What do Senator Al Franken and President Donald Trump have in common?   As it turns out, quite a bit: Both men were born in New York City, simultaneously belonged to the Democratic party for many years, attended prestigious East Coast universities, and both men have been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment.  Of course, Senator Franken and President Trump are not the only famous men who recently have been accused of sexual harassment (or worse).  Here is a small sampling: U.S. Circuit Court Judge Alex Kozinski, Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, U.S. Representative Trent Franks, radio personality and author Garrison Keillor, NBC host Matt Lauer, Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons, comedian Louis C.K., actor Kevin Spacey, and former Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore.

Does it matter if employees like or loathe their employers’ mandatory arbitration agreements? After all, employers have gained the upper hand when it comes to the mandatory arbitration of employment disputes. Both federal and state courts routinely rebuff employee challenges to the enforceability of such agreements.

A 2017 attempt to increase the required distance between production blasting activities and currently or recently occupied structures failed to pass in the West Virginia legislature.  House Bill 2087, introduced in February of 2017, proposed to amend and reenact §22-3-22a of the Code of West Virginia relating to blasting activities  in order to prevent home damage from mine blasting in West Virginia. 

In 2017, West Virginia enacted legislation amending the law designed to protect employees of the state and its political subdivisions from retaliation against whistle-blowers in WV and allows such an employee to bring a civil action for redress if the State or a political subdivision discharges, threatens or otherwise discriminates or retaliates against an employee because the employee makes a good faith report to the employer or an appropriate authority of instances of wrongdoing or waste by a governmental entity.

In the 2006 Regular Legislative Session, the West Virginia (WV) Legislature enacted the WV Preventive Care Pilot Program, Chapter 16, Article 2J of the West Virginia Code. The purpose of the pilot program was to test the feasibility of patients obtaining direct primary and preventative care from healthcare providers for a pre-paid retainer outside of the traditional health insurance model. (Direct primary care or "DPC" is one model of a now popular term, "concierge medicine.”) The Preventive Care Pilot Program by enactment expired June 30, 2016, although practitioners who were participating in the Pilot Program were permitted to continue beyond the expiration date. Its legacy is the WV Direct Primary Care Practice Act.