Category: Employment Law
Significant Changes to Retirement Plans Proposed
April 3, 2019 | Barna, Guzy & Steffen, Ltd.As of April 2, 2019, there are two bills rapidly moving through Congress with bipartisan support. The Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement Act of 2019 (“SECURE”) passed the House and the Senate has proposed the Retirement Enhancement Security Act of 2019 (“RESA”). The bills are very similar and because there is bipartisan support it is likely that something will be passed soon. Some of the proposed changes are as follows: 1. Encourage employees to participate in automatic contributions in 401(k) plans and require employers to provide estimates of how much an employee’s account would provide employees if it were invested in an annuity. 2. Make it easier for small employers to join other employers in multiple-employer plans. 3. Easing nondiscrimination rules for frozen defined benefit plans. 4. Adding a safe harbor for selecting lifetime income providers in defined contribution plans. 5. Increase the automatic enrollment safe harbor cap from 10{a0c01d20c42349884e67ff80c137866b0a9fe47aaae8f8a86a605a369ae487c3} to 15{a0c01d20c42349884e67ff80c137866b0a9fe47aaae8f8a86a605a369ae487c3}. 6. Require employers to allow long time, part time employees to participate in their 401(k) plans. 7. SECURE would change the required minimum distribution age that distributions must begin from age 70 ½ to 72 years old. RESA does not include this provision.
Read MoreFMLA Boot Camp
March 18, 2019 | Tyler W. EubankThe Basics The Family Medical Leave Act, or FMLA, allows employees to take 12–26 months of unpaid leave for their own or a family member’s medical reasons. The FMLA generally applies to employers who have 50 or more employees. An employee covered by the FMLA must have been employed for at least a year and has worked at least 1,250 hours during preceding 12-month period. Intermittent FMLA and Reduced Leave Schedules Taking FMLA for a medical procedure or illness is one matter, it is another when that illness comes and goes unexpectedly. This is where intermittent FMLA and reduced leave schedules come into play. Intermittent FMLA allows employees to take FMLA in periodic blocks of time. For example, a pregnant mother may take days off in order to attend prenatal doctor appointments. Likewise, a migraine sufferer may use intermittent FMLA for migraine flare-ups. A reduced leave schedule allows an employee to reduce the number of hours the employee works in a day or a week. This is generally allowed for an employee recovering from an illness who is not yet able to work their full schedule. Certification The preceding likely has you begging the questions: What illnesses are covered and how do I know that the illnesses are real? The FMLA only applies…
Read MoreDefending Against ADA Lawsuits
October 1, 2018 | Bradley KletscherCoauthored by Bradley A. Kletscher and Tyler W. Eubank Generally. The Americans with Disabilities Act (commonly known as the “ADA”) is a federal law meant to protect persons with disabilities from discrimination. To that end, the ADA requires that businesses open to the public remove architectural barriers where such removal is readily achievable. The Department of Justice has produced the ADA Accessibility Guidelines, voluminous guidance on design specifications covering everything from the height of counters to the placement of braille signage on elevators. The ADA also allows persons affected by discrimination in the form of architectural barriers to seek injunctive relief from courts compelling business owners to make changes to their establishments. [maxbutton id=”1″ ] ADA Abuse. Enter ADA “drive-by” lawsuits. These lawsuits trace a predictable pattern: a disabled person, as defined by the ADA, goes to a business looking for non-compliance with ADA regulations. Due to the vast number of regulations, the business is often found not to be in compliance with ADA regulations; there may be too narrow of an accessibility strip next to a reserved parking space, too steep of a curb cut, too low signage for reserved spaces, too narrow of aisles, too high of a counter, or too high of a grab bar in the restroom. In one…
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