From Helsell Fetterman On October 19, 2017, the Washington State Supreme Court entered its opinion in the matter of Mikkelsen v. Public Utility District No. 1 of Kittias County, et al.  In Mikkelsen, the female plaintiff sued her former employer (a utility district) for wrongful discharge based on gender and age discrimination, and failure to…

Posted by Kenneth N. Winkler on September 5, 2017 Italian professional tennis player Fabio Fognini was suspended from the U.S. Open this week after he committed three separate unsportsmanlike incidents during his first–round loss. The most egregious outburst was cursing at the chair umpire and calling her a whore in Italian. I do not know…

By Emma Kazaryan and Lauren Parris Watts / September 1, 2017 Beginning in 2020, workers in Washington State will be eligible to receive paid time off for the birth or adoption of a child or for serious medical conditions.  This new measure is not to be confused with the State paid sick leave which was…

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31, 2017 BREAKING: federal judge strikes down FLSA white-collar exemption salary test Ding, dong, the DOL’s salary test for white collar exemptions is dead (sort of). A Texas federal judge has held that the Department of Labor improperly used a salary-level test to determine which white-collar workers are exempt from overtime compensation. In…

From Meyers, Roman, Friedberg & Lewis 14 years ago today, my wife and I married. The ceremony started at 11 am, and by 10:55 I was nervous. Not your normal, “I’m about to get married,” nervous, but the, “What the hell, we start in 5 minutes and my bride-to-be isn’t here yet” nervous. It was…