Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff-Appellant Judy Jaramillo appealed a grant of summary judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee Adams County School District 14 on her 42 U.S.C. 1981 claim for race discrimination. Plaintiff was employed as principal of Hanson PreK-8 school. More than 70% of the students attending Hanson are Hispanic, and Plaintiff was the only Hispanic principal in the District. In 2008, the District contemplated policy changes, including implementing an English Language Learners policy, which stresses English immersion (rather than teaching subjects in Spanish as well as English), and operating Hanson on the same academic year as other schools in the District. These proposals were controversial in the Hispanic community and apparently with some of the teachers at Hanson. Dr. Sue Chandler, interim superintendent of the District, received a copy of an e-mail about a planned teachers’ meeting before the public study session which contained false and inaccurate information. Dr. Chandler met with Plaintiff to ask for the name of the person who had misinformed her as to the specifics of the policy. Plaintiff refused to give the name. They met again later in the afternoon and Dr. Chandler questioned Plaintiff about her lack of support for the administration’s policy, and requested that Plaintiff provide Dr. Chandler with the name of the person who informed Plaintiff about the Board’s upcoming study session. Dr. Chandler informed Plaintiff that failing to provide the name would result in disciplinary action. Plaintiff refused to provide the name. Dr. Chandler placed Plaintiff on paid administrative leave; Plaintiff was subsequently notified by letter that Dr. Chandler recommended Plaintiff's termination. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the grant of summary judgment: "What the record does reveal in this case is disagreement about administrative policy choices --hardly infrequent in the education setting. But that does not constitute pretext [of discrimination]."

Plaintiff-Appellant David R. Ribeau, Jr., appealed a district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendants-Appellees Dean Katt and Richard Smith. The district court dismissed Plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. 1983 claim alleging that Defendants violated his right to procedural due process under the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Mr. Smith was Plaintiff's immediate supervisor at the Unified School District 290 (USD 290) in Ottawa, Kansas. Plaintiff worked as a maintenance mechanic. In 2008, Plaintiff was fired after 24 years on the job for alleged poor work performance. Mr. Katt, USD 290's superintendent, told Plaintiff that the USD 290 Board of Education had given its approval for his termination. Due to the Defendants' representations, Plaintiff believed he could not file a grievance because the Board had already approved his termination. The Board, however, had not yet given its approval: the Board did not approve Plaintiff's termination until approximately one month later. The district court found Plaintiff was an at-will employee and had no protected property interest in his continued employment. Plaintiff timely appealed to the Tenth Circuit. Upon review, the Court found that any entitlement Plaintiff had to a pre-termination Board hearing derived from his express employment contract. The language of that contract was unambiguous and did not provide for a pre-termination hearing before the Board. Plaintiff therefore had no legitimate claim of entitlement to a pre-termination hearing under state law, and the district court was correct to dismiss his 1983 claim.

The district court overturned an employee benefit plan's denial of a former employee's claim for permanent and total disability life insurance benefits. On appeal, Defendant Owens-Illinois Hourly Employees Welfare Benefit Plan contended the district court erred in rejecting Defendant’s argument that the employee was not eligible for this benefit under the Plan’s life insurance coverage provisions because his PTD life insurance claim was not filed until after he retired. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the district court should have entered judgment in favor of Plaintiff on the administrative record rather than remanding for further administrative proceedings. The Tenth Circuit therefore remanded the case with directions for the district court to modify its order and enter judgment in favor of Plaintiff.

"Haunted houses may be full of ghosts, goblins, and guillotines, but it’s their more prosaic features that pose the real danger." When the flashlight Tyler Hodges used in connection with taking tickets at an Oklahoma City haunted house began flickering and then died, he ventured inside the house in search of a replacement. To navigate, Mr. Hodges used the light of his cell phone. An actor complained that the light dampened the "otherworldly atmosphere" of the house, Mr. Hodges turned it off and made his way to the freight elevator, where the spare flashlights were stored. When he reached the elevator, Mr. Hodges lifted the wooden gate across the entrance and stepped in, not seeing that the elevator car was not there. Mr. Hodges sued Brewer Entertainment, the haunted house’s operator, for various torts. Brewer held two insurance polities, one with Western World Insurance Company, and the other with Markel American Insurance Company. Brewer quickly looked to them to defend the lawsuit and ultimately pay any award. For its part, Western World had excluded from its haunted house coverage “any claim arising from chutes, ladders, . . . naked hangman nooses, . . . trap doors . . . [or] electric shocks.” Because the policy did not specifically exclude "blind falls down elevator shafts," the company admitted coverage and proceeded to defend Mr. Hodges’s suit. Markel however, balked, refusing to defend or pay any claim. Western World sued to have Markel contribute to the costs of defending Mr. Hodges' suit. The district court agreed with Markel, and entered summary judgment in its favor. Upon review of the record, the Tenth Circuit found that Markel's escape clause was not enough for it to avoid contributing to defending Mr. Hodges' suit. The Court reversed the grant of summary judgment in Markel's favor and remanded the case for further proceedings.

Plaintiff-Appellee/Cross-Appellant Robert Newton alleged Major John R. Teter and Lieutenant Colonel Wayne E. Lee of the Utah Air National Guard violated his due process rights when they suspended and subsequently withdrew his Air Traffic Control Specialist (ATCS) certificate, and when they suspended his employment as an Air Traffic Control Supervisor at Hill Air Force Base in Utah. The district court granted summary judgment to defendants on Plaintiff's due process claim regarding the suspension of his employment. It denied summary judgment on Plaintiff's due process claim regarding the withdrawal of his ATCS certificate, holding this claim was not barred by qualified immunity or by intramilitary immunity under the "Feres" doctrine. In this interlocutory appeal, Defendants challenged the denial of qualified immunity and intramilitary immunity on Plaintiff's ATCS certificate claim. Plaintiff cross-appealed the grant of summary judgment on his employment claim. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit held that Plaintiff's ATCS certificate was not barred by the "Feres" doctrine, and that the Court had no jurisdiction over the interlocutory appeal from the denial of qualified immunity to defendants. The Court declined to exercise pendent jurisdiction over Plaintiff's cross-appeal.

Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Sabourin sued the University of Utah in the United States District Court for the District of Utah, claiming, among other things, that it had violated the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) by deciding to eliminate his position and then fire him for cause while he was on leave for childcare in 2006. The district court granted the University summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed the dismissal of his FMLA claims. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed: all of Plaintiff’s claims failed because the undisputed facts showed that the University’s adverse decisions were not based on Plaintiff’s taking FMLA leave. The decision to eliminate his position was made before he sought FMLA leave; and he was fired for engaging in a course of insubordination.

San Juan Coal Company and the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 953 entered into binding arbitration to determine whether union members on a certain schedule were entitled to holdover pay. The arbitrator concluded that the union members were entitled to the extra pay, but on review, the district court overturned the arbitral award. Because the arbitrator’s interpretation was colorable, the Tenth Circuit held that the district court improperly substituted its interpretation of the agreement: "[a]n arbitrator's interpretation of an agreement, even one that is flawed or based on questionable findings of fact, is due the utmost judicial deference. It matters not that a reviewing court might offer a more cogent reading of the agreement; the arbitrator's interpretation must be upheld wholly unless it is without any textual basis."

In 2005, pursuant to the Black Lung Benefits Act's administrative provisions, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) awarded lifetime benefits to Merrill Lambright and survivor benefits to his widow, Delores Ashmore. Lambright's claims arose out of his employment with Petitioner Bridger Coal Company. In 2006, a three-member panel of the U.S. Department of Labor Benefits Review Board vacated the ALJ's decision and remanded to the ALJ for reconsideration. In 2008, the ALJ denied benefits on both the lifetime and survivor claims. In 2009, a three-member panel of the Board reversed this decision and reinstated the 2005 award of benefits. The issue on appeal was the characterization of Ms. Ashmore's 2002 request for a modification in her survivor benefits: "it appears the director interpreted Ashmore's motion as a motion for modification based on change in conditions, but only to the extent Ashmore alleged she was entitled to additional (survivor) benefits due to Lambright's death. To the extent the order granting modification was based on a change in conditions, the ruling only implicated the claim for survivor benefits, not Lambright's original claim for lifetime benefits." On reconsideration en banc, the full five-member Board was unable to reach a disposition in which at least three permanent members concurred. As a result, the 2009 panel decision stood. Petitioner appealed, challenging the scope of the 2009 panel's authority to review the 2008 ALJ decision, the standard used in determining whether to award benefits, and the onset-date determination. Upon review, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the 2009 panel decision.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) appealed a judgment of the district court that declined to enforce an administrative subpoena against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad (BNSF). On appeal, the EEOC argued the district court abused its discretion because it "applied erroneous legal principles and ignored record evidence." This case arose from an ADA discrimination claim filed by Gregory Graves and Thomas Palizzi. Each alleged they were not hired as conductors or conductor trainees based on a perceived disability. The EEOC launched an investigation and issued a subpoena to BNSF. During the course of its investigation, the EEOC expanded the parameters of its investigation without notice or explanation. BNSF did not comply with the administrative subpoena, and the EEOC applied to the district court for enforcement. Finding no abuse of discretion or a misapplication of the law, the Tenth Circuit affirmed the district court: "Nothing prevent[ed] the EEOC from investigating the charges filed by Mr. Graves and Mr. Palizzi, and then . . . expanding its search. Alternatively, nothing prevent[ed] the EEOC from aggregating the information it possesses in the form of a Commissioner's Charge. . . . But nationwide recordkeeping data is not 'relevant to' charges of individual disability discrimination filed by two men who applied for the same type of job in the same state, and the district court did not abuse its discretion in reaching that conclusion."

Plaintiff-Appellant Fedwa Khalik appealed the district court's decision that dismissed her Title VII employment discrimination case for failing to state a claim. Plaintiff was hired by Defendant United Air Lines in 1995, rising to the position as "Business Services Representative" before she was terminated in 2009. She claimed she was terminated because of her race, religion, national origin and ethnic heritage. She also brought a retaliation claim under the Family and Medical Leave Act. More than two months after Defendant filed its motion to dismiss and three weeks after the deadline to amend pleadings had passed, Plaintiff sought to amend her complaint. The district court denied Plaintiff's motion to amend as futile and untimely and granted Defendant’s motion to dismiss the federal claims for failure to state a claim. The district court also exercised pendent jurisdiction and dismissed the state law discrimination and retaliation claims as similarly not plausible. Upon appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court used a "heightened" standard of proof in making its determination that she had not stated a claim upon which relief could be granted. Upon review of the applicable legal authority, the Tenth Circuit found that "While the 12(b)(6) standard does not require that Plaintiff establish a prima facie case in her complaint, the elements of each alleged cause of action help to determine whether Plaintiff has set forth a plausible claim." The Court found that Plaintiff's general assertions of discrimination and retaliation, "without any details whatsoever of events leading up to her termination, are insufficient to survive a motion to dismiss." Accordingly, the Court affirmed the district court's dismissal of Plaintiff's complaint.