The COVID-19 pandemic's impact upon the use of remote workforces by U.S. businesses is undisputed. In recent years, the conventional wisdom has been that remote employees living in other states throughout the United States would not be able to avail themselves of the employee-friendly employment laws found in Massachusetts (or other states where the workers don't actually live or work).
A recent federal court decision in Massachusetts puts that premise in question. In Wilson v. Recorded Future, Inc., a former employee residing in Virginia brought claims against his former employer under Massachusetts' anti-discrimination laws as well as the Massachusetts Wage Act ("Wage Act"). The company filed a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that any employment claims by its former employee should be brought in Virginia where he lived and worked throughout his stint with the company. Under Massachusetts state law, in the absence of a contractual choice-of-law provision, the court will look to the laws of the state with the "most significant" relationship between the parties.
Without a choice-of-law provision in play, the former employee in this case argued that Massachusetts, rather than Virginia, had the most significant ties to the dispute based on the following: (1) the employer's headquarters are located in Massachusetts; (2) the former employee traveled to the headquarters on an occasional basis; (3) the former employee routinely communicated with the company's executives...
(CNN) — A former CIA officer in Virginia is accused of stealing tens of millions of dollars in gold bars and foreign currency from the very agency he worked for, according to an FBI affidavit and ...