Employment Law

It is not easy to manage a modern workforce, let alone to do so in a way that complies with the alphabet soup of laws that govern workplaces, especially when employee-driven lawsuits continue to rise.

In this atmosphere, Jeremy has found that an ounce of prevention can often be worth more than a pound of cure, which is why he enjoys working as outside corporate counsel to help employers proactively solve personnel issues on a day-to-day basis.  Clients reach out to Jeremy for the following:

• Guidance on personnel actions;
• Compliance with anti-discrimination, disability, and leave laws;
• Reviewing pay practices;
• Preventing and investigating discrimination, harassment, and retaliation complaints;
• Drafting non-compete, non-solicitation, confidentiality, severance and other sorts of employment agreements;
• Revising employee handbooks and workplace policies; and
• Handing administrative claims with the EEOC, DOL, PHRA, or Unemployment Compensation bureau.

Jeremy is able to talk through complex legal concepts in plain language and work with managers at all levels to help minimize risks and address issues in a way that aligns with the company’s business philosophy and goals.

Litigation

Jeremy has been successfully handling legal disputes for nearly a decade.  Some of his cases are highlighted below, but Jeremy often represents companies and individuals in contract disputes, suits where employees levy harassment or discrimination claims against their employers, and in a variety of litigation involving business torts like fraud, tortious interference, defamation, and negligent misrepresentation.  He also works on oil and gas cases (including royalty and other lease-related disputes) and has extensive experience representing utility companies in litigation involving property damage, serious personal injury, and in consumer disputes before the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission.

Jeremy works closely with his clients behind the scenes so they understand the strength and weaknesses of each case, and to help them translate the impact of a legal dispute on their business.

 

Representative Experience

Employment Cases

• Represented a healthcare provider that faced religious and gender discrimination claims from a former employee.  He aggressively sought dismissal of the complaint due to its legal deficiencies and used early subpoenas to obtain recordings from underlying unemployment compensation proceedings to find audio that directly contradicted the former employee’s core factual claim, which led to a prompt and favorable resolution of the case.
• Defended and reached favorable resolution of class and collective action alleging that the franchisee of a national ice cream eatery did not pay certain employees overtime and took improper payroll deductions.
• Member of trial team who obtained verdict in favor of a landscaping company who was alleged to have terminated one of its managers in retaliation for filing a worker’s compensation claim.
• Authored briefing that obtained pretrial dismissal of complaint filed by a nursing home’s former employee who claimed she was not an at-will employee and that her termination breached her employment contract, constituted defamation, and violated the Pennsylvania whistleblower law.

Commercial Litigation Cases

• Member of team that successfully defended a local non-profit organization from demands for years’ worth of privileged attorney-client communications in connection with derivative litigation before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
• Obtained judgment on behalf of a bank in a lawsuit claiming that it induced its customer to enter a commercial lending transaction by making allegedly fraudulent misrepresentations, and preserved the favorable result through the appeals process.
• Obtained trial judgment in favor of a local utility company in lawsuit brought by contractor who claimed that the utility wrongfully terminated their contract and that the utility’s associated conduct amounted to unjust enrichment and tortious interference.

Presentations & Publications

• Do you have to pay remote, non-exempt employees for work time you didn’t know about? (Tucker News & Insight post, August 2020)
• Until the Ball Drops: Administering FFCRA Paid Leave Throughout the Remainder of 2020 (Pennsylvania Coalition of Affiliated Healthcare & Living Communities, July 2020)
• Labor & Employment Lunch & Learn Webinar Series (May 2020)
• Pittsburgh Employers: Don’t Forget About the Pittsburgh Paid Sick Days Act for Covid-19 Absences! (Tucker News and Insight post, April 2020)
• New Employer Notice Provisions Under Pennsylvania Unemployment Compensation Law Will Outlast Covid-19 (Tucker News and Insight post, April 2020)
• Pittsburgh and COVID-19 Leave Laws (North Shore/Side Chamber of Commerce Webinar)
• News You Can Use: Developing Trends in Employment Law (2019 Annual SPHRO Symposium)
• The Nuts and Bolts of Employment Law (Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, January and November 2019)
• Understanding and Avoiding Liability Risks Associated with New-Age HR and Employee Handbook Policies(Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management, July 2019; Tucker Arensberg 2019 Labor & Employment Update)
• Ethics for In-House Counsel: The Attorney-Client Privilege(Tucker Arensberg 2019 In-House Counsel Seminar)
• Hidden Liability Traps in the Hiring Process:  What Employers and Recruiters Need to Know (2018 Annual SPHRO Symposium)