Photo of Peter J. Murphy

Peter represents public and private sector employers in a broad array of cases, with a focus on cases involving claims of discrimination, wrongful termination, first amendment retaliation, and other labor and employment disputes. In addition, Peter advises employers on issues such as employee discipline, disability accommodations, and internal investigations, and provides training and seminar presentations on those issues.

On Thursday, January 28, 2021, Peter Murphy, Julie Fay, and Dan Schwartz addressed the Connecticut Construction Industries Association on the very latest regarding Connecticut’s vaccination efforts and how employers in the building trades can prepare for and then implement best practices in ensuring a vaccinated workforce.

The presentation is one of a series of presentations

Julie Fay, Peter Murphy, and Dan Schwartz will be presenters during the Connecticut Construction Industries Association’s webinar, “The Next Phase: Vaccines in the Workplace and What’s Next in the COVID-19 Pandemic.” They will address frequently asked questions regarding vaccines in the workplace including:

  • Can (and should) employers mandate vaccinations for employees?
  • Regardless of

This week marked a turning point in the COVID-19 Pandemic: the arrival of the first vaccines.  Now that the vaccines are finally coming (through much of 2021), employers have many questions to ask themselves and will have many questions to answer from employees. On Wednesday, December 16, 2020, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission started to

Earlier in the pandemic, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”), which has two main components: the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (“EPSLA”) and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (“FMLA+”).  Shortly before those new provisions became effective, the United States Department of Labor (“DOL”) provided additional guidance on both the

Across Connecticut, and in other parts of the country, many students are returning to hybrid instructional models this week. This raises the question for employers, including school districts, of whether these schools are “closed” for reasons related to COVID-19 on remote learning days, and, if so, whether employees are entitled to paid Families First Coronavirus

Connecticut’s anti-discrimination statutes explicitly list sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, and therefore gay and transgender employees are protected from workplace discrimination by state law.  Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) does not contain such explicit protections, however, and therefore it was unclear whether federal law similarly protected

As the pandemic continues, there are early signs that some employers will be permitted to start bringing employees back to workplaces as early as May 20th in Connecticut. Under what conditions will employers be permitted to do so? What risks exist for employers that are opening back up?

In this complimentary webinar — open and

As we discussed in prior posts, the CARES Act made five significant changes to unemployment benefits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic:

  1. Creating Pandemic Unemployment Assistance (PUA) for individuals who were not previously eligible for unemployment benefits or who have exhausted all other forms of unemployment benefits;
  2. Providing individuals who exhausted regular unemployment compensation

As most employers know by now, the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (“FFCRA”) has two main components:  the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (“EPSLA”) and the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (“EFMLEA” or “FMLA+”).  The United States Department of Labor (“USDOL”) has recently provided additional guidance on how an employer’s leave policies interact

If you didn’t know about Connecticut’s Shared Work Program before the pandemic, you weren’t the only one.  Over the last few years, only a small handful of employers statewide had even taken advantage of the program. Since the start of the pandemic, however, over 700 employers have applied for the program and over 500 of