The Supreme Court often agrees to rule on issues where individual appeals courts have come to different conclusions, in order to create a uniform national legal standard. This was the situation when the court passed down a 5-4 decision for Epic Systems Corp. v. Lewis. The question being decided was whether the Federal Arbitration Act  Continue Reading »

TiVo Research & Analytics, Inc. v. TNS Media Research LLC A damages case involving significant amounts of money began to unravel when the trial court excluded the plaintiff’s expert, saying the damages opinion failed the causation requirement. The plaintiff’s subsequent effort to prove its claim through lay witness testimony also came to nothing. On remand,  Continue Reading »

Perez v. First Bankers Trust Services, Inc. Close on the heels of the Brundle case, in which the court ruled the ESOP trustee was liable for a $28 million overpayment, comes a second decision finding trustee liability. In tandem, these cases drive home the point that an ESOP trustee is ultimately accountable for determining fair  Continue Reading »

Fewer than 100 of the thousands of cases appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court each year get a full-blown hearing and ruling. Encino Motorcars v. Navarro is one case that did make it through in the current court term. We wrote about this previously in relation to the question of whether car dealer service advisors  Continue Reading »

In early January, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) put out a fact sheet that details how the agency is aligning its policy on intern employment status with new rulings by several U.S. appellate courts. In the past, it would have been much more difficult to bring interns on board without needing to pay them minimum  Continue Reading »

Matter of Digeser v. Flach A New York statutory fair value decision involving a construction company highlighted key differences in the experts’ income-based valuations. The parties’ appraisers disagreed over the applicable earnings period, normalization for non-arm’s-length dealings between related companies, and the applicable tax rate. The court’s resolution provides insight into what arguments did and  Continue Reading »

Step carefully when employees request time off under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The FMLA is a minefield in a number of ways, including how eligibility for leave should be documented. According to the Department of Labor, an employee qualifies for time off under FMLA if a serious condition makes them “unable to  Continue Reading »

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled that service advisors at car dealerships, whose jobs included selling repair and maintenance services, are not eligible to receive overtime. According to the Court, they’re covered by the provision in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) that exempts any salesman, parts man, or mechanic who is primarily engaged in selling  Continue Reading »

Merion Capital L.P. v. Lender Processing Servs., 2016 Del. Ch. LEXIS 189 (Dec. 16, 2016) The adage is that the Delaware Court of Chancery has a bias toward the discounted cash flow analysis when determining fair value in statutory appraisal actions. Yet, in the past few years, the court repeatedly has adopted the deal price,  Continue Reading »

Ramundo v. Ramundo, 2017 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 443 (Feb. 24, 2017) A New Jersey divorce case revolving around the valuation of a chiropractic practice is a good example of how a skilled valuation expert may produce a credible, if incomplete, appraisal when denied access to vital information by the opposing party. Here, even though  Continue Reading »