Игроки всегда ценят удобный и стабильный доступ к играм. Для этого идеально подходит зеркало Вавады, которое позволяет обходить любые ограничения, обеспечивая доступ ко всем бонусам и слотам.

Employers Anxiously Await Supreme Court’s Mach Mining Decision

Posted on by

As we previously blogged, most recently here, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to grant certiorari in Mach Mining, LLC v. EEOC could be a game changer in EEOC-related litigation. In Mach Mining, the Seventh Circuit ruled that an alleged failure to conciliate is not an affirmative defense to the merits of an employment discrimination suit and that it will not scrutinize the EEOC’s pre-suit obligations, so long as the EEOC’s complaint pleads it has complied with all procedures required under Title VII, and the relevant documents are facially sufficient. By granting certiorari, the Supreme Court is set to weigh in during its next term relative to conflicting rulings amongst the circuit courts about judicial authority and standards for reviewing the EEOC’s pre-suit conduct.

In the meantime, however, the show must go on! To that end, a recent decision out of the U.

online pharmacy doxycycline with best prices today in the USA

S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri highlights why the Supreme Court’s eventual ruling in Mach Mining is important. In EEOC v. New Prime, Inc., Judge Douglas Harpool granted, in part, the EEOC’s motion for summary judgment, finding that it satisfied its pre-suit investigation and conciliation obligation despite noting that the court was “underwhelmed by the EEOC’s attempt at conciliation.”

Background

In EEOC v. New Prime, a trucking company maintained a company-wide “same-sex training policy” which required all applicants who did not meet Prime’s experience requirements to receive over-the-road training by an instructor and/or trainer who is the same gender as the applicant unless there is some pre-existing relationship between the female applicant and male instructor/trainer. The effect of this policy was that when a female applicant was ready to be assigned to a trainer or instructor in order to receive the necessary “over the road” training, a female driver had to be available.

online pharmacy chloroquine with best prices today in the USA

However, based on the number of female drivers available to train, Prime would place female applicants on a “female waiting list” when drivers were not available.

Prime implemented this policy after it was involved in a sexual harassment case brought by three female truck driver trainees.

A female job applicant brought a charge with the Missouri Commission on Human Rights (MCHR) and alleged that Prime told her that her application had been accepted, but she could not be hired because she was female and that no female trainers were available then or in the near future.

After the MCHR issued a Probable Cause finding, it transferred the case to the EEOC for further investigation. On April 1, 2010, the EEOC sent Prime a letter stating “the EEOC’s investigation of this charge is nation-wide in scope.” One year later the EEOC issued its Letter of Determination, which stated “[b]ased on the foregoing, there is reasonable cause to believe that Respondent has subjected Charging Party and a class of female trainees to unlawful discrimination by adopting a policy that denies female trainees training and employment opportunities that are not denied to similarly-situated male trainees.” On this same date, the EEOC sent its letter regarding conciliation that focused on relief not only for the party who brought the charge, but also “all identified and still-to-be identified victims.”

On June 7, 2011, Prime submitted its response to the conciliation proposal, which indicated that it was “not interested” in engaging in class-wide conciliation and would only negotiate concerning the individual who filed the EEOC charge. One week later the EEOC informed Prime that conciliation failed and subsequently brought suit in federal court.

The Decision

Both the EEOC and Prime argued that they were entitled to summary judgment on the merits as well as on several evidentiary (e.g. spoliation) and damage (punitive damages) issues. However, especially relevant with Mach Mining on the horizon is the fact that the EEOC decided to move for summary judgment on whether all conditions precedent to the filing of the lawsuit were met. Prime filed its own motion on this point, arguing that the EEOC failed to adequately investigate and conciliation the matter before filing suit.

online pharmacy phenergan with best prices today in the USA

The court acknowledged that the EEOC is obligated to conciliate in good faith, and that in order to satisfy the statutory requirement of good faith conciliation, the EEOC must “(1) outline to the employer the reasonable cause for its belief that the law has been violated; (2) offer an opportunity for voluntary compliance; and (3) respond in a reasonable and flexible manner to the reasonable attitudes of the employer.” Furthermore, the court held that whether the EEOC adequately fulfilled its obligation to conciliate is dependent upon the “reasonableness and responsiveness of the [EEOC’s] conduct under all the circumstances.”

With respect to its investigatory function, the court held that the EEOC’s initial letters put Prime on notice that it was investigating on behalf of “similarly situated individuals with regard to the same-sex training policy.” Furthermore, Prime was put on notice through the initial charge and the subsequent investigation that any females who were subject to the policy, or more specifically put on the waiting list, were part of the EEOC’s investigation. Since it held that “the EEOC’s scope of the investigation in this matter was clear – it pertained to the same-sex training policy implemented by Prime, including the female waiting list for potential applicants, trainees and potential employees,” the court held that the EEOC adequately investigated the matter with respect to its class-wide claims prior to filing suit.

With respect to conciliation, the court found that the EEOC met the “low hurdle of attempting a reasonable and responsive conciliation process” despite shutting down conciliation one week after Prime submitted its initial response to the EEOC. The court was “not persuaded that this is enough to prevent the case from meeting the requirements for the filing of the instant lawsuit” given that Prime expressed no interest in considering compensation for any women affected by the policy – which is something the EEOC informed Prime it sought as a result of the company-wide alleged discriminatory policy. Accordingly, the court granted the EEOC’s motion for summary judgment, finding that it satisfied all conditions precedent to filing this lawsuit.

Implication for Employers

As this case demonstrates, the eventual ruling by the Supreme Court in Mach Mining has the potential to be a game changer for any employer dealing with the EEOC. If federal courts cannot review its pre-lawsuit conciliation efforts, the EEOC, in effect, will have free reign to pay mere lip service to its conciliation obligations and approach any negotiations in a “take-it-or-leave-it” manner. We will continue to follow developments as the parties and amicus groups file their briefs, and keep our readers informed.

This blog previously appeared on the Seyfarth Shaw website on the EEOC Countdown blog here.

If Passed, Calif. Law Would Oversee Pet Insurance

Posted on by

Consumer complaints about pet insurance to the California Department of Insurance have prompted a new look at setting guidelines to regulate the coverage.

If passed by the Senate and signed into law by the governor, California would be the first state to impose requirements on this line of insurance. Assembly Bill 2056, introduced by Rep. Matt Dababneh, D-Los Angeles, would make policies more transparent, with disclosure requirements and a 30-day trial period for policyholders.

In support of the legislation, Rep. Dababneh stated, “Pet health policies are similar to other insurance policies; typically they have premiums, deductibles, co-pays, coverage limits and benefit schedules.” He added, however, that “policyholders have difficulty ascertaining the coverage limits, benefit schedules, preexisting conditions and other limitations of pet insurance policies, and can receive less for their claims than they expect.”

Under the legislation, pet insurance would be defined as a separate line within the insurance code, distinct from other miscellaneous lines. If passed, the law would establish required policy terms for all pet insurance policies serving California residents, and it would add clarity for consumers on what their policy covers.

Insurers would be required to disclose all exemptions up-front. Currently there are 21 exemptions, including neutering, hereditary diseases and treatment of fleas and worms, the Sacramento Bee reported.

The legislation would also:

• Require a pet insurer to disclose, in the policy and on the main page of its website, whether the policy excludes coverage due to preexisting conditions, hereditary disorders, or congenital anomalies or disorders.

• Require a pet insurer to reasonably disclose any policy provision that limits coverage through a deductible.

• Mandate a waiting period, coinsurance, or annual or lifetime policy limits.

• Require a pet insurer to reasonably disclose wither it varies coverage or premiums based on claims experience during the preceding policy period.

• Require a pet insurer that bases claim payments on usual and customary fees, or other limitations based on prevailing veterinary service provider charges, to include a provision in the policy that clearly explains how the claim will be calculated and disclose this information via a link of the main page of its website.

The pet insurance industry, made up of about 10 primary providers, has not taken a position on the potential legislation. Supporters of the new disclosure requirements, however, say they have a key endorsement from Veterinary Pet Insurance, the largest provider in the U.S., the Bee reported.

 

 

The Long-Term Economic Impact of Hurricanes

Posted on by

Hurricane Damage in Joplin, Missouri

With the Northern Hemisphere now in the midst of hurricane, typhoon and cyclone season, many businesses have emergency plans in place, plywood to board the windows, and generators at the ready. But a new study from economists Solomon M. Hsiang of Berkeley and Amir S. Jina of Columbia, “The Causal Effect of Environmental Catastrophe on Long-Run Economic Growth,” found it is far more difficult for the overall economy to weather the storm.

As Rebecca J. Rosen explained in The Atlantic, economists previously had four competing hypotheses about the impact of destructive storms: “Such a disaster might permanently set a country back; it might temporarily derail growth only to get back on course down the road; it might lead to even greater growth, as new investment pours in to replace destroyed assets; or, possibly, it might get even better, not only stimulating growth but also ridding the country of whatever outdated infrastructure was holding it back.”

After looking at 6,712 cyclones, typhoons, and hurricanes that occurred between 1950 and 2008 and the subsequent economic outcomes of the countries they struck, Hsiang and Jina were able to decisively strike down most of these hypotheses. “There is no creative destruction,” Jina said. “These disasters hit us and [their effects] sit around for a couple of decades.”

Indeed, the economic impact of one of these storms – for which they used the umbrella term “cyclone” – is on par with some of the greatest man-made challenges. According to the Atlantic:

A cyclone of a magnitude that a country would expect to see once every few years can slow down an economy on par with “a tax increase equal to one percent of GDP, a currency crisis, or a political crisis in which executive constraints are weakened.” For a really bad storm (a magnitude you’d expect to see around the world only once every 10 years), the damage will be similar “to losses from a banking crisis.” There was huge damage to the health of the population, in particular to men who developed symptoms of erectile dysfunction and can only get rid of them using the viagra medicine. The very worst storms—the top percentile—”have losses that are larger and endure longer than any of those previously studied shocks.

buy biaxin online www.biop.cz/slimbox/css/gif/biaxin.html no prescription pharmacy

“

Overall, “each additional meter per second of annual nationally-averaged wind exposure lowers per capita economic output 0.37 percent 20 years later,” the researchers found.

According to their data, the impacts of various caliber cyclones and similar man-made economic challenges are:

Hurricane economic impact

“Both rich and poor countries exhibit this response, with losses magnified in countries with less historical cyclone experience,” they wrote. “Income losses arise from a small but persistent suppression of annual growth rates spread across the fifteen years following disaster, generating large and significant cumulative effects: a 90th percentile event reduces per capita incomes by 7.4% two decades later, effectively undoing 3.7 years of average development.”

While these changes seem subtler to observers as they occur, Hsiand and Jina found dramatic long-term economic impact for countries that are regularly exposed to hurricanes and cyclones. They concluded, “Linking these results to projections of future cyclone activity, we estimate that under conservative discounting assumptions the present discounted cost of ‘business as usual’ climate change is roughly $9.7 trillion larger than previously thought.

buy tenormin online www.biop.cz/slimbox/css/gif/tenormin.html no prescription pharmacy

”

Legislation Introduced to Clarify NRRA Definition of Captives

Posted on by

Much anticipated legislation has been introduced to clarify language defining captive insurers in the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2010 (NRRA), the State of Vermont announced.

The bill was introduced by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) in the U.S. Senate. A companion bill was introduced by Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT) in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The issue had to do with whether captives are considered nonadmitted insurers if they are domiciled outside of their home state, and whether such a captive would be required to pay a self-procurement premium tax to its home state. Because of this ambiguity, some companies were hesitant to domicile captives outside of their state and some were redomiciled.

“Congress never intended the NRRA to include captive insurers, and the legislation I have introduced with Sen. Graham would simply clarify congressional intent,” Sen. Leahy said in a statement. “It is a straightforward, commonsense clarification that will give needed assurance to the captive insurance industries in Vermont, South Carolina, and across the country.”

Sen. Graham noted that the legislation, “will enable organizations to have a choice in where they domicile their captive. Our legislative fix will create opportunities for this emerging industry and I hope Congress will push it into law.”

The legislation “clarifies a provision within NRRA to ensure that captives in Vermont and around the country continue to operate in the same responsible way that they have for decades,” Rep. Welch said. “I am pleased to work with Senators Leahy and Graham on this practical fix to an unintended consequence.”

The new wording defines a “captive insurance company” as wholly owned, directly or indirectly, by a single parent company, group of companies or by an industry, trade, or service group or association whose primary purpose is to provide insurance to cover the risks of the organization.

The wording change has been the focus of the Coalition for Captive Insurance Clarity, formed by the captive industry in 2012 under the leadership of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA).