Publications

On June 16, 2021, Governor Ned Lamont signed into law Public Act No. 21-55, An Act Strengthening the Bills of Rights for Long-Term Care Residents and Authorizing the Use of Resident Technology for Virtual Visitation and Virtual Monitoring (“PA 21-55”). Connecticut now joins certain states across the county that have enacted statutes or regulations on […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Maybe The Nine are aware that President Biden’s SCOTUS-reform commission is meeting next week, or maybe they’re just not the political animals they’ve been made out to be, but the Js finished out the (presumably) penultimate week of OT20 with a trio of decisions revealing notable cross-aisle collaborations: In Yellen v. Confederated […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Four new opinions today, including the case of the cussing cheerleader, Mahanoy Area School District v. B.L. (No. 20-255), where the Court held (8-1) that, while schools may sometimes have a special interest in regulating some types of off-campus speech, those interests were insufficient to justify disciplining B.L, who posted vulgar Snapchat […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Yesterday, in the first of three announcements scheduled for this week, the Court handed down three decisions: In NCAA v. Alston (No. 20-512), the Court unanimously affirmed a lower-court decision enjoining the NCAA from restricting member colleges from providing education-related benefits (like free laptops and paid internships) to athletes. In United States […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Some big decisions this week as The Nine turn into the final stretch. Yesterday, the Court issued hotly anticipated decisions in California v. Texas (No. 19-840), dismissing the latest challenge to the Affordable Care Act on standing grounds, and Fulton v. City of Philadelphia (No. 19- 123), holding that Philadelphia violated the […]

Beginning October 1, 2021, Connecticut will join California, Maryland, and Washington in requiring employers with at least one employee to disclose the wage range for vacant positions to applicants and existing employees. The new law, “An Act Concerning the Disclosure of Salary Range for a Vacant Position,” also amends existing law to require employers to provide […]

Dear Wiggin and Dana Alumni, Greetings to all of our Wiggin and Dana Alumni across the country!  Enclosed please find an electronic copy of Wiggin and Dana’s Fall 2020 Newsletter.  A printed version will be sent out by mail in the next couple of weeks.  As a reminder, you can continue to keep up with […]

Greetings, Court Fans! This morning, the Court continued its march toward the end of the OT2020 term, issuing its decision in Borden v. United States (No. 19-5410). There, a five-justice majority held that a criminal offense with a mens rea of recklessness does not satisfy the Armed Career Criminal Act’s elements clause. That leaves 20 […]

The first nationwide emergency workplace safety rule, requiring health-care employers to protect workers from occupational exposure to COVID-19 in settings where people with COVID-19 are reasonably expected to be present, has been published on OSHA’s website.  The emergency temporary standard (“ETS”) released Thursday applies only in the health-care sector and will be supplemented by voluntary […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Three more opinions this week, as The Nine continue to chip away at OT20’s remaining backlog. Most notably, in Van Buren v. United States (No. 19-783), an interesting mix (no scare-quotes this time, as it actually is a unique line-up) led by Justice Barrett concluded that the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act […]

EEOC Updates Guidance Regarding COVID-19 Vaccination Incentives and Reasonable Accommodations The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) updated its “What You Should Know About COVID-19 and the ADA, the Rehabilitation Act, and Other EEO Laws” guidance document on May 28, 2021, providing clarity and welcome guidance for employers on a number of vaccination issues. As […]

On May 17, 2021, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced the establishment of the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force, an interagency task force created to “use every available federal tool—including criminal, civil, and administrative actions—to combat and prevent COVID-19 related fraud.”[1]  Given the magnitude of the COVID-19 relief programs, this Task Force has its work […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Three new decisions this week, each unanimous. First, in United States v. Palomar-Santiago (No. 20-437), the Court held that defendants charged with unlawfully reentering the United States following an order of removal can collaterally attack the validity of the prior removal order only when three statutory prerequisites are met, rejecting the Ninth […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Yesterday was a busy day at the Court, as the Nine dropped a quartet of new decisions and granted cert in three new cases, including a potential abortion blockbuster. We’ll address the grants first, followed by the headlines of today’s decisions, before turning to a bit of catch-up: summaries of the Court’s […]

Effective Tuesday, May 4 at 12:01 a.m. ET In response to the increase in COVID-19 cases in India, a Presidential Proclamation was issued on April 30, 2021 to suspend the entry into the U.S. of nonimmigrant, noncitizen individuals who have been present in India within the fourteen (14) days prior to attempted entry into the […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Last Thursday, the Court issued three decisions in argued cases. In Jones v. Mississippi (No. 18-1259), a heavily divided Court pared back its prior decision in Miller v. Alabama (2012), holding that a court could sentence a juvenile to life without the possibility of parole even without specifically finding that the defendant […]

Greetings, Court Fans! Just one decision to report in this Update, but it’s a biggie, at least for IP nerds and coders. In Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc. (No. 18-956), the Court held that Google’s copying of certain portions of a computer program owned by Oracle, called Java, was fair use under the copyright […]

On April 5, 2021, the Supreme Court issued its long-awaited ruling on copyright infringement dispute between tech giants Google and Oracle regarding whether the copyright laws can be used to block a competitor from using a company’s code in a software Application Programming Interface (API). APIs are widely used software tools that allow applications to […]

The US Supreme Court hears relatively few patent-related cases in any given term.  However, on March 1st, the court heard oral arguments in an important case challenging the very structure and authority of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s administrative review board.  In Arthrex Inc. v. Smith & Nephew Inc. the Court will decide whether […]

Greetings, Court Fans! The Court released two significant opinions yesterday, addressing personal jurisdiction in product-liability actions and the concept of “failed seizures” under the Fourth Amendment. Among civil litigators, Ford Motor Co. v. Montana Eighth Judicial District Court (No. 19-368), isn’t just one of the most anticipated cases of OT20; it’s one of the most […]

On March 22, 2021, U.S. District Judge Stephan R. Underhill dismissed a lawsuit filed by former firefighter, Thomas Eccleston, who claimed the City of Waterbury violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by firing him for using medical marijuana.  Eccleston, a medical marijuana registration card holder, asserted claims for discriminatory termination, failure to accommodate, and retaliation […]

As published on March 12, 2021, OSHA is approaching COVID-19 enforcement by way of a COVID-19 National Emphasis Program (“COVID-19 NEP”).  The COVID-19 NEP went into effect immediately upon publication. From our perspective, the COVID-19 NEP is consistent with President Biden’s January 2021 Executive Order (“EO”) calling for OSHA to consider a federal COVID-19 Emergency […]

In a decision dated February 23, 2021, the Connecticut Appellate Court issued a stark reminder that the bounds of noncompete provisions must be narrowly tailored. In DeLeo v. Equale & Cirone, 202 Conn. App. 650 (2021), the court considered a noncompete provision that would have required a departing partner to pay the partnership an amount […]

The American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA), providing COVID-related relief in many forms, including premium subsidies for health insurance continuation under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA), was signed into law on March 11, 2021. Employees with an involuntary termination or reduction of hours will be eligible to receive a 100% subsidy of […]

Connecticut Bans Discrimination Based on Hairstyles Historically Associated With Race Earlier this month, Connecticut became the latest state to ban discrimination based on hairstyles historically associated with race, joining California, Colorado, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Virginia, and Washington. The Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, or Crown, Act amends Connecticut’s Fair […]

FY 2022 H-1B Visa Season “H-1B Visa Season” is upon us! Wiggin and Dana encourages employers subject to the annual quota (or “H-1B cap”) of 65,000 visas to evaluate potential employee candidates as soon as possible. Although there is now a multi-step registration system alleviating some of the time constraints with preparing complete H-1B cases in […]

Greetings, Court Fans! The Court returned to action last week, issuing a unanimous decision in one case: Brownback v. King (No. 19-546). It concerns the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), a statute that waives the United States’ sovereign immunity for certain torts committed by federal employees acting within the scope of their employment. One of […]

Regulations that became final in February 2020, and were further revised in October 2020, dramatically expanded the situations in which foreign persons acquiring, or making new investments into, or changing existing rights in, U.S. businesses, or purchasing or leasing real estate in the United States, need to obtain prior approval from the Committee on Foreign […]

Today, February 11, 2020, the Biden Administration issued a new Executive Order (EO) imposing asset blocking sanctions in connection with the military coup in Burma.  Simultaneously, the Treasury Department designated 10 individuals and 3 entities as blocked persons (Specially Designated Nationals or SDNs) under the new EO. (Two of the individuals were already SDNs as […]

Originally published on February 11, 2021.  The Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) was enacted on January 1, 2021 as part of the National Defense Authorization Act creating a federal beneficial ownership registry applicable to corporations, limited liability companies (LLCs) and most partnerships.  Targeted at small, privately-held business entities, the CTA requires these organizations to report their […]