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Alexandria Amerine

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Alexandria Amerine is an associate in the Labor and Employment Practice Group in the firm's Dallas office.

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The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which was signed into law on December 29, 2022, went into effect on June 27, 2023. The EEOC has started to accept PWFA charges and has issued guidance and resources to help employers comply with the expanded requirements. On August 11, 2023, the EEOC also published a Proposed Rule to implement the PWFA, which outlines the agency’s interpretation of the PWFA, and includes specific examples of possible reasonable accommodations. Public comments concerning the Proposed Rule can be submitted until October 10, 2023.…

Continue Reading Pregnant Employees More Protected Than Ever as the PWFA Goes into Effect and the EEOC Releases Resources, Guidance, and Proposed Regulations

Last week, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upended longstanding, employer-friendly precedent in cases brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. For decades, an employment discrimination plaintiff in the Fifth Circuit had to demonstrate the “adverse employment action” forming the basis of their complaint constituted an “ultimate employment decision”—which the Court of Appeals effectively limited to hiring, firing, promotion, or compensation. No longer. In a move sure to surprise some, the traditionally employer-friendly Court broadened the scope of cognizable discrimination claims in the Fifth Circuit.…

Continue Reading Fifth Circuit Upends 30 Years of Title VII Precedent, Making it Easier for Employees to Bring Discrimination Claims

Imagine paying millions to acquire a company only to later discover the restrictive covenants in the employment agreements of high-level executives were unenforceable. That’s precisely what happened in Intertek Asset Integrity Management. In Intertek, Texas’s Twelfth Court of Appeals held a company Vice President’s non-compete was unenforceable by the purchaser-entity because the underlying employment agreement lacked an assignment clause. Such language, if included, would have permitted the seller to transfer the contract’s rights and obligations without the employee’s consent. Assignability clauses are frequently buried in the “miscellaneous” section of agreements and—too often—omitted. Businesses who overlook these terms in Texas employment contracts do so at their peril.…

Continue Reading Missed Assignments: The Importance of Assignability Clauses in Restrictive Covenant Agreements

On October 13, 2022, the U.S. Department of Labor (“DOL”) published its proposed rule regarding the classification of employees and independent contractors under the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) in an attempt to resolve inconsistent analyses amongst the Federal Courts of Appeals. The proposed rule would return to a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis of the “Economic Reality Test” (with a few modifications), which would have the effect of making it more difficult to classify workers as independent contractors.…

Continue Reading The Haunting Return of the Economic Reality Test: U.S. Department of Labor Proposes Resurrecting the Pre-Trump Era Employee/Independent Contractor Test