Over the last two decades, over two-thirds of the states have enacted legislation authorizing use of marijuana and marijuana products for medical purposes by persons with debilitating conditions. See, e.g., Va. Code § 18.2-251.1. At present, over one-third of the states have also decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana and marijuana products for recreational…
LABOR & EMPLOYMENT LAW: Love in the Time of COVID-19
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a fertile source of new litigation: challenges to mask mandates, challenges to vaccine mandates, construction of child custody visitation agreements in light of COVID-19, assertion of the defense of impossibility in response to attempted enforcement of a contract, etc. Recently, a federal district court in Virginia addressed whether an individual…
EMPLOYMENT: LGBTQ Employees Are Protected by Federal Antidiscrimination Statute, Supreme Court Holds
An employer that discharges an individual for being LGBTQ violates Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Supreme Court held 6-3 in one of the last decisions of its October 2019 term. Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, 140 S. Ct. 1731, 207 L. Ed. 2d 218 (2020). Title VII contains the well-known…
RECENT LEGISLATION PROVIDES CORONAVIRUS RELIEF FOR THE AMERICAN WORKFORCE
On March 18, 2020, the federal Families First Coronavirus Response Act of 2020 (Families First Act) [Pub. L. No. 116-127] was signed into law. The measure is the second in a series of recent legislative attempts to ameliorate the adverse health and economic effects of the novel coronavirus COVID-19 in the United States. The Act…