http://www.law.com Receive the day's most important news and decisions for employment and labor attorneys. Law.com Practice Center subscription required. en-us 05/15/2008 Copyright 2005 ALM Properties, Inc. All rights reserved. http://www.law.com/service/terms_conditions.shtml http://www.law.com/img/newswire/emplawpc_rss.gif http://www.law.com/jsp/pc/emplaw.jsp A California state court has certified a class of roughly 300 technical writers in an overtime and meal breaks suit against Sun Microsystems Inc. in what may be the first class involved wage and hour claims for technical writers. The decision by Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jack Komar is significant because the high-tech industry generally does not provide overtime to technical writers, according to Aaron Kaufmann, the plaintiffs' attorney with Hinton, Alfert & Sumner in Walnut Creek, Calif. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421416210&rss=null All indicators point to the Philadelphia region as an undeniably thriving economic environment for the paralegal profession. This environment generates almost endless possibilities for paralegals, in both traditional and expanding settings. Until recently, paralegals were only hired to work in a law firm setting. Today, paralegals are in high demand by corporations and government agencies to perform legal research and provide information in the ordinary course of business. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421412927&rss=null Ruling on a question that has divided trial courts in the Third Circuit, a federal judge in Newark, N.J., held May 13 that companies that manage health insurers' reimbursements can be sued under ERISA for underpaying claims. U.S. District Judge Harold Ackerman ruled that Wayne Surgical Center can pursue a claim that Concentra Preferred Systems Inc. failed to pay required reimbursements for patient treatments. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421375525&rss=null A federal judge has told SunTrust Banks Inc. that it cannot force workers it plans to lay off next month to drop a pending wage-and-hours suit against the bank in exchange for their severance pay. The bank's attempt to condition its severance packages on laid-off workers' agreements to drop their suits is discriminatory under the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story of the Northern District of Georgia. His temporary injunction, issued April 30, was to become permanent within 10 business days of its issuance, unless SunTrust objected and requested an additional hearing. The bank had not made such a move by press time on May 13. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421374802&rss=null The Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20 that an investor in a 401(k) plan can sue to recover losses from the plan's breach of fiduciary duty. How do companies need to respond? In LaRue v. DeWolff, Boberg & Associates, the Supreme Court concluded that an individual participant -- not just the 401(k) plan, as in the past -- can recover losses under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. James LaRue alleged that the 401(k) plan administrator breached its duties by failing to follow his investment directions, thereby costing him about $150,000. Because of the explosion of 401(k) plans throughout the United States, the consequences of this legal action are potentially far-reaching. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421343589&rss=null New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo predicted Thursday that 'hundreds and hundreds' of attorneys will ultimately be implicated in his office's investigation of government entities improperly enrolling non-employees in public pension funds. While his investigators have only exposed the "tip of the iceberg" so far, Cuomo said the problem is not limited to a few school districts that were initially exposed for having put attorneys doing work for the districts on the public pension rolls. http://www.law.com/jsp/LawArticleEmp.jsp?id=1202421244475&rss=null Trial court's purported vacation and reentry of judgment of which appellant had no notice did not extend his time to appeal (per curiam) http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=1202421357028&rss=null Seaman injured while camping out in vessel owner's parking lot was not entitled to "maintenance and cure" (Woods, J.) http://www.law.com/jsp/LawDecision.jsp?id=1202421357234&rss=null