The Florida Third District Court of Appeal unanimously expanded the rights of private employees to sue for workplace discrimination under a local Miami-Dade County ordinance. In White v. AutoZone Investment Corp., No. 3D21-598 (Fla. 3d DCA June 15, 2022), the Third District held that the “plain and unambiguous language” of section 11A-28(10) of the Miami-Dade County Code establishes a private cause of action for employees who file employment discrimination complaints under the ordinance.

The United States Supreme Court held in Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana that individual claims under California’s Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) may be divided from the PAGA action and forced into arbitration, which then causes the individual plaintiff to lose standing to act as a group-wide PAGA representative. This holding opens a path for employers around the holding in Iskanian v. CLS Transp. Los Angeles, LLC, which precluded the division of PAGA actions into individual and representative claims through an agreement to arbitrate.

The patchwork of state laws that impact transportation-related claims can create substantial headaches for companies that operate across state lines. To assist businesses in navigating this complexity, Lewis Brisbois' National Transportation Practice attorneys have developed "cheat sheets" for most of the United States, with more coming soon.

On October 1, 2021, Governor Gavin Newsom signed into law AB 447, which amends California Code of Civil Procedure Section 377.34. This new law allows recovery of damages for pain, suffering, or disfigurement by a decedent’s personal representative or successor in interest, by way of a survival action, following the death of the decedent.

Respondeat superior claims in Georgia continue to be a hot button topic. Several key legal updates occurred, which swung the needle in both directions, affecting both liberal and conservative applications of the claim.

The New York legal community is closely following the status of Bill S74A, also known as the Grieving Families Act. As discussed in our previous update, if signed into law, the Act would greatly increase the recoverable damages in wrongful death actions and, as written, would have retroactive effect on all pending lawsuits in the state.

In March 2022, in response to the Russia Federation's actions in the Ukraine conflict, the U.S. Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued sanctions targeting Russian “elites and business executives who are associates and facilitators of the Russian regime." This alert details the reach of existing authority exemplified by the seizure of the motor yacht Amadea. The Amadea is a 348-foot yacht worth $300 million owned by sanctioned Russian oligarch Suleiman Kerimov.

On June 17, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) published two proposed rules targeted at environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment disclosures. The proposed rules would require certain investment advisers and companies to provide specific disclosures regarding their ESG investment practices and, where applicable, information substantiating their use of ESG-related names.