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corporate governance

Expansion of New york State Paid Family Leave Law

New York State’s Paid Family Leave Program (PFL) is an insurance program administered by the state that enables workers in New York to take up to 12 weeks of paid time off in order to care for a seriously ill family member, bond with a new child or to address certain issues related to family members’ military service. The program is entirely funded by employees; employers do not have to pay employees’ salaries while they are on leave. Under PFL, employees who take leave will be guaranteed job protection. Employers must hold the employee’s position until he or she returns to work, or must offer a comparable position with equivalent seniority, status, employment benefits, pay and other terms and conditions.

Under the original law, workers were able to take paid time off in order to care for a seriously ill family member. Originally, the legal definition of “family member” included children, grandchildren, spouses, domestic partners, parents, parents of spouses or partners, siblings or grandparents. Now, the legal definition of “family member” has recently been expanded to include siblings. On November 1, 2021, Governor Kathy Hochul signed a bill (S.2928-A/A.06098-A) that expands New York State's Paid Family Leave legislation to allow caring for siblings (biological or adopted). The bill will go into effect on January 1, 2023.

This bill builds upon the Paid Family Leave legislation that was enacted in 2016, which created one of the most comprehensive paid family leave programs in the nation. In effect since 2018, New York's Paid Family Leave program is employee-paid insurance that provides workers with job-protected, paid time off to bond with a newly born, adopted or fostered child; care for a family member with a serious health condition (which may include severe cases of COVID-19), or assist loved ones when a member of the family is deployed abroad on active military service. Paid Family Leave may also be available in some situations when an employee or their minor, dependent child is under an order of quarantine or isolation due to COVID-19. Eligible workers may take up to 12 weeks off at 67% of their pay (up to a cap) to care for family members in times of need.

The strong bond siblings share is undeniable. For many individuals siblings may be the only family member available to assist and provide health care in their time of need and it has happened so often during the COVID pandemic.

ADA Compliance and Transportation offered via Web-Based Booking Engines

In the old days in New York City, if you wanted private for-hire ground transportation, all you had to call was call a car service call center. Some had easy to remember telephone numbers and others you could reach by calling the 311 operator or by utilizing the telephone book. With the advent and proliferation of the internet, most transportation entitles created websites by which to advertise their services. Rapid advances in technology made booking transportation over the telephone a bit outdated and time consuming. Transportation entities then started to integrate their website with a booking engine/booking platform by which people seeking transportation for-hire could check availability and costs and make bookings at lightning speed. Offering a great user experience online became the new expectation. Despite the advent of the smartphone application by which to book transportation for-hire, many car services still provide the public with the ability book private transportation on their websites.  

The ADA was enacted in 1990 to prohibit discrimination and ensure equal opportunity to people with disabilities. This applies to State and local government services, employment, commercial facilities, transportation, and places of public accommodation, which are essentially private entities that affect commerce.  These laws can be enforced by the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and through private lawsuits. An unresolved legal issue has recently arisen which has led to uncertainty in the law. Uncertainty in the law almost always leads to costly litigation because a company does not clearly know what its legal obligations are. People with disabilities should be able to easily access the Internet, but to accomplish this, the DOJ should have issued regulations. It issued regulations for State and local governments to know what it must do to become compliant with the law, but the DOJ did not issue regulations that would apply to private business.

The lack of regulations has led to the absolute worst-case scenario. People with disabilities have not been served since most companies are unaware this is an issue. Most companies do not even realize this is a problem to consider and resolve until they receive a demand letter from a lawyer or are served with a lawsuit. This leads to a scramble to get compliant. Unfortunately, it can take up to a year to do so depending on the complexity of the website. Transportation companies have relatively complicated websites because customers are presented not just with information about the company, but are provided with a customized web reservation site that is often an extension of main website. Private, customized portals are often created for corporate accounts or large groups. These portals can also accept marketing and/or promotional codes helping to increase both customer loyalty and reservation volume.

At present, a company website that is purely informational or educational in nature is likely beyond the ADA’s accessibility requirements. But a website that sells goods or services directly to the public may be regarded either as a sales or service establishment in its own right, or as a service of such an establishment, and thus covered by the ADA. On the whole, it is hard to argue that a car service that provides a website booking engine by which the public can utilize to arrange for transportation does not engage in some form of commercial activity. Thus, it is safe to assume that car service websites are subject to the ADA. 

The most common allegation in a Website Accessibility Lawsuit is that the company website is inaccessible to visually-impaired customers (some cases now involve mobile apps). Such customers often rely on screen-reader software like JAWS or NVDA to interact with and access a site's content. If the website is not compatible with this or similar screen-reader technology, most visually-impaired customers will not be able to use the website.

Meanwhile, plaintiffs’ attorneys across the country are taking advantage of the confusion. More than 260 website accessibility lawsuits were filed in 2016, and significantly more were filed by the end of 2017. But these numbers do not even begin to cover the cases that are settled pre-litigation. 

As stated above, the DOJ has not issued regulations that apply to private businesses and the law remains unclear because there is a split among the federal courts as to whether the statute applies only to physical structures. According to the more narrow interpretation adopted by several courts outside of New York, a disabled person is entitled to the “full and equal enjoyment” of goods and services only if they are offered at a physical location. Thus, if a business operates exclusively through the internet, without any physical location where customers interact with the business, the ADA’s mandate for accessibility does not apply. Most transportation companies in New York have an office, but they do not offer their services at a physical location where a member of the public can come to book transportation for-hire. The below is just a short indication of how the courts have been ruling on this issue. It has not been uniform and certainly not favorable to businesses in New York.

In 2017, defendant Bang & Olufsen obtained a dismissal in a Florida court because the plaintiff failed to establish a nexus between the company website and its physical locations. In California, a judge dismissed a website accessibility suit against Dominoes, finding that the company had met its ADA obligations by providing a 24-hour toll-free phone line to assist visually-impaired customers. The judge further ruled that to require website accessibility without meaningful administrative guidance would violate Dominoes' due process rights. Yet three months later, another judge in the same federal district ruled otherwise in a case involving Hobby Lobby. Similarly, in the October 2017 Dave & Buster case, the court recognized that providing a disability assistance telephone number may be an alternative means to comply with the ADA, but the court refused to dismiss the lawsuit, in part because it was unclear if the ADA notice and phone number itself were accessible (i.e., could be read via screen-reader software).

On the other hand, the New York Court have been quite favorable to plaintiffs. In July, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in Marett v. Five Guys Enterprises, issued a decision directly speaking to the applicability of Title III of the ADA (Title III) to websites, denying Five Guys’ motion to dismiss, and holding that Title III does indeed apply to websites.  Facing a class action lawsuit brought by serial plaintiff, Lucia Marett, Five Guys sought to dismiss the claim that its website (which, among other things, allows customers to order food online for delivery or pick up at its brick and mortar stores) violated Title III and related state/local statutes because it is inaccessible to the blind, on the grounds that Title III does not apply to websites and, even if it did, the case was moot because Five Guys was in the process of updating its website to provide accessibility.  The Court rejected Five Guys’ arguments.  Citing both the text and the broad and sweeping purpose of the ADA, the Court held that Title III applies to websites – either as its own place of public accommodation or as a result of its close relationship as a service of Five Guys’ restaurants (which the court noted are indisputably public accommodations under Title III).  Further, the court was unmoved by Five Guys’ ongoing efforts to make its website accessible because they had yet to successfully do so and there was no absolutely clear assurance that further accessibility issues would be avoided. 

In August 2017, Judge Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York denied retailer Blick Art Materials' motion to dismiss a website accessibility lawsuit under the ADA. The court found that Blick's website was subject to the ADA, even for the goods and services that it sold independently of any physical retail location. The judge rejected Blick's arguments that the court should wait for DOJ guidance on a technical website accessibility standard, and that it would violate Blick's due process rights to require its website to comply with the ADA without any administrative standards or regulations. 

It seems clear that many of the courts that have considered these issues have been unsympathetic to businesses, and plaintiffs are taking advantage of the reality that many businesses are unaware of their obligations under the ADA and do not have fully accessible websites. Website accessibility lawsuits are proving to be challenging to defend and expensive to resolve. If a court finds that a website is inaccessible, it can order the business to make its website accessible and to pay the plaintiff’s attorneys’ fees, costs, and expenses. Additionally, in certain jurisdictions, the court can order the business to pay the plaintiff monetary damages and/or civil penalties under state and/or local law. Many courts and the DOJ have viewed the privately developed Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0, Level AA, as the de facto standard for ADA compliance. Accordingly, transportation entities who offer a web booking engine to their customers should consider reconstructing or redesigning their websites in compliance with this standard. Even if a business successfully defends such a claim, the expense of litigation may exceed the cost of compliance.

 The good news is that the United States House of Representatives recently passed a bill aimed at stemming the floodgate of ADA lawsuits brought by a small number of serial plaintiffs. The bill, the ADA Education and Reform Act of 2017 (H.R. 620) would impose a notice requirement and would allow businesses a grace period to cure alleged accessibility barriers before a lawsuit could be filed. Although not specifically aimed at particular type of ADA lawsuit, the reforms in the bill may provide relief from the large number of website accessibility lawsuits filed over the past few years. The bill will now move to the Senate. Regardless of whether the bill ultimately become law, it reflects a growing acknowledgement that private lawsuits under the ADA have reached a critical mass and until certain reforms are enacted to limit attorney driven suits, it is important for all businesses to understand the need for ADA compliance and the pitfalls posed by non-compliance.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The New General Corporate Counsel (The Outside General Counsel Solution)

In order pressure for corporations to properly react to increased pressure to be as effective and cost-efficient as possible, CEO’s are not just bringing legal work in-house, but are retaining a lawyer who acts as general counsel to the company without the company having to pay a salary and benefits associated with a full-time employee. The days of relying 100% on outside counsel are over. It is just not efficient or cost effective to do so anymore. Companies are taking the alternate route of retaining a lawyer with not only specific legal talents, but also specialized knowledge of the industry the company works in. This is the trend because a company is not just getting a lawyer, but also getting someone who knows your business intimately. CEO’s are starting to recognize that when you retain a lawyer to act as in-house counsel (outside general counsel), they start to understand the business more. To be most effective, outside general counsel should not only have a full understanding of the organization’s business and office culture, but short and long term goals as well.

In the American business environment, every company will need a lawyer at one point or another, but just how to find and retain that legal counsel can be source of debate.We all know that one person, or perhaps you are that person, who started a company from nothing and grew it into a successful business. Start-up companies often need assistance with basic contract review or understanding compliance procedures. As the company grows from a start-up into a profitable corporation, many executives take the next step of either retaining outside counsel in the form of a law firm or the company may instead pick the in-house counsel route. Both options can be very expensive. The alternative is to retain a lawyer who is not an employee of the company, but a retained lawyer who acts as outside general counsel. A sort of in-house counsel that is an independent contractor, but devotes a large portion of their time to the company and its needs.

For many companies, consideration of this outside general counsel arrangement is a worthwhile step. Not only may there be potential legal cost savings, but bringing someone onboard and inside the executive team may also help ensure the company’s vision is maintained. When searching for such counsel, a company will also be wise to select a candidate who actively maintains social connections and ties to local legal counsel and law firms. This is important because, as many companies fail to anticipate, hiring outside general counsel does not necessarily eliminate the need to retain outside counsel for specific projects or actions. Thus, the ideal outside general counsel will be able to easily access and coordinate with appropriate outside counsel.

When a legal matter is sent outside the company, the outside general counsel serves not only to select the best outside firms for specific case types, but serves as a watchdog on those cases, ensuring that the company is not being over-billed and that matters are being handled properly. A company needs to understand that rather than being a hired gun brought in to consult on individual problems after the fact, an outside general counsel is, or should be, part of the team before, during and after company projects. The outside general counsel should be able to understand the company’s long-term objectives in order to tailor advice to the best interests of the company. A good outside general counsel working in a proactive manner instead of reactive will help a company anticipate and prevent legal problems before they arise, while maintaining company values.To foster this working environment, a company should encourage its executives to keep outside general counsel in the loop by discussing and brainstorming plans and strategies with them regularly. This has the potential to reduce future legal expenses, which most companies should cite as a goal.

The right outside general counsel does not just bring experience to the table. Once they are part of your staff, they bring peace of mind. Having immediate access to a licensed attorney who is focused on your business is truly unbeatable. It can also be the difference between success and failure on not just a given deal, but the difference between success and failure of the business itself.

 

Why A Company Must Invest in their Employees

As a lawyer dedicated to not only keeping my client’s business running and in compliance with the law, I am often called upon to advise executive level personnel and corporate HR Departments on what needs to be don’t to increase employee morale as well as relations between management and staff . Properly paying an employee for their value to the  company is a very good start but is not the end all to be all. Employees need more than a salary and fulfilling work to do their best work. They need to know that you see the value in them as individual, in the work they perform and the value they add to the company. Here are some very easy ways to break down the barriers between management and staff and to show employees that you care:

 

1. Get to Know each employee.

Getting to know who works for you, who they are, what they do, what they can do for your company, what they have done in previous jobs and what they do better than anyone else is an important step in building strong, trusting relationships. It will also help show your employees how much you value them and care – not just what they have done for you lately. Seek to build a better relationship with each employee by developing a genuine interest in who they are as people and what they are passionate about, even if this means a discussion about something other than work.

2. Provide ongoing and constructive feedback.

To help your employee be the best they can be, it is important to provide feedback to them on a regular basis. Your employees will become even more valuable to you when they are constantly refining, improving, and building new skills. Feedback will fuel to performance improvement. It is imprudent to wait for the annual review to tell them how they are doing. 

3. Invest in your staff.

Know what your employees need to succeed and give them the time and resources needed to do it. You need to get to know your staff and understand their talents as well as help to develop such talents and encourage your employees to do so on their own as well. If the training and learning they need to deliver greater value doesn’t exist inside your company, you must be ready, able and willing to fund external training.

4. Prepare Employees to Succeed and Risk Losing Them.

No CEO or COO wants to lose their best people, but by preparing your employees to succeed and advance means you have to take the risk of losing them. Either way, the investment in your employees shows your commitment to them and to your company because you’re doing the right thing for both, even if it eventually creates a need to fill that person’s shoes when they leave. The risk of losing a star employee is worth the payoff of working with the best in the business, even if they don’t stay forever.

5. Set clear and measurable expectations.

For your people to succeed, they need a clear understanding of what you need them to do and how success will be measured. And in the dynamic world of work, that means providing regular updates and performance reviews. An annual conversation about performance and planning is simply insufficient.

6. Make time for them.

It is hard for the CEO, COO or HR rep to devote time to each employee, but it is essential for them to know that you have their back. Group team meetings are simply not enough and prevents building deep relationships with your employees. Take time to meet with each employee individually as often as possible and be fully attentive when you do so.

7. Acknowledge them publicly.

Sure, you likely praise your employees accomplishments during your personal meetings. To deliver even greater value, acknowledge them in meetings in front of their co-workers, and in front of senior leaders they are looking to impress. This shows your true commitment to not just your employees but also to other important persons in your organization.

8. Say the tough stuff.

You need to tell employees when they have a behavior that will limit their career advancement, or what the consequences will be if they don’t resolve a major issue. Failure to do so can be just as harmful to a company as not acknowledging their accomplishments.

9. Give them an opportunity to use their superpowers. 

We all love doing the things we are good at and sometimes a business doesn’t take advantage of that. People doing things they excel at will help deliver exceptional value while feeling fulfilled. To help your employee use their superpowers, you need to help them unearth them, and then you need to help them find situations and projects in which they can leverage their strengths.

The landscape in the workforce is rapidly changing. The old school methods of doing business where the separation between staff and management is wide is a detriment to the ongoing vitality of not only each employee, but the company as a whole. I always stick by the old adage of you treat someone as you would like to be treated. This applies not just in the workplace, but in life as well.