Dive Brief:

• Several features of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)'s regulations implementing the paid-leave provisions of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) exceeded the agency's authority under federal law, a federal judge has ruled (State of New York v. U.S. Department of Labor, et al., No. 20-CV-3020 (S.D.N.Y. Aug. 3, 2020)).
• Among the struck-down DOL regulations are: the final rule's work-availability requirement; its definition of "health care provider" for the purposes of excluding certain healthcare sector employees from emergency leave benefits; its requirement that an employee secure employer consent for intermittent FFCRA leave; and its requirement that documentation be provided by an employee before taking FFCRA leave.
• The federal judge permitted the outright ban on intermittent leave for certain qualifying reasons — specifically, intermittent leave based on qualifying conditions that correspond with an increased risk of infection — as well as the substance of the final rule's documentation requirement to stand. The court, the judge said, "sees no reason that the remainder of the Rule cannot operate as promulgated in the absence of the invalid provisions."

Dive Insight:

‍The ruling is an important one for the nation's first-ever federal paid leave law for private-sector workers. New York originally filed the suit in April following the release of DOL's FFCRA implementation guidance earlier in the month. Shortly before the lawsuit's filing, Congressional Democrats criticized DOL's final rule in a letter to Secretary of Labor Eugene Scalia that said the agency's guidance either deviated from the FFCRA's statute or did not have a basis in it.

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