New York Senate and Assembly recently passed Senate Bill S2844B to strengthen current laws for employees who are victims of wage theft to secure and collect unpaid wages from their employers for work already performed. This bill would amend five sections of the law (Lien Law; Labor Law; Attachment under the Civil Practice Law and Rules; the Business Corporations Law; and the Limited Liability Law). If signed by the Governor, this bill would create a broad right for any employee to obtain a lien on an employer’s property based on the allegation of a wage claim and would significantly increase employee power in such disputes.
Continue Reading New York Legislature Passes Bill Allowing Employees to Place a Lien on Employer’s Property for Wage Claims
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Ninth Circuit Denies Arbitration in a False Claims Act Case
By Melissa (Lisa) Thompson on
On September 11, 2017, the Ninth Circuit in US and State of Nevada ex rel. Welch v. My Left Foot Children’s Therapy, LLC, upheld the denial of the defendant’s motion to compel arbitration in a False Claims Act (FCA) relator case, holding that an employee-relator’s FCA claims did not fall within the scope of the arbitration agreement with her former employer. The FCA claims were based on allegations that the employer had filed fraudulent Medicaid claims.
The Court first looked to the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) in determining that interpretation of the arbitration agreement would generally be a matter of state law. Nevertheless, the Court also applied certain guiding principles of the FAA, including the rule as interpreted by the U.S. Supreme Court that “’questions of arbitrability must be addressed with a healthy regard for the federal policy favoring arbitration’” (quoting Moses H. Cone Mem’l Hosp. v. Mercury Constr. Corp., 460 U.S. 1, 24 (1983)).
In issuing its ruling, however, the Court did not foreclose the potential for arbitration agreements to include FCA claims within their scope.Continue Reading Ninth Circuit Denies Arbitration in a False Claims Act Case