General Mills, the food conglomerate, recently made headlines when it changed the legal terms on its website and reversed course after a social media backlash. General Mills’ actions, however, highlight how companies can use social media and the Internet to ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Nearly five years ago, a well-known local businessman very publicly changed his residency to Florida. Although the New York Department of Taxation and Finance had already begun cracking down on the residency issue, this parting shot seems to have only ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

In June, the United States Supreme Court issued two decisions under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), both good news for employers. First, the court narrowed the definition of “supervisor” to include only employees with ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

LLCs, which were created by the New York Limited Liability Company Law (LLCL), are hybrid business entities that combine the tax aspects of partnerships with the limited liability of corporations. The two basic principles underlying the LLCL are (1) LLC ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

In January 2011, President Obama signed into law the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). While hailed by some as the most sweeping food safety reform in a generation, the law passed with little fanfare. While FSMA is best known for ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Historically, assets could be hidden in offshore bank accounts without significant risk of exposure. Due to the efforts of the federal government over the past decade, Swiss bank accounts no longer provide a safe haven for hiding assets from the ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Talk to small business owners, and one of their biggest fears is becoming embroiled in litigation against their will, and over which they have little control. An even bigger fear is when the small business’ adversaries are multi-million or multi-billion ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

New York Labor Law § 193 and New York Compilation of Codes, Rules and Regulations Title 12, § 195.1 govern employer deductions from employee’s wages. Until now, § 193 generally prohibited employers from making deductions from employees’ wages, with two ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Family law practitioners can readily compare notes regarding cases of child support or maintenance obligations where there is a loss of employment. The state of the economy, nationwide, and of course, locally, has produced an ever-increasing number of these cases. ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Limited liability companies appeared in New York state in 1994, when the New York Limited Liability Company Law (LLCL) went into effect. An LLC is an unincorporated organization (but not a partnership or a trust) of one or more persons ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

The U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division, is significantly stepping up its scrutiny in Western New York to ensure that restaurants and hotels are obeying the Fair Labor Standards Act. The efforts involve surprise visits with increased focus ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation

Since the 1913 ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution granting Congress the “power to lay and collect taxes on incomes,” taxpayers have been pitted against the government as to their accurate assessment and collection. Nearly a century’s ...

Tagged with: Civil Litigation