Discussion

New Hampshire: Employer Extension to Object to Wage Claims

Effective July 7, 2026, HB 1168 extends the period of time for an employer to file objections to a wage claim from 10 days to 30 days after they receive notice from the state. If an objection is not made within 30 days, the labor commissioner can order that payment be made in accordance with the claim.

 

New Hampshire: Noncompetes for Physician Associates

Effective July 7, 2026, SB 402 voids noncompete clauses for physician associates (formerly known as physician assistants) licensed in New Hampshire, though the remaining provisions of any affected contract remain enforceable.

 

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Disclaimer: This document is designed to provide general information and guidance concerning employment-related issues. It is presented with the understanding that ManagEase is not engaged in rendering any legal opinions. If a legal opinion is needed, please contact the services of your own legal adviser. © 2026 ManagEase

North Carolina: Court Clarifies Trade Secret Misappropriation Standard

APPLIES TO All Employers with Employees in NC

EFFECTIVE MAY 22, 2026

QUESTIONS? Contact HR On-Call (888) 378-2456

 

Quick Look Mere access to, or mere possession of, a trade secret is not enough to claim misappropriation of trade secrets. An individual must have engaged the trade secret without the employer’s express or implied consent or authority.

Discussion

In Relation Insurance, Inc. v. Pilot Risk Management Consulting, LLC, the Supreme Court of North Carolina laid out the statutory definitions of a “trade secret” and clarified the standard for when a trade secret is “misappropriated” under North Carolina law. Additionally, the Court refused to “blue pencil” excessive provisions in agreements deemed unenforceable.

 

This case involves a dispute between competing insurance agencies. Several employees left the first employer for the second. Each person had signed employment agreements containing non-solicitation provisions, and the first employer alleged the departing employees forwarded company documents to personal email accounts, allegedly breaching those agreements. The first employer sued the second for trade-secret misappropriation claims under both the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act (DTSA) and the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act (NCTSPA), which the Court analyzed together.

 

To prevail under either Act, a claimant must show two things: (1) that the information at issue is a “trade secret,” and (2) that the trade secret was “misappropriated.” On the first element, both statutes define a trade secret as business or technical information that derives independent economic value from not being generally known or readily ascertainable and that is the subject of reasonable efforts to maintain its secrecy. Courts assess this using a six-factor guide drawn from the First Restatement of Torts (how widely the information is known outside and inside the business, the secrecy measures taken, its value to the business and competitors, the effort/money spent developing it, and how easily it could be properly duplicated)—which the Court emphasized is an instructive guide, not a rigid six-part test.

 

Applying that framework, the Supreme Court said that whether the first employer’s client lists (including a client list and a policy renewal list) qualified as trade secrets was an issue of fact that a jury should decide. The Court pointed to evidence in support that: a compiled client list was not shown to be publicly available (individual client names may be online, but a brokerage’s specific compiled list is not); there was no evidence other employees had access to or knew of the list; the lists were password protected; the lists were valuable and took significant time and money to compile; one employee emailed a renewal list from her first employer’s account to her personal email shortly after accepting a job with the second employer; and many of the employees’ clients at the second employer appeared on the first employer’s lists.

 

Most significantly, the Court clarified the standard for when a trade secret is “misappropriated” under North Carolina law. It held that mere access to, or mere possession of, a trade secret is not enough to make out a prima facie case. Instead, the employer must show that the employee acquired, had a specific opportunity to acquire, or used the trade secret without the employer’s express or implied consent or authority. In other words, an employer cannot establish misappropriation simply by showing it once gave the employee authorized access to the information; it must instead point to an identifiable instance of the employee downloading or accessing the trade secret beyond the scope of their job duties or without consent.

 

Finally, after the lower court found the former employees’ non-solicitation agreements overbroad and unenforceable, the first employer asked the Supreme Court to invoke the “blue-pencil” doctrine to strike overbroad portions of the agreements. The Court declined to do so, explaining that the blue-pencil doctrine is not a mechanism for rewriting a contract, but only for striking “separable” or “divisible” terms from an otherwise enforceable agreement. Because the first employer sought to strike nearly fifty provisions from each employee’s non-solicitation agreement, the Court concluded that this went far beyond removing a single separable or divisible provision and would effectively require rewriting the contracts—something the doctrine does not permit.

 

Action Items

1. Have nonsolicitation, noncompete, and nondisclosure agreements reviewed by legal counsel for compliance.
2. Evaluate protections in place for trade secret information to ensure security processes exist and are followed.

 

 

North Carolina: “Death Discount” Discontinued in Workplace Fatality Cases

North Carolina historically followed a federal OSHA policy that, in certain tragic cases, reduced penalties after a worker is killed. On April 29, 2026, the North Carolina Department of Labor announced it would no longer apply penalty reductions in cases involving worker deaths. The updated directive ensures that “enforcement actions fully reflect the gravity of a fatality, regardless of the size of the business involved.”

 

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Disclaimer: This document is designed to provide general information and guidance concerning employment-related issues. It is presented with the understanding that ManagEase is not engaged in rendering any legal opinions. If a legal opinion is needed, please contact the services of your own legal adviser. © 2026 ManagEase

Discussion

Philadelphia, PA: New Notice of Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Rights

In early June, the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations issued an updated summary of rights notice under Philadelphia’s Fair Criminal Record Screening Standards Ordinance (FCRSSO), which employers may use to satisfy their obligation to provide applicants and employees a summary of rights before taking adverse action based on a criminal background screen. Employers should also consider using the updated notice to satisfy the FCRSSO’s separate posting requirement, and should be aware that older versions of the notice remain available on the Commission’s website and may contain outdated or conflicting information.

 

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Disclaimer: This document is designed to provide general information and guidance concerning employment-related issues. It is presented with the understanding that ManagEase is not engaged in rendering any legal opinions. If a legal opinion is needed, please contact the services of your own legal adviser. © 2026 ManagEase

South Carolina: Court Clarifies Limits of Employer Liability for Workplace Use of Force

APPLIES TO All Employers with Employees in SC

EFFECTIVE JUN 10, 2026

QUESTIONS? Contact HR On-Call (888) 378-2456

 

Quick Look The South Carolina Supreme Court held that an employer could not be held civilly liable for negligent hiring, supervision, or retention where its employee had already been granted criminal immunity under the state’s “castle doctrine” for fatally shooting a customer during a workplace confrontation.

Discussion

In Moore v. Green’s Grocery, LLC, the Supreme Court of South Carolina affirmed dismissal of a civil lawsuit against an employer after its employee fatally shot a customer during a workplace confrontation.

 

The case arose from a September 2020 incident at a Charleston grocery store. A customer entered the store to purchase a phone charger, and a heated confrontation ensued between the customer and an employee (the store owner’s nephew). The dispute escalated to the point that the customer’s conduct placed the employee in reasonable fear of imminent serious injury, and the employee shot and killed the customer. The employee was charged with murder, but following an immunity hearing, the circuit court found that the customer’s actions gave the employee the statutory right to use lethal force under South Carolina’s Protection of Persons and Property Act (the state’s “castle doctrine” statute). The murder charge was dismissed, and the state did not appeal.

 

The customer’s estate subsequently sued the grocery store and its owner, seeking to hold the employer liable under theories of negligent hiring, supervision, or retention, independent of the employee’s personal justification for using force. The circuit court dismissed the suit, concluding that the unchallenged immunity order established the employee was not at fault, and that the employer could not be held liable where the underlying act was lawful. The state supreme court agreed.

 

The court reasoned that when an employee’s use of force is determined to be lawful and justified, there is no “underlying wrongful conduct” to which any independent negligent acts of the employer could relate. The court distinguished its prior decisions in Woodell by Allen v. Marion School District One and Greenville Memorial Auditorium v. Martin, in which employers were not shielded from liability despite third-party criminal acts, because in those cases the plaintiffs’ claims rested on the employers’ own negligence tied to wrongful underlying conduct. Here, by contrast, the court explained that the employee’s conduct “was not criminal—nor was it wrongful in any respect.” Because there was no wrongful act at the foundation of the case, independent negligence claims against the employer could not attach.

 

While the decision reflects a win for this company, employers generally should recognize that the outcome here depended heavily on the specific facts, including an unchallenged immunity order finding that the shooting was justified. Different circumstances could yield a different result. At bottom, this case serves as an important reminder for employers to review their workplace violence prevention procedures, including de-escalation training, clear use-of-force policies, and protocols for handling confrontational customers.

 

Action Items

1. Review and update workplace violence prevention procedures, as applicable.

 

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Disclaimer: This document is designed to provide general information and guidance concerning employment-related issues. It is presented with the understanding that ManagEase is not engaged in rendering any legal opinions. If a legal opinion is needed, please contact the services of your own legal adviser. © 2026 ManagEase

Tennessee: Legislative Updates

APPLIES TO As Indicated

EFFECTIVE As Indicated

QUESTIONS? Contact HR On-Call (888) 378-2456

 

Quick Look Tennessee employers of commercial motor vehicle drivers who knowingly employ individuals unlawfully present in the United States now face both new criminal misdemeanor liability and strict civil liability for resulting injuries or property damage. Tennessee employers that host or subsidize licensed child care providers are now shielded from civil liability for the provider’s acts or omissions, subject to limited exceptions. Delivery network companies and their drivers in Tennessee must meet new minimum automobile liability insurance requirements.

Discussion

Tennessee enacted several new laws this session affecting employer liability exposure and compliance obligations, ranging from immigration-related driver requirements to child care hosting arrangements and delivery network insurance standards. Key aspects of each are summarized below.

 

Employer Liability for Unauthorized Commercial Drivers. Effective July 1, 2026, SB 1587 creates new criminal offenses and civil liability exposure for employers of commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers who are unlawfully present in the United States. It is now a Class A misdemeanor for a “direct employer” (the entity that hires, compensates, and directly supervises the driver, excluding customers, shippers, brokers, or other contracting parties without direct employment authority) to knowingly employ and allow such an individual to operate a CMV in Tennessee, and it is a separate offense for the driver to do so. Law enforcement officers who arrest a driver for this offense must ensure federal immigration authorities are notified.

 

More significantly for employers, the law creates a new strict liability civil cause of action: a direct employer that knowingly employs such a driver is strictly, jointly, and severally liable for any personal injury or property damage the driver causes while operating a CMV, exposing the employer to compensatory damages, potential punitive damages, and attorneys’ fees. Notably, an employer is presumed not to have acted “knowingly” if it complies with Tennessee’s existing employment verification requirements, and the law clarifies that this new liability may not be automatically covered under existing liability insurance policies unless the policy expressly provides for it.

 

Liability Protection for Employers That Host or Subsidize Child Care. Effective July 1, 2026, and applicable to actions arising on or after that date, SB 1683 establishes the “Tennessee Child Care Hosting Safe Harbor Act” which shields employers from civil liability for the acts or omissions of a licensed child care provider operating on the employer’s property or subsidized through the employer. The law covers employers that subsidize child care costs for employees (through reimbursement, direct payment, tuition assistance, or similar financial assistance) or that host a licensed child care provider on their premises, so long as the employer does not itself operate or manage the provider. Importantly, merely providing space, utilities, maintenance, security, capital improvements, or financial support does not, by itself, constitute “operating, controlling, or managing” the provider for purposes of losing this protection. The safe harbor does not apply, however, where the employer’s gross negligence or willful misconduct is the proximate cause of an injury, or where the employer operates, controls, or manages the provider, is itself licensed as a child care provider, or employs, supervises, or directs the provider’s staff.

 

Automobile Liability Requirements for DNCs. Effective January 1, 2027, HB 2175 establishes automobile liability insurance requirements for delivery network companies (“DNCs,” businesses that use a digital app or platform to connect customers with drivers for delivery services) and their drivers. During a driver’s “delivery availability period” (logged into the app awaiting a request) and “delivery service period” (actively picking up and delivering goods), the DNC, the driver, or a combination of both must maintain primary automobile liability insurance covering at least $50,000 per person and $100,000 per accident for bodily injury, and $25,000 for property damage. If a driver’s personal coverage lapses or falls short, the DNC’s insurance must fill the gap from the first dollar of a claim, and the DNC’s insurer bears the duty to defend. The law also permits personal auto insurers to exclude coverage during these delivery periods, and requires DNCs to disclose their insurance coverage and limits, as well as the fact that a driver’s personal policy may not provide coverage, in writing to drivers before they can accept delivery requests.

 

Action Items

1. Review employment eligibility verification practices for compliance, as applicable.
2. Consult with legal counsel regarding application of the child care benefits safe harbor protection, as applicable.
3. Review and update automobile liability insurance coverage to meet the new minimum requirements, as applicable.

 

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Disclaimer: This document is designed to provide general information and guidance concerning employment-related issues. It is presented with the understanding that ManagEase is not engaged in rendering any legal opinions. If a legal opinion is needed, please contact the services of your own legal adviser. © 2026 ManagEase