Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed a bill to delay the Department of Labor’s upcoming increase to the amount of salary an employer needs to pay in order to be eligible to classify a worker as exempt from overtime. The final rule, which was announced on May 18, 2016, sets the salary threshold at $47,476...
An assisted living center being sued over a slip-and-fall accident on an icy walkway was entitled to contractual indemnity based on an indemnification clause in its winter-services contract with a landscaping company, a Superior Court judge has determined. The plaintiff, Rebecca Marie Lougee, filed the underlying suit against Benchmark Assisted Living after she fell on...
With the dog days of summer fading into rear view and Rhode Islanders heading back to work, it’s a good time to take stock of what the Rhode Island General Assembly did earlier this summer to stimulate Rhode Island’s commercial real estate market. Several pieces of enacted legislation, summarized below, will encourage the use of...
Paul Kessimian is a winner of the Benchmark Litigation Under 40 Hot List, a new accolade of Benchmark Litigation meant to honor the achievements of the nation’s most accomplished legal partners of the age of forty or younger. Through a process of peer review and case examination, this list has been compiled over a process of...
Partridge Snow & Hahn LLP is proud to announce that Howard Merten has been named a Lawyer of the year in the area of Litigation and that 16 of its attorneys have been named to the 2017 edition of Best Lawyers in America®, the oldest and most respected peer-review publication in the legal profession. Congratulations to...
A law firm that jettisoned a longtime client in order to hire lawyers representing a party suing that client violated the “hot potato doctrine,” a U.S. District Court judge has determined. The judge found that the doctrine, which bars attorneys from dropping one client in favor of another with adverse interests, disqualified Greenberg Traurig, along...
In the past, we have written about the impact of social and technological trends on the Rhode Island market and economy which eventually influence the law. Indeed, regardless of the form of law—statutory or judicial—neither is immune from these winds of change. In neighboring Massachusetts, a legal development in its workers’ compensation law may make...
Partridge Snow & Hahn is pleased to announce that it has been awarded recertification in Meritas, a global alliance of independent business law firms. Partridge Snow & Hahn joined Meritas in 1996, and as a condition of its membership, is required to successfully complete recertification every three years. Meritas is the only law firm alliance...
H. Mills Gallivan, of Gallivan White & Boyd PA (Greenville, SC), was elected President of the Federation of Defense & Corporate Counsel (FDCC) at the 2016 Annual Meeting at the Fairmont Le Manior Richelieu, La Malbaie, Quebec in Canada. The FDCC is an invitation-only organization that consists of accomplished defense attorneys (limited to 1200 in...
Effective August 1, 2016, OSHA fines will increase dramatically. The maximum fine amount per violation has not increased since 1990. President Obama signed into law a “catch-up adjustment” that increases maximum fine amounts by 78% (i.e., the difference between the October 2015 and October 1990 Consumer Price Index). Thereafter, the maximum fine increases will be...
