The Utah Business and Employment Lawyer

In February and March the Utah Supreme Court heard oral arguments on two cases likely to have a significant impact on the scope and interpretation of the Utah Payment of Wages Act, Utah Code Ann. 34-28-1 to -19 ("UPWA").   The first case, Heaps v. Nuriche, Case No. 20130132, addresses when and under what circumstances officers or employees may be held personally liable for wage claims under the UPWA. The case turns on the definition of "employer" in the UPWA, which defines employer to include "every person, firm, partnership, association, corporation, receiver or other officer of a court of this state, or any agent or officer of any of the above-mentioned classes, employing any person in this state." U.C.A. 34-28-2(c).  A plain reading of the language of this definition seems to clearly suggest that any agent or officer of an employer can be held personally liable, in the same way any person, firm, partnership, association, receiver or other officer of a...

On March 4, 2014 the U.S. Supreme Court, in Lawson et al. v. FMR, LLC, issued an important decision with respect to the whistleblower protections contained in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX). In a decision written by Justice Ginsberg, the Supreme Court held that the whistleblower provisions of SOX, 18 U. S. C. §1514A(a), extend to employees of a public company's private contractors and subcontractors. Th ruling is consistent with the U.S. Department of Labor's long-standing interpretation of the whistleblower provision and makes clear that scope of employees entitled to protections under SOX include not only those employed by the publicly traded company itself, but investment advisors, accounting firms and even law firms who perform work as contractors or subcontractors for the publicly traded company. The SOX whistleblower provision provides that "[n]o [public] company . . . or any . . . contractor [or]subcontractor . . . of such company, may discharge, demote, s...

Avoiding Improper Worker Classification (Employee/Independent Contractor) As I've noted in passing to many of our business clients, including those who are currently dealing with painful audits from federal or state agencies regarding worker classification issues, our law firm has experienced a significant increase in audits conducted by the Utah Department of Workforce Services, the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor, the Utah State Tax Commission and the Internal Revenue Service.  As noted in an earlier blog post, the IRS and DOL have entered into an agreement to improve their efforts to end employee misclassification. These agencies are now sharing information and coordinating enforcement with state agencies.  The IRS also launched the Voluntary Classification Settlement Program (VCSP), which encourages employers to voluntarily reclassify independent contractors as employees.  For more details about VCSP, please look here http://www.irs.gov...