On Tuesday, November 16, 2021, litigation pending in several federal circuits regarding the federal vaccine/testing mandate described below was consolidated in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Below, we summarize the mandate, discuss the various court developments, and provide guidance as to steps employers could take while the...
While Congress is busy debating changes to federal tax law, the IRS continues to operate on the basis of existing provisions. Over the last week, a number of updates have been issued by the IRS regarding inflation adjustments. Below is a summary of the recent announcements for calendar year 2022. INCOME TAXATION On November 10, 2021, the...
Nursing homes participating in Medicare and Medicaid must have all non-exempt staff fully vaccinated against COVID-19 no later than January 4, 2022, under an emergency regulation issued November 4. Exemptions are allowed for staff with certain recognized medical conditions or religious beliefs. The emergency regulation, issued by the Centers for...
For nearly a year, various proposals and so-called “frameworks” have been debated in Congress regarding changes to the federal estate and gift tax laws. Nearly all would have (i) reduced the amount that individuals could gift during lifetime or bequeath at death before application of federal transfer taxes, (ii) eliminated the so-called “step...
The Consumer Price Index (or CPI) is a set of indexes generated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) that measures “the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of goods and services.” Historically, CPI has been used in commercial real estate leases and ground leases “escalation clauses” or “index clauses” in an attempt to...
Social media is in the middle of many things we do these days. Thus, intellectual property law gets pulled right in and failure to take basic steps to protect your assets can be detrimental to your intellectual property rights(1). This article focuses on three well-known intellectual property types, their interaction with social media, and...
On September 9, 2021, President Biden directed the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to develop a rule that will require all employers with 100 or more employees to ensure their workforce is fully vaccinated or require any unvaccinated workers to produce a negative test on a minimally weekly basis prior to...
The M&A market has been booming, with the last five years moving at a head-spinning pace. COVID-19 may have momentarily dampened the market, but the fourth quarter of 2020 rebounded to be the strongest quarter in recent memory. 2021 is setting up to look even stronger, but all good things come to an end. Eventually. Given all the...
By: Laurie E. Meyer Many employers utilize “restrictive covenant” agreements (such as non-compete agreements, non-solicitation agreements, and non-disclosure agreements) to protect their confidential information, customer relationships, trade secrets or other intellectual property, and to otherwise prevent unfair competition. This article will...
By: Anne V. O'Meara and Laurie E. Meyer On August 18th, President Biden announced that his Administration will require nursing homes to mandate staff to be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition for facilities to receive funding from Medicare and Medicaid. This new requirement would apply to nearly 15,000 nursing home facilities, which employ...
