The landscape of federal military leave law may be shifting. In the past three years, four federal appellate courts have held that an employer may be required to offer paid leave for an employee’s military service where the leave is comparable to paid leave offered by the employer for non-military reasons. Employers in these jurisdictions and other jurisdictions should consider reviewing their leave and paid leave policies with legal counsel to assess their potential obligations.

The federal Uniformed Services Employee and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) provides, in ...

In June 2022, in S.W. Airlines Co. v. Saxon, 142 S. Ct. 1783 (2022), the Supreme Court weighed in on the scope of arbitration agreements in employment contracts for transportation workers. Saxon, a ramp supervisor at Southwest Airlines who worked loading and unloading cargo from aircrafts, brought a putative class action against Southwest for allegedly violating the Fair Labor Standards Act by not providing ramp workers with overtime compensation despite requiring them to work over forty hours a week. Southwest argued that Saxon was bound by the arbitration provision in Saxon’s ...

Under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an employer may not discriminate against any individual because of the individual’s religion. To comply with this requirement, employers must reasonably accommodate an employee’s sincerely held religious belief and practice, unless doing so would present an undue hardship. The Supreme Court has declined to review two cases where it could have clarified when a religious accommodation is reasonable, and federal appellate courts currently are divided on the issue.

On May 25, 2022, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals joined the ...