New Jersey became the 14th state to allow medical marijuana when the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Cannabis Act (“CUMCA”) was signed into law on January 18, 2010. Recently, the act was amended to expand patient access to medical marijuana, to provide job protections to medical marijuana users, and to create new drug testing procedures. By doing so, New Jersey joined multiple other states—including Arizona, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New York, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island—that offer employment protections to users of medical marijuana in compliance with state regulations.

Many pregnant women worry about telling their employer the good news, fearing that they will be demoted, terminated, or reassigned to less desirable duties. Before you talk to your employer about your pregnancy, know your rights.

Do you have an employee handbook? Whether you’re an employer or an employee, you should know that in New Jersey, this document can change your rights and responsibilities.

A bill pending in the New Jersey legislature would place new restrictions on the use of non-compete agreements between workers and their employers. If enacted into law, Assembly Bill A1769 would establish numerous specific requirements that non-compete agreements must comply with in order to be enforceable within the state.

In recent years, several large companies have laid off thousands of New Jersey workers. Although the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (the “WARN Act”) provides some protection to employees of large companies during layoffs, many states, including New Jersey, have additional rules that supplement or reinforce the federal protections for workers subject to mass layoffs. A bill pending in the New Jersey Senate, however, would continue the state’s push to pioneer groundbreaking worker-friendly policies by extending additional protections to employees terminated in large workforce reductions. 

When an employee brings credible, substantiated accusations of sexual harassment or discrimination in a workplace, their employer often settles discreetly for “an undisclosed sum of money” and an agreement to keep everything confidential. A law passed earlier this year in New Jersey declares that such confidentiality and non-disclosure agreements are against the greater interest of the public and, as such, unenforceable. Not only does the new law restrict settlement agreements, it significantly restricts the rights of employers to require that employees broadly waive rights related to pursuing discrimination, retaliation, or harassment claims that may arise during their employment. 

In recent years, the number of pedestrian fatalities in the United States has grown significantly faster than all other traffic-related deaths. Knowing your responsibilities as a pedestrian can help prevent these occurrences and can help you recover if you have suffered injuries as a result of an auto-pedestrian collision. 

In a landmark decision, the New Jersey Appellate Court recently ruled that a plaintiff’s claims for wrongful termination in violation of the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) could proceed. The significant aspect of this plaintiff’s claim is that his termination was allegedly based on his use of marijuana in accordance with New Jersey’s Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act. The Appellate Court reversed the decision of the lower court dismissing his claims outright, ruling that he had pled sufficient allegations to support a claim under the NJLAD and allowing litigation on those claims to go forward. 

Private employers balance respecting the rights and diversity of their workers with fostering the moral principles that they support as a company. Unlike public employers, private companies are free to enact religious displays, advocate for one religion over another, and openly engage in religious practices in the workplace. However, both Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  and the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD) protect New Jersey workers from employment discrimination based on their religion or lack thereof. These laws prohibit employers from discriminating against employees based on religion, both in hiring and during their employment, and make it illegal to force those of faith to suppress or violate their religious beliefs as a condition of obtaining or maintaining employment. 

If you’ve suffered from gender-based discrimination or sexual harassment in the workplace or endured a hostile work environment, you’re not alone. New Jersey employees are protected from sex-based harassment and discrimination by Title VII, the federal law prohibiting discrimination, as well as the New Jersey Law Against Discrimination (NJLAD). You may wonder, however, what kind of compensation you can actually recover from your employer or the individuals responsible for the harassment.