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More than 2 years ago, the Internal Revenue Service published Revenue Ruling 2002-22, 2002-19 I.R.B. 849, in which it held that section 1041 of the Internal Revenue Code governed the transfer of stock options and interests in certain unfunded deferred compensation arrangements to the employee's spouse under a marital property settlement. As a result, the employee spouse was not taxable on the transfer. Instead, the spread on the options (the difference between the value of the employer 's stock at the time of exercise and the striking price) and the amount received as deferred compensation under unfunded arrangements were taxable to the nonemployee spouse in the same way and to the same extent as it would have been taxed to the employee. The ruling interpreted section 1041 to have established the rule that property transfers in divorce should be taxed as if the property conveyed were community property that had been transferred in settlement of the transferee's community property rights. As community property, stock options and interests in unfunded deferred compensation arrangements constituted "property" for section 1041 purposes, and the amounts received by the nonemployee spouse would be ordinary income to her (or him), taxable as compensation under IRC '83 and would be "wages" subject to employment taxes and withholding by the employer.

In mediation, a trained third-party neutral is selected by the parties (or appointed by a tribunal) to assist the parties in resolving their dispute. Mediators may be members of a panel, are associated with a dispute resolution organization, or have a private mediation practice. Mediators serve pursuant to written mediation agreements that provide for confidentiality of the process, and outline the procedure that will be used in the mediation session. The hallmark of mediation is that the mediator meets with both sides, in joint and separate caucuses, and guides the parties through exchange of information and exploration of interests and positions in a confidential setting with the goal of enabling the parties to reach agreement themselves.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 is the major federal anti-discrimination law and prohibits job bias on the basis or race, color, religion, national origin, or sex. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which administers Title VII, has issued a policy guidance stating that the statute does not prohibit isolated instances of preferential treatment based on consensual romantic relationships -- "An isolated instance of favoritism to a 'paramour' (or a spouse, or a friend) may be unfair, but it does not discriminate against women or men in violation of Title VII, since both are disadvantaged for reasons other than their genders."

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An important representation issue under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) involves scenarios where the scope of a bargaining unit is proposed to include both an employer's regular workers and employees supplied by a separate employer, such as a staffing agency. Just over 4 years ago in <i>M. B. Sturgis</i>, 331 NLRB 1298 (2000), the Board stated that "a growing number of employees who are part of what is commonly described as the 'contingent work force' are being effectively denied representational rights guaranteed them under the National Labor Relations Act." Therefore, the Board majority in <i>Sturgis</i> -- consisting of Chairman Truesdale and Members Fox and Liebman -- overruled prior precedent in <i>Lee Hospital</i>, 300 NLRB 947 (1990) and <i>Greenhoot, Inc.</i>, 205 NLRB 250 (1973), and held that a bargaining unit could include both regular and supplied employees without the consent of both the regular employer and the supplier employer.

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Cellular phone ownership and use is pervasive. More than 70 million Americans reportedly own a cell phone and a high percentage are used for business purposes. Also on the rise are instances of phone use while driving, increasingly blurring the boundary between work and personal time, as people can stay connected professionally during commutes, vacations or other personal pursuits.

For nearly 15 years, the Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) has helped clear away barriers to public accommodations, employment, transportation, government services and telecommunications for disabled Americans. This landmark legislation granted long-overdue civil rights protections and equal opportunity guarantees to individuals with disabilities, just as earlier civil rights legislation addressed discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin, religion or age. While the ADA improved the lives of countless disabled individuals, it also created new challenges for many employers. And as of this summer, some employers will likely face an even tougher, more complex set of ADA accessibility guidelines, the impact of which is only beginning to be understood.

In addition to or in lieu of broad-based tax-qualified retirement plans, employers often provide select executives or groups of executives with nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements. These "arrangements" may be in the form of a plan, a written agreement or even a clause in an employment agreement. Much like a "401(k)" tax-qualified retirement plan, these arrangements typically provide for an advance written election by the executive to defer the receipt of otherwise payable future compensation. However, unlike tax-qualified retirement plans, which by law must generally preclude the distribution of benefits prior to an event such as death, disability, retirement or separation from service with the employer maintaining the plan, many nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements have provided for far greater flexibility as to early access to plan funds. To date, the tax law has permitted nonqualified deferred compensation, along with the attendant deferral of tax revenues for the government, on the theory that it provided a tax-favored mechanism for the accumulation of additional savings for retirement. The implementation of nonqualified deferred compensation arrangements providing for distributions upon certain types of arguably foreseeable "hardships" (eg, to pay for college) or in return for a "haircut" forfeiture, cut against the notion that the revenue deferral effect on the government is outweighed by the benefit of permitting the accumulation of additional retirement funds, as these arrangements provide benefits which may not be used for purposes of retirement.

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