Compliance Corner [July 2025]

Here is what is new in July 2025


  • Have You Audited Your Employee I-9 Forms Lately?

  • “TAKE IT DOWN” Act Passed

  • EEOC Reined In

  • New Jersey Pay Transparency Law Now Effective

  • Washington State Mini-WARN Act Coming

  • Discrimination Suit Tossed

  • Texas Federal Court Diminishes LBGTQ+ Protections

  • CCPA Being Enforced in California

  • Amazon Charged with Violating PWFA, ADA and FMLA

  • California Automatic Renewal Law (ARL) Strengthened

  • The Importance of Accurate Documentation

  • Federal DEI

  • Sad and Complicated Leave Story

  • Payscale Loses Noncompete Case

  • Miscellaneous HR News Items


Have You Audited Your Employee I-9 Forms Lately?

With the increased scrutiny on employment eligibility nationwide, employers are well-advised to pay attention to their employees’ I-9 forms and E-Verify results and to ensure they are up-to-date. A dozen or so videos regarding E-Verify are available online at https://www.myvisajobs.com › employers › e-verify.aspx. Further, an online search under “I-9 Documents” produces several different links to various topics on the USCIS (U.S. Customs and Immigration Service) website (home site: https://www.uscis.gov).  

If you have any employees whose documentation is lacking, the advice is to rectify those situations speedily because the repercussions can be harsh.


“TAKE IT DOWN” Act Passed

Congress has passed this act, which makes it a criminal offense to distribute or threaten to distribute AI deepfakes without the subject’s consent. Meanwhile, some major law firms have been charged with using AI-generated *FALSE* case examples and “hallucinated citations.”


EEOC Reined In

A federal judge struck down a Biden Administration EEOC interpretation of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) that included abortion as one of the covered conditions. Several different stakeholders, including the State of Louisiana and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops had brought suit against the regulation; these were consolidated into a single case, the rule was vacated, and the EEOC was ordered to revise its regulations. (Medically-necessary abortions were excepted, however.)


New Jersey Pay Transparency Law Now Effective

The new Pay Transparency Act in New Jersey mandates pay transparency in both external job advertisements and internal postings. It applies to employers who have 10 or more employees for over 20 weeks.


Washington State Mini-WARN Act Coming

Effective July 27, 2025, Washington employers with 50 or more employees who are laying off 50 or more employees must give 60 days’ notice to affected employees, any union representatives, the state Employment Security Dept. and local officials.


Discrimination Suit Tossed

A female “Interim Watershed Director” in the city of Atlanta was demoted and passed over for promotional considerations; as a result, she sued for discrimination both on the basis of gender and on the basis that the had taken FMLA leave. The suit went to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta, which found that she was demoted on the basis of her record with the city: 1) she was insubordinate; 2) she “lacked accountability and professionalism;” and 3) she had recurring communication issues. The city won, proving [once again] the necessity for employers to have good documentation in all disciplinary cases.


Texas Federal Court Diminishes LBGTQ+ Protections

Portions of the EEOC guidance protecting LBGTQ+ workers from Harassment have been vacated by a federal court in Texas. Other forms of discrimination are still apparently forbidden, but harassment on that basis has been removed from the prohibited list. At least for now… 


CCPA Being Enforced in California 

The California Consumer Privacy Act is being aggressively enforced – down to the nuts and bolts of companies’ IT software systems. Two companies were fined for requiring unnecessary or excessive personal data for business transactions. Cookie requirements were examined and found to be excessive by the CA Privacy Protection Agency, CPPA, which “flagged cookie management interfaces” and imposed “Global Privacy Control” signals to ensure the privacy of personal data. 


Amazon Charged with Violating PWFA, ADA and FMLA

A female employee of Amazon has sued the company for denying her leave and refusing to engage in an interactive process when she had an ectopic pregnancy. This case is still pending.


California Automatic Renewal Law (ARL) Strengthened

California has amended its ARL to “impose new compliance obligations on businesses offering subscription-based services to California consumers. These amendments follow the Federal Trade Commission’s recent updates to its similar Negative Option Rule (the enforcement of which has been largely delayed until July 14, 2025).” Businesses using subscription-based services are advised to review their programs to ensure compliance. 


The Importance of Accurate Documentation

The discrimination lawsuit by a worker at T-Mobile was not thrown out because of conflicting documentation within the company regarding termination reasons.  


Federal DEI

In keeping with Administration directives, NIH has announced that, effective immediately, the recipient of a new, renewal, supplement or continuation award must expressly certify that it does not maintain a diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) program in violation of federal antidiscrimination laws. 


Sad and Complicated Leave Story 

A Costco employee in California who was in hourly sales has sued Costco for failure to accommodate under the CA Fair Employment and Housing Act. He took leave when his wife became ill with cancer. He took “continuous leave” from March 2021 to June 2022 to care for both his wife and his own (unspecified) medical condition. He exhausted all leave and requested a further extension, which Costco denied and order him to return to work in July 2022. He therefore resigned and then reapplied after his wife passed away. Costco declined to rehire him, so he sued, bringing several charges against the company. A court invalidated some of his claims but allowed him to proceed with charges of failure to accommodate, failure to engage in the interactive process, retaliation and wrongful termination. The court expressed doubt about some of those but determined that the decision should be left up to a jury. 


Payscale Loses Noncompete Case 

Noncompete agreements are under ever-increasing scrutiny as it is, but it seems somewhat ironic when a company in the HR field comes up short on an HR issue. The former director of sales left Payscale; the company tried to enforce its noncompete agreement with him because he joined a competitor before the 18-month hiatus required in the noncompete. Payscale lost because the court ruled their agreement was “overbroad” in that it prohibited work on the bases of time, industry and geography – essentially precluding all employment options. 


Miscellaneous HR News Items 

Michigan representative introduces proposal to explicitly ban antisemitism  

A Democratic lawmaker introduced legislation on June 4 to crack down on antisemitism, including at work.

CHROs, CIOs disagree on the strategic value of talent acquisition  

Without stronger alignment among HR teams, CIOs and IT departments, talent strategies could be stalled, a report suggested. 

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Compliance Corner [June 2025]