covid-19

As demand for our employee-focused legal services has grown, we are excited to welcome three new attorneys to the Jackson Spencer Law team: Associates Sara Barfield and Nikki Britten, and Senior Counsel Ron Woessner.

Congratulations to Jennifer Spencer for being selected to D Magazine’s annual list of the Best Lawyers in Dallas for her work in labor and employment law.

On March 2nd, Governor Abbott officially repealed Texas’ statewide mask mandate with an executive order, effective March 10. Many Texans and leaders of other states have criticized the measure. A Progress Texas poll found that Texans are almost evenly split on Texas’ re-opening and the repeal of the mask mandate. However, major metro areas like [...]

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected nearly every facet of American life – and every facet of U.S. law to boot. As employee rights lawyers, we have seen the myriad ways coronavirus has impacted workers. Regulatory violations are on the rise and employees are blowing the whistle (where we get the term “whistleblower”) on corporate fraud [...]

Employers and employees alike have had to comply with evolving health protocols as the world has dealt with the coronavirus pandemic. You have likely learned a number of new medical terms, been informed about symptoms, screening methods, and followed the rush to get most of the world vaccinated. One new term to add to our [...]

After months of partisan deadlock, Congress finally passed a new coronavirus relief package at the eleventh hour (narrowly avoiding a government shutdown and a lapse in benefits for many Americans). While the direct payments portion of the bill was covered (and fought over) extensively, many are unaware of this second relief package. In this article, [...]

As vaccines for COVID-19 begin rolling out across the country, many employees may be asking whether their employers can mandate vaccinations in order to return to work. Because COVID-19 has devastated the U.S. and global economy, the vaccine has the potential to restore the millions of jobs lost to the still-raging pandemic. According to a [...]

UPDATE: The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission recently published guidance on this issue. Please see our December 22 blog post for up-to-date information on the question of mandatory vaccines. In May, Operation Warp Speed, a program with the goal of producing “300 million doses of safe and effective vaccines with the initial doses available by January [...]

The Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) went into effect on April 1 and the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) gave employers until April 18 to comply with the law, after which employers who fail to comply will face DOL enforcement actions and could be subject to individual lawsuits.