Health Law Advisor

By Adam C. Solander, Kara M. Maciel, Mark M. Trapp, and Stuart M. Gerson

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sent shockwaves through the country when they issued conflicting opinions on a key aspect of the ACA.  The cases are Halbig v. Burwell, D.C. Cir., No. 14-508 and King v. Burwell, 4^th Cir., No. 14-1158.  The question at issue in both cases was whether the IRS has the authority to administer subsidies in federally facilitated exchanges when the statute itself specifically authorizes subsides only in ...

By: Adam C. Solander, Kara M. Maciel, Mark M. Trapp, and Stuart M. Gerson

Yesterday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sent shockwaves through the country when they issued conflicting opinions on a key aspect of the ACA.  The cases are Halbig v. Burwell, D.C. Cir., No. 14-508 and King v. Burwell, 4^th Cir., No. 14-1158.  The question at issue in both cases was whether the IRS has the authority to administer subsidies in federally facilitated exchanges when the statute itself specifically authorizes subsides only in ...

Our colleagues Kara Maciel, a Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment, Litigation, and Health Care and Life Sciences practices, in the Washington, DC, office, Mark Trapp, a Member of the Firm in the Labor and Employment and Litigation practices, in the Chicago office, and Adam Solander, an Associate in the Health Care and Life Sciences practice, in the Washington, DC, office, wrote an article titled "The ACA Still Has Its Day in Court, Now Over Subsidies." (Read the full version – subscription required.)

Following is an excerpt:

Challenges to the government's health care ...

By: Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, Steven M. Swirsky, and Mark M. Trapp

The U.S. Supreme Court today held that the US Senate was not in recess on January 4, 2012, when President Obama made three “recess” appointments to the National Labor Relations Board under the Constitution’s Recess Appointment Clause.  In simple terms that means that the recess appointments were not proper and decisions in which the recess appointees participated were not valid.

What this now means is that hundreds of cases decided by the NLRB following the January 4, 2012 recess appointments to the Board ...

By:  Kara M. Maciel, Adam C. Solander and Lindsay A. Smith

As the Employer Mandate compliance deadline looms for employers under the Affordable Care Act (“ACA”) and employers are closely monitoring employee hours, it is critical that employers take appropriate and lawful steps to record all hours worked by an employee.  If employers try to play games and manipulate how time records are maintained, they could find themselves in hot water under both the ACA and the Fair Labor Standards Act (“FLSA”).

In what appears to be one of the first lawsuits challenging how hours are recorded ...

For 2 days, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) heard from speakers on its proposed rules to accelerate the processing of union representation petitions and quicken the timing of elections.  The speakers ranged from several labor unions, including the UFCW, SEIU, CWA and AFL-CIO as well as a number of trade associations, including National Federation of Independent Businesses, Coalition for a Democratic Workplace, National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and EBG client, National Grocers Association (NGA).  The positions of the parties were ...

Our colleague Kara Maciel will speak on behalf of EBG client, National Grocers Association (“NGA”), at the National Labor Relations Board’s public meeting, scheduled for April 10-11, 2014 regarding the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) on the “ambush election” representation procedures.

The panels will address the following topics:

• Panel B.2: Requirement for written statement of position
  Address issues related to the proposed requirement for a written statement of position.
• Panel E.1 & E.3: Election date
  Please describe the standard to be applied ...

By Steven M. Swirsky, Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel and Casey M. Cosentino

As previously predicted by the Management Memo on August 1, 2013 and October 30, 2013, the National Labor Relations Board (the “Board”) issued a second Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (“NPRM”) to amend its existing rules and regulations governing union elections procedures. If they look familiar when you see them, there is a good reason for that: you have seen them before.

As readers of the Management Memo are well aware, the NPRM is the latest development in the long saga of organized labor’s attempts ...

Our colleagues Kara Maciel and Adam Solander have a new Law360 article, "Where ERISA and the Affordable Care Act Collide," that serves as an important wake-up call on staffing decisions that employers have to face.

Following is an excerpt:

In July 2013, the Obama administration announced a delay of the employer mandate provision of the Affordable Care Act for one year (i.e., the employer mandate). While back in July a one-year delay seemed like an eternity, the reality is that given the way in which most employers will determine whether an employee is classified as full-time, and ...

By Kara Maciel and Jordan Schwartz

On September 16, 2013, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) announced that Harris Health System (“Harris”), a Houston health care provider of emergency, outpatient and inpatient medical services, has agreed to pay more than $4 million in back wages and damages to approximately 4,500 current and former employees for violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act’s overtime and recordkeeping provisions.  The DOL made this announcement after its Wage and Hour Division (“WHD”) completed a more than two-year investigation into the ...

We’d like to recommend an upcoming complimentary webinar, “Addressing and Responding to Workplace Violence and Active Shooter Scenarios to Protect Your Employees” (Oct. 2, 2:00 p.m. EDT), by our Epstein Becker Green colleagues Kara M. Maciel, Susan Gross Sholinsky, and Christopher M. Locke, with Daniel Hess and Lynne Cripe of The KonTerra Group, an employee assistance program provider that regularly counsels employees undergoing stressful life events that can lead to violence.

Below is their description of the event:

Violence in the workplace can range from bullying and ...

We recommend this recent post on the Hospitality Labor and Employment Law blog: “IRS Releases Proposed Rules on Employer's Information Reporting Requirements Under the Employer Mandate of the Affordable Care Act,” by Kara Maciel, Adam Solander, and Brandon Ge, our colleagues at Epstein Becker Green.

Following is an excerpt:

On September 5, 2013, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) released two proposed rules to implement important reporting requirements under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“ACA”), which will help determine penalties under the ...

Our colleagues Kara Maciel, Frank C. Morris Jr., Elizabeth Bradley, and Adam Solander have posted a client advisory on the recent ACA employer mandate delay, exploring the ramifications and unresolved issues that employers should consider. Following is an excerpt:

In reaction to employers' concerns about the many difficulties posed in efforts to comply with the Employer Mandate provisions of the Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), the Obama administration ("Administration") announced late yesterday that it is delaying the implementation of the penalty provisions and other ...

I’ve posted a client advisory on the recent ACA employer mandate delay, with my colleagues Frank C. Morris, Jr.; Elizabeth Bradley; and Adam Solander.  We explore the ramifications and unresolved issues that employers should consider.  Following is an excerpt:

In reaction to employers' concerns about the many difficulties posed in efforts to comply with the Employer Mandate provisions of the Affordable Care Act ("ACA"), the Obama administration ("Administration") announced late yesterday that it is delaying the implementation of the penalty provisions and other aspects of ...

by: Adam C. Abrahms, Kara M. Maciel, Evan J. Spelfogel and Steven M. Swirsky

In a time when employers do not receive much good news out of Washington D.C., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit may have given some very welcome relief to employers facing issues before the National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB” or “the Board”) in light of recent precedent reversing NLRB decisions.  Quoting from early Constitutional authority including The Federalist Papers and Marbury v. Madison, the D.C. Circuit ruled today that President Obama’s “Recess Appointments” of three ...