Does your company monitor its network or devices for network security or data confidentiality? Does your company have any policies or practices that seek access to any employees’ personal online accounts? If so, a recent amendment to Illinois’ Right to Privacy in the Workplace Act (“Act”) may require your company to adopt or revise its policies or practices to comply with the law.
Expands the scope of protected content. The amendment has shifted the focus from social networking accounts or profiles to personal online accounts (POAs). A POA is “an online account, that is ...
In insurance coverage litigation, does an insurance company have to identify and produce documents regarding the company’s handling of prior unrelated claims?
Insurance companies often object to such requests on the grounds that they are irrelevant, overly broad, unduly burdensome, and even protected by a privilege. In the Illinois Appellate Court Fifth District’s recent decision in Zagorski v. Allstate Ins. Co., 2016 IL App (5th) 140056, however, the appellate court rather emphatically held that the insured could seek such discovery, at least under the facts and ...
I remember in drivers’ education class being shown the obligatory scary movie on railroad crossing accidents. After the wreck, one salty old train engineer says to another, looking at the demolished car, “Why don’t they learn, Slim?” “I don’t know, Jim,” the other fellow says, scratching his furrowed brow.
In the information security world, we are past the need for scare tactics. Only an ostrich might be oblivious to the heightened cyber risks these days and their increasing frequency. Nevertheless, periodically you see cautionary reminders of mistakes that are ...
Crystalline silica (“silica”) is a mineral found in materials such as sand, concrete, stone and mortar that are used in industrial products and at construction sites. Silica is also used in the manufacture of glass, pottery, ceramics, bricks, concrete and artificial stone. Medical studies have concluded that inhalation of silica can cause silicosis (a lung disease marked by scarring of the lungs) and increases the risk of lung cancer, COPD, and kidney disease. Exposure to silica is widespread in the construction and maritime industries, as well as in numerous general industry ...
Annually, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is required to revise the basic thresholds used to determine reportability of transactions under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976, as amended (HSR Act), based on the change in our gross national product. Once again the thresholds have increased. The changes were effective February 27, 2017.
Most importantly, the minimum “size of transaction” threshold is increased to $80.8 million from $78.2 million last year. Accordingly, an acquisition, merger, or joint venture where at least $80.8 million of assets ...
A new Illinois law requires employers with at least 50 employees to provide FMLA-eligible employees up to 10 workdays of unpaid leave to attend a child’s funeral (or its alternative), to make necessary arrangements resulting from the death of a child, or to grieve a child’s death. The new law, aptly titled the Child Bereavement Leave Act, took effect on July 29, 2016
The Act defines “child” as “an employee’s son or daughter who is a biological, adopted, or foster child, a stepchild, a legal ward, or a child of a person standing in loco parentis.” There is no age limit in the ...
A Meaningful Class Action Defense Tool?
On May 16, 2016 the High Court finally spoke on Spokeo, the long anticipated case involving what injury is necessary to sustain Article III standing in federal court. Some predicted a blow to consumer protection and privacy related class actions in which neither the class representative nor the class as a whole suffered anything but a technical federal statutory violation without real harm.
In the underlying case, Thomas Robins claimed that Spokeo published false information about him on its search engine site, in violation of his rights under ...
Class Certification of TCPA Claims in Sandusky Wellness Center, LLC v. MedTox Scientific, Inc.
Alexander Bain, a Scotsman, worked on an experimental fax machine in the 1840’s, synchronizing the movement of two pendulums through a clock to scan messages on a line by line basis. Bain’s work resulted in a patent issued May 27, 1843 for “improvements in producing and regulating electric currents and improvements in timepieces, and in electric printing, and signal telegraphs.” The rudimentary fax machine preceded Alexander Graham Bell’s invention of the telephone. Who ...
Unleashing a Trade Secret Misappropriation Federal Private Right of Action
President Obama is poised to sign a bill passed unanimously by the Senate and House Judiciary Committee. What issue of the day could possibly secure such bipartisan support in a tumultuous presidential election year? One that even Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders could agree upon.
The emergence of relatively anonymous cyber threats and persistent state-sponsored economic espionage, together with breaches of confidence and traditional bribery, corrupt employee, and misrepresentation schemes, simply ...
Garretson Resolution Group (Garretson) conducted a meeting in January, 2015 attended by HeplerBroom, other members of the asbestos defense bar, and counsel for asbestos plaintiffs. At the meeting, it introduced its new Asbestos Malignancy Alternative Resolution Process (which Garretson refers to as the AMP). Garretson stated that several years ago, it reached an agreement with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pertaining to settlement of non-malignant asbestos injury cases. Garretson said that this earlier agreement was designed to streamline the ...
