I hear a lot of interesting stories in my line of work:  there are as many interesting employment law problems as there are interesting people, which is to say, a lot.  A recent opinion from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit encapsulates this variety nicely, and serves as a reminder not to disregard unorthodox employee requests.

In EEOC v. Consol Energy, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Consol Energy on behalf of one of Consol’s employees, Beverly K. Butcher.  Mr. Butcher worked diligently for Consol Energy for 37 years when his employer decided to install a biometric hand scanner to track employee attendance.    Consol required each employee to have his or her hand scanned, and then, upon entering or departing the workplace, required the employee to wave the hand over the scanner.  

Mr. Butcher identifies as a devout evangelical Christian.  While the hand scanner seems like a fairly innocent and efficient way to track employees, Mr. Butcher did not see it that way.  Mr. Butcher’s faith informed his belief in an Antichrist, whose followers are condemned to everlasting punishment.  The followers of the Antichrist are identified by the Mark of the Beast.  Mr. Butcher feared that the use of the hand scanner would result in his receiving the Mark of the Beast.  No one disputed that Mr. Butcher’s belief were sincerely held.  Indeed, Mr. Butcher resigned rather than submit to the new hand scanning rules, after his employer failed to accommodate his request.

The EEOC sued on Mr. Butcher’s behalf, arguing that the failure to accommodate Mr. Butcher’s sincerely held religious belief violated Mr. Butcher’s civil rights.  A federal jury in West Virginia returned a verdict in excess of $550,000 in Mr. Butcher’s favor, finding that Consol had constructively discharged Mr. Butcher in violation of his rights to accommodations for his religious beliefs.   For want of a simple accommodation, Consol Energy risked a verdict in excess of a $550,000, not to mention the related legal fees and expenses.  Interestingly, Consol does not appear to have offered any operational reason for its failure to accommodate: other employees were permitted to clock in by entering their personnel numbers into a keypad, without additional cost or burden to the company.  Indeed, email produced in the case seems to indicate that the employer was scoffing at the religious objection.  

It would have been cheap and easy for Consol to accommodate the request.  The failure to do so appears to be based on a judgment about the validity of the request.  This type of fact pattern presents itself often in many contexts:  religious accommodations, disability accommodations, requests for medical leave.  It is easy, as Consol Energy appears to have done, to disregard requests as “kooky” or “odd.”  This is a mistake.  If the accommodation is not needed, or is overburdensome, or is not based in fact, that will come out in the accommodation process.  The danger lies in not following the process that such a request, however strange, requires.  Certainly, it is well worth the effort in the beginning to avoid the stress and expense of litigation later.

Reprinted with permission from the June 27th edition of the The Legal Intelligencer © 2017 ALM Media Properties, LLC. All rights reserved.Further duplication without permission is prohibited.

Earn out clauses in business acquisitions are notoriously fertile ground for disputes.  Complicated post-closing performance metrics, access to information, modifications to accounting methodologies after closing, tracking and collection of revenue information all present opportunities for buyer and seller to disagree.  The classic struggle of seller’s effort to maximize sale return juxtaposed against buyer’s focus on transforming the operations of the acquired enterprise for long term success necessarily create friction.  Both sides bring their unique perspectives to the interpretation of the exhaustively negotiated purchase agreement with the new benefit of hindsight. 

Certainly, arbitration pursuant to the Commercial Rules of the American Arbitration Association is common in any number of business contracts.  When the parties elect that process, they accept the applicable Rules and agree to adopt the procedures which have been developed by AAA.  In the earn out or deferred consideration context, however, acknowledging the sheer number of potential conflicts surrounding inherent accounting practices, scriveners often  incorporate a unique mechanism for dispute resolution in their  transactional documents.   When the issue is theoretically limited to a calculation, the parties go to great pains to define the applicable accounting terms and may design a system of dispute resolution which does not contemplate many of the applicable provisions of the Commercial Rules or empower any judicial or quasi-judicial third party to control the process. 

Indeed, transactional practitioners have developed language which seeks to avoid the intricacies of AAA arbitration in preference for what should be a predictable accounting calculation based on verified numerical results of operations.  In such cases, parties most commonly agree to submit any dispute related to the earn out to an informal resolution process using mutually agreed upon accountants to serve as “expert consultants and not as arbitrators.” The sole purpose of the accountants’ participation is the review of financial information relating to post closing operations and the calculation of deferred consideration; which calculation would be “final and binding”. 

The Pennsylvania General Assembly, with significant input from the Pennsylvania Bar Association’s Business Law Section, recently passed Act 170, which overhauls the statutes governing partnerships and limited liability companies (often referred to as unincorporated entities or alternative entities). This Act brings these statutes up to date with the uniform laws on which they are based and is now in effect for all new and all existing unincorporated entities. These comprehensive amendments provide default rules for governance and other matters that fill the gaps in the absence of an operating agreement or partnership agreement (or the absence of applicable provisions in those documents). Accordingly, it is important for owners of partnerships and LLCs to review their governing documents and be sure they have a clear understanding of how these new rules apply to them. Owners should work with counsel to draft provisions to vary these default rules if that is the desired outcome.    

One significant change brought about by the Act is the recognition that equity interests in unincorporated entities are bifurcated into governance rights (including consent, management, and information rights) and economic rights (i.e., the right to receive distributions). The amendments adopt a concept called a “transferable interest”, which is an interest in the partnership or LLC that includes only economic rights. The holder of a transferable interest has no governance rights; he or she has only the right to receive distributions from the entity (but not the right to demand or sue for distributions). The transferable interest approach honors the “pick your partner” principle, which assures owners of a business entity that they will be able to choose the co-owners of the enterprise. Under the revised statute, the only interest that can be conveyed to a non-member is a transferable interest, unless the operating agreement provides otherwise or the other owners expressly agree. Thus, a creditor foreclosing on a member’s equity interest or a person seeking to attach a spouse’s equity interest in a divorce proceeding can take only a transferable interest. This limitation on the rights of non-members affords owners important protections from assertions of control by outsiders which may not be in the best interest of the entity or its members. The exception to this rule is that a creditor foreclosing on an equity interest in a single-member LLC will take the full membership interest (governance and economic rights). The rationale for this exception is that because there is only one member, the “pick your partner” rationale does not apply to limit the rights of the lender.

Earlier this week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Senators are considering a tax on employer-sponsored health insurance plans to raise revenue.  It is not my intention to discuss the politics of this proposal, and instead, I write to consider how such a proposal would alter the economics of recruiting and retaining employees.
 
Until now, it went without question that those who secured health insurance through their employers did so on a pre-tax basis.  Employers, for their part, can deduct the cost.  This incentivizes employers to offer health insurance coverage to employees as part of a compensation package.  Health benefits are hugely important to employees when deciding whether to accept new positions.  As such, these plans are powerful recruitment and retention tools. 

In my practice, time and again, I hear that talented and experienced employees do not want to leave their current employment, not because of well-drafted restrictive covenants (as many employers believe), but because of their compensation package, that includes health insurance.  Spouses and children may have medical conditions that require care, and employees resist the stress of leaving behind good coverage for new jobs or self-employment. Employees believe, in many cases correctly, that the cost of health insurance is cheaper through employer-subsidized plans than in the individual market, and that they can get better coverage for their dollar through their employer. 

This is particularly true right now, as the healthcare debate rages on, and employees feel insecure about how their health insurance will work in the future.  The Senate’s proposal would remove a tool from an employer’s recruitment arsenal, and dramatically change the economics of recruiting and retaining talented employees.  Of course, employers have other tools, and should not rely totally on health insurance, but it is hard to overstate the importance of this coverage to employees.  The implementation of such a tax would mean that employers would need to reconfigure compensation packages and rethink the manner in which they provide health insurance coverage to employees.

Lawmakers have referred to the tax-favored treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance plans as discriminatory to those who purchase their health insurance individually.  Interestingly, removing these tax protections would also remove the incentive for employers to provide such healthcare.  It would be interesting to know from these lawmakers if that is what they intend.  A move away from employer-sponsored health insurance does not just change the economics of the employment relationship; it changes the economics of healthcare. 

Of course, the healthcare debate impacts employer / employee relationships even as the status of the Affordable Care Act and employer-sponsored health insurance remains unclear.  It is simply impossible for employers, or for their lawyers for that matter, to plan for changes in healthcare while proposals are floated and then rejected by lawmakers.  However, the proposal to end the tax-favored treatment of employer-sponsored health insurance would mark a radical change.  It will be interesting to see if it makes its way out of the pages of the Wall Street Journal. 

Let’s check in with the January 2017 case filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas challenging the Obama Administration’s proposed changes to overtime regulations.  Those regulations would have required employers to reclassify many employees considered exempt from overtime rules to non-exempt status, requiring the employer to now pay overtime to those employees. The rule was widely considered a boon to employees, but a burden for small businesses and nonprofits. 

Those rules would have required that in addition to meeting certain requirements with regard to an employee’s duties, the employee must also earn a minimum salary of $47,476 to qualify for “exempt” status.  The current rule requires that the employee earn a minimum salary of $23,660.  The dramatic increase in the salary requirement caused employers to reevaluate classifications and to generate new policies regarding overtime and work hours in advance of a December 1, 2016 deadline.

As previously discussed on this blog, on November 22, 2016, the Eastern District of Texas entered an injunction prohibiting enforcement of the new rules.  Many clients have asked me, dreading the answer, whether that injunction remains in place.  On December 1, 2016, the United States Department of Labor appealed the injunction order, and sought a stay of the Court’s order prohibiting enforcement.  The Court denied the stay, and the matter is now on appeal.  During the appeal, the Department of Labor cannot enforce the new rules.  The appeals court granted a request submitted by the Department of Justice to extend time to file appellate briefs while “incoming leadership personnel” considered the issues.  That brief is now due on June 30. 

The Trump Administration has three choices: defend the rule, withdraw the rule, or rewrite the rule.  Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta has telegraphed that a review of the rule was necessary, but that the salary increase was too dramatic.  However, the Department of Labor’s repeated requests for extensions to file a brief indicate that it is not necessarily an easy call.  For example, because the Eastern District’s order granting the injunction called into question the rulemaking authority of the Department of Labor, there may be good reason for the administration to challenge the court’s injunction order, even though it does not necessarily agree with the rule. 

The overtime rules will remain in limbo until at least June 30, 2017.  We will continue to monitor the situation.  In the meantime, employers are not required to change their overtime policies or the classifications of their employees. 
 

By Patricia Collins, Esquire
 

On May 2, 2017, the House passed the Working Families Flexibility Act.  The purpose of the Act is to give employees flexibility in how they choose to be paid for overtime: in wages or in compensatory time off.  The Act crystallizes a tension I see often in my representation of employers. 

 Presently, the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”) requires employers to pay nonexempt employees overtime compensation for work hours in excess of 40 in a workweek.  Employers cannot compensate employees for those overtime hours in compensatory time off (“comp time”).  Such a policy violates the FLSA, exposing the employer to liability for the unpaid overtime hours as well as penalties and attorney’s fees.

 The FLSA prohibition against payment in comp time is intended to protect employees from abusive overtime demands by employers.  The statutory obligation to pay additional wages for hours over forty in a workweek, so the argument goes, forces the employer to base the decision to require overtime hours on business and financial considerations.  The FLSA’s ban on comp time legislates a policy determination that offering comp time will not protect employees from abusive demands by employers.

 Republicans this week argued otherwise.  They argue that permitting employees to take comp time rather than payment for overtime work gives employees flexibility.    Democrats who opposed the bill countered that the Act’s provision allowing employers the final say does not adequately protect employees. 

 Practically, the Act sits at the tipping point of many competing considerations:  employers want to establish policies that comply with the law, protect the business, and benefit employees.  Employees want flexibility, but they also need to be paid for their work.  The reality is that banked comp time can be a liability for employers because there are jobs for which attendance is extremely important, and unscheduled or unpredictable time is off is sometimes expensive or interferes with the progress of work.  Further, employees might not be free to use that comp time in the manner they would like if it interferes with the employer’s business.  Most employers offer paid time off in a set amount, in order to create predictability as to an employee’s attendance.  While this proposed rule might create flexibility and reduce overtime costs, I do wonder whether it is really a savings in the long run. 

 It will be interesting to see how the Senate balances these concerns, and whether employers will create policies that allow comp time.  The bill now goes to the Senate – no word yet on whether they will vote on it. Stay tuned!