Employment & Labor Insider

You want my salary history? That's sex discrimination! Well, actually, it's a little more complicated. Kacy Coble of our Memphis Office has a great post over at FOCUS, our women's leadership blog, about the perfectly legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons why employers sometimes use salary history in setting pay -- and how alternatives may be even more unfair. As state and local governments increasingly consider outlawing the use of this information, Kacy's post is a must-read.

More on the eagerly-awaited demise of the 2016 Persuader Rule. I wrote briefly about this last week. The Trump Administration is starting the process to formally undo the 2016 version of the Persuader Rule, which would have imposed onerous reporting requirements on many employers and arguably infringed on attorney-client privilege. David Phippen of our Washington DC Metro Office analyzes what is going on in this Client Bulletin that came out shortly after my bare-bones summary.

Good news for franchisors -- and from California yet! Jeff Rosin, head of our Franchise Industry Group, reports on a big victory for franchisors everywhere. A federal judge in California ruled that Jan-Pro Franchising International, Inc., was not an "employer" of its subfranchisees and also had not engaged in any wrongdoing with respect to the subfranchisees. This is Jan-Pro's third win on this issue. The company previously won an appeal in Georgia state court, and was granted summary judgment in a Massachusetts federal court. (The California and Massachusetts decisions are currently on appeal.) And congratulations to Jeff, who was co-counsel in the Georgia case and lead counsel in the California and Massachusetts cases, and to Kathryn Rookes, Vice President and General Counsel of Jan-Pro, who co-wrote the bulletin with Jeff.