Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

This negligence suit under Georgia law stemmed from an injury plaintiff suffered as he unloaded freight from a railcar in July 2005. On appeal, plaintiff asserted that the district court erred by granting summary judgment to defendants because there were triable issues as to whether defendants were negligent in failing to regularly inspect or maintain the bulkhead door. The court held that the district court was correct in granting defendants summary judgment where plaintiff presented no evidence from which a jury could infer that defendants' omissions, even if negligent, were a proximate cause of his injury, an essential element of his negligence claim under Georgia law. Accordingly, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiff was employed full time with Able Body Temporary Services, Inc. (Able Body), a labor broker in the business of furnishing its day-laborer employees to clients on a temporary basis. Able Body supplied its client, Federal Marine Terminals, Inc. (FMT), with day-laborers, including plaintiff, for longshore services. Plaintiff was subsequently injured on the job and received benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901 et seq. Plaintiff, seeking to supplement his workers' compensation benefits, brought this negligence action against FMT, claiming that the negligence of FMT's employees caused his injury. At issue was whether the district court erred in holding that FMT was plaintiff's employer and that section 905(a) of the LHWCA precluded his negligence claim. The court held that because all the elements necessary for a borrowed-employment relationship were satisfied in light of the undisputed evidence, FMT was plaintiff's borrowing employer for purposes of the LHWCA and consequently, plaintiff's negligence claim was barred by section 905(a). Therefore, the judgment of the district court was affirmed.

Plaintiff, on his own behalf and on behalf of other warehouse clerks who had worked for Floormasters, filed a complaint under 29 U.S.C. 216(b) of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) to recover overtime compensation, liquidated damages, and reasonable attorney's fees and costs. At issue was whether an employer, who denied liability for nonpayment for overtime work, must pay attorney's fees and costs pursuant to the FLSA if he tendered the full amount claimed by an employee where the trial court granted the employer's motion to dismiss the employee's complaint on mootness grounds. The court held that, under such circumstances, an employer was not required to pay attorney's fees and costs because the district court had not awarded judgment to the employee as the prevailing party. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

Plaintiff challenged the denial of his claims for long-term disability benefits by defendant, who served as both the administrator of claims and the payor of benefits in the long-term disability plan in which defendant participated. At issue was whether there was a conflict of interest where defendant was both administrator and payor of benefits of the plan governed by ERISA, 29 U.S.C. 1001-1461. The court found that defendant considered the medical information submitted by plaintiff's doctors and relied upon the advice of several independent medical professionals to conclude that plaintiff failed to make a sufficient showing of disability under the plan and, even where plaintiff's own doctors offered different medical opinions than defendant's independent doctors, the plan administrator could give different weight to those opinions without acting arbitrarily or capriciously. Therefore, the court held that a reasonable basis supported defendant's benefits decisions and that the conflict of interest did not render the decisions arbitrary or capricious.

In this reverse discrimination case under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., and 42 U.S.C. 1981, plaintiff, a white male, claimed that his former employer discriminated against him on account of his race in terminating his employment. At issue was whether the district court misapplied the summary judgment standard to the evidence presented. Based on the totality of the circumstances, the court held that the record contained sufficient circumstantial evidence from which a jury could infer that the employer displayed a racially discriminatory animus toward plaintiff when it fired him in May 2005. Consequently, plaintiff presented a case sufficient to withstand the employer's motion for summary judgment. Therefore, the judgment of the district court was vacated and remanded for further proceedings.

Plaintiff sued defendant, a deputy with the sheriff's office, under 42 U.S.C. 1983, alleging that the deputy violated her right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments. At issue was whether the district court erred in concluding that the deputy was not entitled to qualified immunity because he was acting outside the scope of his discretionary authority. The court held that the deputy's actions were undertaken pursuant to the performance of his duties and were within the scope of his authority. The court also held that, under the particular circumstances of the case, the deputy's conduct did not violate the Fourth Amendment and he was therefore, entitled to qualified immunity. Furthermore, assuming arguendo a constitutional violation, a reasonable officer in the deputy's shoes would not have known that his conduct was unlawful. Plaintiff had no binding precedent that clearly established that probable cause and exigent circumstances immediately evaporated once an officer performing a welfare check for a possibly suicidal person and saw that the person was merely alive. Accordingly, the district court's order denying the deputy's motion for summary judgment was reversed and remanded.

The union contracts state that a cost-of-living allowance will be applied to offset health insurance costs for hourly-rated employees and not be applied to hourly wage rates. The contracts state that the COLA will be equal to 1¢ per hour for each full 0.3 of a point change in the Consumer Price Index calculation. An employer was calculating the COLA on a weekly basis and maintained that the adjustment was only $0.08 per week; the union argued that the adjustment should be calculated at $3.20 per week ($0.08 x 40 hours per week). In November 2008, an arbitrator rejected management's argument that the contracts included a scrivener's error and that the COLA should be calculated on a weekly, rather than hourly basis.The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the unions. The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 185, preempts employers' state law fraud counterclaims. An attempt to assert a federal common law "fraudulent procurement" defense was barred by the three-month limitations period for challenging the arbitrator's award.

The children of three former union leaders murdered in Colombia in 2001 sued appellee alleging that it hired paramilitaries from the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia to assassinate their fathers in violation of the Alien Tort Statute ("ATS"), 28 U.S.C 1350, the Torture Victim Protection Act ("TVPA"), 28 U.S.C. 1350, and the wrongful death laws of Colombia. The children alleged that the murders of their fathers caused them damages including emotional harm, loss of companionship, and loss of financial support. At issue was whether the children possessed constitutional standing and a cause of action under these statutes. The court held that the children easily satisfied Article III standing requirements and clearly have a stake in the controversy that was real enough and concrete enough to entitle them to be heard in a federal district court concerning their TVPA and ATS claims. The court also held that the children have adequately pled a cause of action cognizable under the ATS and the TVPA. The court further held that it could not conclude that the children were also parties to the Drummond I suit and, as a result, reversed and remanded the district court's dismissal of the children's TVPA claims to the extent that it concluded on a motion to dismiss where the doctrine of res judicata precluded the children from proceeding with the case.

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit against defendant alleging that defendant had discriminated against him because of his bankruptcy, in violation of 11 U.S.C. 525(b), by refusing to hire him and alternatively, by terminating him from the job after it had hired him. The primary issue was whether section 525(b) prohibited a private employer from denying employment to an individual on the ground that he was or has been in bankruptcy. The court applied elementary principles of statutory construction and common sense, holding that section 525(b) did not prohibit private employers from denying employment to persons because of their status as a bankruptcy debtor. The court also held that the evidence was more than enough for the jury to discredit appellant's contrary testimony and found that no employment relationship was formed. Accordingly, the court held that the district court did not err in denying plaintiff's renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law and in denying plaintiff's motion for a new trial where the jury's verdict was not against the great weight of the evidence.