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By: Kramer, Elkins & Watt LLC

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Joe Andreoni
Leslie Elkins
Dain Richard

Latest from KEW Tips

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On January 13, The Supreme Court of the United States issued two important decisions pertaining to vaccinations in the workplace. In one ruling, the Supreme Court struck down the Biden Administration’s OSHA rule requiring employers of 100 or more individuals to implement a policy requiring their employees to either get vaccinated against COVID-19 or show a negative COVID-19 test weekly and wear a mask during the work day. In the other, the Court affirmed another Biden directive,…
Continue Reading The Supreme Court Issues Opinions On Two Vaccination Mandates: What Employers Need To Know

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Despite previously saying it had no plans to renew the mask mandate after a previous iteration expired on November 27, Public Health of Madison and Dane County (“PHMDC”) has issued a new mask mandate to run until January 3.
Is This Order the Same as the Previous Iterations?
Largely, yes. The current order substantially mirrors the language in the PHMDC mask mandates since September. For a refresher, you can read our KEW Tip on the previous order here. The…
Continue Reading PHMDC Renews County-Wide Mask Mandate

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One of the most common questions or misunderstandings we see among residential landlords is: When is the appropriate situation to use a 5-Day Notice to Pay/Cure or Quit (a “5-Day”) versus a 14-Day Notice Terminating Tenancy (a “14-Day”), which does not give the tenant the ability to cure the default and continue to reside in the premises?  The answer depends on a few factors, starting with the type of tenancy.
Tenancies for a Year or Less, or Year-to-Year Tenancies …
Continue Reading Five Days, Fourteen Days, and the Right to Cure: Notices to Terminate a Residential Tenancy

On September 9, 2021, Dane County issued Face Covering Emergency Order #2 (“Order #2”) which is scheduled to go into effect on September 10, 2021 at 12:01am, directly following Face Covering Emergency Order (“Order #1”) scheduled to expire on September 16, 2021 at 12:01am.
 
What’s with the time overlap?
 
The overlap in time isn’t directly addressed. A general principle of law requires that where two bodies of law are in conflict, the more restrictive would govern, which…
Continue Reading Mask Mandate Extended – Dane County

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The Supreme Court issued a new opinion on August 26, 2021 which will perhaps be an end to the ongoing dispute over the legality of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s (the “CDC”) eviction moratorium (the “moratorium”). A deeper dive into the terms of the moratorium and an analysis of the procedural posture as of the most recent renewal of the moratorium can be found in a prior KEW Tip, but a bit of context is provided…
Continue Reading CDC’s Eviction Moratorium Upended by the Supreme Court

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Public Health of Madison and Dane County (PHMDC) announced a new, county-wide mask mandate on August 17, 2021 to go into effect on August 19, 2021. Citing evidence that fully vaccinated people can still transmit the Delta variant of COVID-19 to others, PHMDC noted that countywide 7-day case average has risen from 19 on July 19, 2021 to 91.6 on August 12, 2021, an increase of 382%. The text of the order can be found here.

 
2…
Continue Reading Dane County to Re-Issue Mask Mandate, Effective August 19

On August 3, 2021, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) announced another extension of its eviction Moratorium (“the Moratorium”). This article compares and contrasts the new Moratorium with previous iterations.

What has Changed?

The new Moratorium applies on a somewhat more restricted basis, at least in theory. Instead of applying in any state or territory in which there are documented cases of COVID-19, as in the previous versions of the Moratorium, the new order only applies in…
Continue Reading Eviction Moratorium Extended Yet Again

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This KEW Tip was originally published in the Spring of 2017, and has been updated as of August 2021 due to changes in the law.

 
Mixing Bowl Drama 
On April 25, 2017, the Mixing Bowl Bakery, in Sauk City, Wisconsin was under fire for accusations of violations of child labor laws. The bakery was owned by Curtis and Vickie Eberle, a couple with nine children, many of whom worked with them at the Mixing Bowl. At the time…
Continue Reading Can my Minor Child Work at my Business?

The law in Wisconsin (including Madison) currently does not prevent using criminal background to screen potential clients. However, federal law does prohibit using arrest records (open criminal cases are considered arrest records) as a basis for a denial. Even if you are a small local landlord, you are subject to the federal law as an applicant that you deny could sue you under the federal law.  The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development has said that arrests…
Continue Reading Can I Reject a Tenant Based on Criminal History?

The U.S. Department of Labor recently proposed further rulemaking for tip regulations, which delayed some regulations until December 2021, while others took effect on April 30, 2021.  The FLSA allows an employer to count a limited amount of tips received by its tipped employees as a credit toward the employer’s Federal minimum wage obligations. This is called a tip credit, and employers may only claim it if their tipped employees retain all the tips they receive. Employers may however…
Continue Reading U.S. Department of Labor Proposes Further Rulemaking for Tip Regulations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced on June 24 that it is extending its order, Temporary Halt in Residential Evictions to Prevent the Further Spread of COVID-19, set to expire on June 30, until July 31. In issuing this extension, the CDC indicated that this is intended to be the final extension.

The content of the moratorium remains the same as the that of the previous extension, in March of 2021. As a reminder, you can…
Continue Reading CDC Eviction Moratorium Extended Until July 31

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Let’s start with some background on unemployment insurance in Wisconsin. This article focuses on unemployment insurance from an employer’s perspective and specifically under Wisconsin state law. As such, we are not discussing the expanded unemployment provisions in the CARES Act, which primarily impact separated employees applying for unemployment benefits under more broad eligibility criteria. As the CARES Act provisions are federally funded, they have minimal impact on employers. In our experience, employers are not even notified as a party…
Continue Reading Do Business Owners Need to Pay Unemployment Insurance?

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On May 18, Public Health of Madison and Dane County (“PHMDC”) announced the next steps in response to COVID, largely in light of the CDC’s recent update on May 13 that fully vaccinated do not need to wear masks or physical distance in any setting (see here for more information from the CDC). As we discussed in a recent KEW Tip, Dane County is currently subject to Emergency Order #16, which will be effective until June 2.
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Continue Reading Public Health of Madison and Dane County to Lift Emergency Orders on June 12

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Whether an individual worker can or should be classified as an employee or independent contractor is a crucial question that every employer needs to answer before bringing on a worker. This article is focused on issues facing Wisconsin employers.
This article is broken down into two sections:

  • FAQs
  • Tests which include both Wisconsin and Federal

As an initial matter, note that this article uses the word “worker” when referring to an individual who could be either an employee or…
Continue Reading Employee or Independent Contractor?

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Public Health Madison & Dane County (“PHMDC”) has issued Emergency Order #16 to replace Order #15 (our analysis of Order #15 can be found here), which expires at midnight on May 5. The new order goes into effect at 12:01 a.m. on May 5 and will be effective until June 2. PHMDC notes that, as it gradually reopens Dane County, that the 7-day case average is down from 78 on April 7 to 64 on April 26, but…
Continue Reading Dane County Issues New Public Order #16, Effective May 5

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On April 2, 2021, Public Health Madison & Dane County (“PHMDC”) issued a new emergency order, to go into effect on April 7. Order #15 notes that on March 10, when Emergency Order #14 came out, the 7-day case average was 55 and 7-day hospitalization average was 23. As of April 1, the case average was 51 and the hospitalization average was 23. Further, more than 89% of adults aged 65 or older in Dane County had received at…
Continue Reading Dane County Emergency Order #15 Goes Into Effect April 7