Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit against her former employer, Andalex, alleging claims of discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment under federal and state law, as well as claims that Andalex failed to notify her of her right to continuing health care coverage under the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 (COBRA), 29 U.S.C. 1166 et seq. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Andalex and dismissed her claims. The court affirmed the district court's judgment except with respect to plaintiff's retaliation claims. Based on the discrepancies between the EEOC statement and subsequent testimony, a reasonable juror could infer that the explanation given by Andalex was pretextual, and that, coupled with the temporal proximity between the complaint and the termination, the complaint at issue was a but-for cause of defendant's termination. Accordingly, there was sufficient evidence to require denial of the summary judgment motion on the retaliation claims. View "Kwan v. The Andalex Group LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, individually and on behalf of others similarly situated, filed a putative class action claim against defendants for violations of the Worker Adjustment Retraining and Notification Act (WARN), 29 U.S.C. 2102(a)(1). Section 2102(a)(1) requires employers to give employees 60 calendar days notice in advance of plant closings and mass layoffs. The court held that the district court correctly determined that the private equity defendants were investors, not single employers with their subsidiary within the meaning of WARN and were properly dismissed. The court held, however, that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to HoldCo which operated the entity plaintiff worked for, because plaintiff raised a question of material fact as to whether HoldCo was a single employer with BH S&B Holdings. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, and vacated and remanded in part. View "Guippone v. BH S&B Holdings LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against defendants for overtime wages. The parties eventually agreed to a settlement. The district court approved the settlement and granted plaintiff's motion for attorneys' fees. Defendants subsequently appealed the district court's decision on plaintiff's motion for attorneys' fees. The court dismissed the appeal for lack of jurisdiction because the appeal was untimely where the entry of judgment did not restart the time to appeal. View "Perez v. AC Roosevelt Food Corp." on Justia Law

HealthBridge appealed from an order of the district court granting a petition brought by the NLRB under Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), 29 U.S.C. 160(j), seeking to enjoin temporarily alleged unfair labor practices related to a long-running labor dispute between HealthBridge and the Union. The court concluded that the NLRB could contingently delegate the power to authorize 10(j) petitions to the NLRB General Counsel. Such delegations were in effect here and the petition at issue was properly authorized by the General Counsel under those delegations. Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Counsel, which involved preliminary injunctions generally and not the specific right to injunctive relief created by the NLRA, did not impact the standard for section 10(j) petitions. The district court did not otherwise abuse its discretion in granting the petition. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Kreisberg ex rel. NLRB v. Healthbridge Mgmt." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs filed suit to contest a wage freeze imposed in 2011 on Nassau County employees by the Nassau Interim Finance Authority (NIFA). The police unions contended that the wage freeze was imposed in violation of the Contracts Clause, Article I, Section 10 of the Constitution, and that the authority conferred on NIFA to impose such a freeze had expired under the terms of the applicable statute, N.Y. Pub. Auth. Law 3669(3). The district court granted summary judgment to the police unions on their state law claim without reaching the constitutional question. The court vacated and remanded, concluding that the district judge should have declined to reach the pendant state law claim, which required it to interpret, as a matter of first impression, an important state legislative scheme to prevent the fiscal demise of Nassau County. View "Carver v. Nassau County Interim Finance" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, employed as a pharmacist for CVS, filed suit against CVS seeking additional compensation. During the relevant time period, plaintiff's base salary was based on a forty-four hour work week and that base weekly salary exceeded $1250 at all pertinent times. His base salary was guaranteed, and CVS classified him as a salaried employee exempt from the time-and-a-half overtime requirement of the Federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq. The court affirmed the judgment, agreeing with the district court's holding that plaintiff was exempt from the FLSA's time-and-a-half overtime requirement because of an exemption for highly-paid employees. View "Anani v. CVS" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against his former employer, New York Life, both individually and on behalf of a putative class of insurance agents. Plaintiff alleged state law claims seeking unpaid overtime wages and recovery of improper deductions, as well as statutory liquidated damages under New York Labor Law. On appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's dismissal of his complaint based on the "home state exception" to federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), 28 U.S.C. 1332(d). The court held that the home state exception was not jurisdictional and must be - and in this case was - raised within a reasonable time. Further, the 2011 amendment to New York Labor Law was not retroactive and the district court's grant of partial summary judgment with respect to plaintiff's overtime claim was correct. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Gold v. New York Life Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit to recover withheld Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), 26 U.S.C. 3101, taxes from Credit Suisse and the IRS, to which Credit Suisse had forwarded the withheld taxes. Plaintiff had filed a complaint under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq., against Credit Suisse and the parties subsequently settled on a lump sum payment of $250,000. At issue was whether, under FICA, these settlement proceeds were fairly characterized as "wages" received by plaintiff "with respect to employment," and were thus subject to FICA taxes. The court concluded that plaintiff had not offered sufficient evidence to suggest that the settlement payment was anything else but the "[w]ages, tips, other comp[ensation]" that Credit Suisse had classified the settlement payment as. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court granting the IRS summary judgment and dismissing the complaint against Credit Suisse. View "Gerstenbluth v. Credit Suisse, et al." on Justia Law

Michael Koubek appealed from the district court's refusal to dismiss the contribution claims of third-party plaintiffs, the Hallocks, after Koubek's wife, who was driving Koubek's car from a business meeting, collided with a car driven by one of the Hallocks. Koubek's wife was driving in the car with Mathew Isabella at the time of the accident and Isabella sustained injuries. Isabella was prevented by New York Workers' Compensation Law from suing Koubek's wife, and he eventually obtained workers' compensation benefits. Isabella then sued the Hallocks and the Hallocks filed a third-party complaint against Koubek for contribution and indemnification. At issue on appeal was the conflict between two provisions of New York law: Section 29(g) of New York's Workers' Compensation Law, which provided that workers' compensation was the exclusive remedy of an employee injured by his co-employee's negligence, and Section 388 of New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law, which provided that every owner of a vehicle operated in New York was liable for injuries resulting from the negligent permissive use of that vehicle. The court certified the issue to the New York Court of Appeals and stayed resolution of the appeal. View "Hallock v. Koubek" on Justia Law

E&Y appealed from the district court's order denying its motion to dismiss or stay proceedings, and to compel arbitration, in a putative class action brought by its former employees. At issue on appeal was whether an employee could invalidate a class-action waive provision in an arbitration agreement when that waiver removed the financial incentive for her to pursue a claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201, et seq. The court held that the FLSA did not include a "contrary congressional command" that prevented a class-action waiver provision in an arbitration agreement from being enforced by its terms. The court also held that, in light of the supervening decision of the Supreme Court in American Express Co v. Italian Colors Restaurant, the employee's argument that proceeding individually in arbitration would be "prohibitively expensive" was not a sufficient basis to invalidate the action waiver provision at issue here under the "effective vindication doctrine." Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Sutherland v. Ernst & Young LLP" on Justia Law