Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Watts began working for UPS in 1990; in 2000 she injured her back while unloading her truck. She was diagnosed with acute back strain and placed on medical leave. Watts was awarded Temporary Total Disability (TTD) payments, including medical treatment, and did not return to work for two years. In 2002 a doctor reported that Watts had reached “maximum medical improvement,” as defined by the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation and was ready for gradual return to normal work in a restricted time frame. UPS terminated Watts’s TTD payments. UPS had a light-duty work program, Temporary Alternative Work. Typical tasks included answering phones, pumping gas, and washing cars. Watts was rejected from the program. UPS claims that Watts was not qualified for the program under the collective bargaining agreement. Watts’s claims have gone to trial three times and been appealed once before. Most recently the district court granted UPS judgment as a matter of law on grounds that Watts’s claim was preempted by section 301 of the Labor Management Relations Act, and was untimely under the six-month limitations period. The Sixth Circuit reversed, holding that section 301 does not preempt an Americans with Disabilities Act claim in federal court. View "Teresa Watts v. United Parcel Serv., Inc." on Justia Law

Paul brought state law claims for disability discrimination and retaliation against her former employer after her 12-year employment as a CT Technologist came to an end following a work-related injury. The employer removed the action to federal court on the basis of complete preemption under the Labor Management Relations Act, contending plaintiff’s claims implicated rights under the collective bargaining agreement, which included a mandatory arbitration requirement. The district court denied remand to state court and dismissed for failure to submit to mandatory arbitration. The Sixth Circuit vacated. Although plaintiff’s claim of unlawful discrimination in the terms and conditions of employment by refusing to reasonably accommodate her disability implicates an employment relationship created and defined by the Collective Bargaining Agreement, the employer did not demonstrate that resolution of the claim is so “inextricably intertwined” with interpretation of CBA terms as to trigger complete preemption. View "Paul v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan of OH" on Justia Law

Norfolk employees who run trains include train service workers and engine service workers. Engineers are engine service workers who operate locomotives. Train service workers perform switching and groundwork; they include conductors and trainmen. BLET is the authorized representative under the Railway Labor Act for Norfolk’s locomotive engineers, while UTU represents conductors and trainmen. Despite this division, an employee may pay dues to UTU or BLET and have either union handle grievances, 45 U.S.C. 152. Train service employees advance to engine service positions through Norfolk’s Engineer Training program. UTU’s CBA governs the employee’s work until he completes the program. After that, the employee is covered by BLET’s CBA. UTU filed a grievance on behalf of members in Norfolk’s Virginia Division. The men challenged the engineer seniority roster, arguing they should be ranked in the order they became trainmen, not in the order they became engineers. The national agreement between BLET and Norfolk, the national agreements between UTU and Norfolk, and regional arrangements among BLET, UTU, and Norfolk were presented to the Public Law Board arbitration panel, which decided in the employees’ favor. BLET sought to vacate; the district court granted summary judgment to UTU and Norfolk. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Bhd of Locomotive Eng'rs v. United Transp. Union" on Justia Law

Cintas’s SSRs drive trucks to deliver products and act as sales representatives, providing customer service, pitching sales, and collecting payments. Serrano, a female, unsuccessfully applied for a position as an SSR and filed a discrimination charge with the EEOC in 2000. In 2002, after investigating Serrano’s claims and expanding the investigation to include Cintas’s female hiring practices throughout Michigan, the EEOC issued a reasonable-cause determination and sent a proposed conciliation agreement to Cintas suggesting that relief be provided to Serrano, 111 other specified women, and an unspecified number of “other similarly situated females.” Cintas did not respond. In 2005, the EEOC notified Cintas that it was terminating conciliation efforts. In 2004, Serrano filed a Title VII class-action complaint, in which the EEOC intervened. In 2008, the district court denied nationwide class certification. By April 2010, all individual plaintiffs, save Serrano, had their cases resolved. In 2009 the EEOC filed an amended complaint, limiting its allegations to “a class of women in the State of Michigan” The district court granted Cintas’s judgment on 13 individual and “pattern or practice” claims, denying the EEOC’s discovery motions, and awarding costs and fees. The Sixth Circuit vacated and remanded View "Serrano v. Cintas Corp." on Justia Law

White was an emergency department nurse for Baptist 2005-2007. She did not have a regularly scheduled meal break; breaks occurred as work allowed. White received a copy of Baptist’s employee handbook, which stated that an unpaid meal break would be automatically deducted from their pay checks and that if a meal break was missed or interrupted because of work, the employee would be compensated. Employees were to record time spent working during meal breaks in an “exception log.” White signed a document concerning the policy and recorded occasions where her meal break was interrupted. She claims that if her entire unit missed a break, she was compensated, but that if she individually missed breaks she was sometimes not compensated. She never told her supervisors or human resources that she was not. Eventually, White stopped using the exception log. White knew Baptist’s procedure to report and correct payroll errors, but did not utilize this procedure to correct the unreported interrupted meal break errors because she felt it would be “an uphill battle.” White filed suit, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201. The district court granted Baptist summary judgment and class decertification. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "White v. Baptist Mem'l Health Care Corp." on Justia Law

Two former employees of Coca-Cola claim that they were injured while performing their jobs. They reported their injuries to Coca-Cola’s third-party administrator for worker’s compensation claims, Sedgwick, which denied benefits. Plaintiffs claim that the medical evidence strongly supported their injuries, but that Sedgwick engaged in a fraudulent scheme involving the mail: using Dr. Drouillard as a “cut-off” doctor. They sued alleging that the actions of Sedgwick, Coca-Cola, and Dr. Drouillard violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, 18 U.S.C. 1961(1)(B), 1962(c), and 1964(c). The district court dismissed. The Sixth Circuit reversed and remanded, noting that since the dismissal, several of the issues were resolved by its 2012 opinion in another case. The district court misapplied the elements of a RICO cause of action to the plaintiffs’ allegations. The court declined to abstain from exercising jurisdiction pending the outcome of state workers comp proceedings. The alleged acts have the same purpose: to reduce Coca-Cola’s payment obligations towards worker’s compensation benefits by fraudulently denying worker’s compensation benefits to which the employees are lawfully entitled. The allegations suggest that the defendants’ scheme would continue on well past the denial of any individual plaintiff’s benefits View "Jackson v. Segwick Claims Mgmt Serv., Inc." on Justia Law

While employed at PPG, plaintiffs were represented by three labor unions. In 2001 PPG modified health benefits for retirees, requiring that retirees pay a portion of the cost. The unions thought the modification was a breach of collective bargaining agreements and sued, requesting that the Pennsylvania district court order PPG to arbitrate the benefit dispute with the unions. The district court entered judgment for PPG, holding that the benefits had not vested. The Third Circuit affirmed. Meanwhile, in 2005, more than a year before the district court entered judgment, several individual retirees filed a putative class action in the Southern District of Ohio. Their core allegation was identical to that in the Pennsylvania action; they asserted claims under the Labor Management Relations Act and ERISA and sought monetary damages and an injunction ordering reinstatement of full coverage. The district court held that the Pennsylvania judgment collaterally estopped the plaintiffs from arguing the contrary in this case. The Sixth Circuit reversed. The district court in the Pennsylvania action neither certified a class nor employed any other “special procedures” to protect the retirees’ interests in that action, so the plaintiffs are not bound to that decision. View "Amos v. PPG Indus., Inc." on Justia Law

In 2008, Auday, age 47, started work at a Wet Seal store. In 2009, Wet Seal fired her. She claimed that the termination was unlawful and discriminatory. Days later, Auday filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy, listing $510,725 in liabilities and $204,370 in assets, without mention of the age-discrimination claim, required by 11 U.S.C. 521(a)(1)(B)(i). Three months later, her lawyer (Pinchak) asked the trustee how to be hired to pursue the claim. Neither the trustee nor Pinchak informed the bankruptcy court, which discharged Auday in January 2010. In February, the trustee applied for authority to hire, Pinchak to pursue the claim against Wet Seal. The court granted the application, but the trustee did not hire Pinchak nor was the schedule amended. Auday later sued Wet Seal, seeking $500,000 in damages. The district court granted Wet Seal judgment, holding that failure to list a potential claim on her bankruptcy petition barred her from bringing the claim. The Sixth Circuit vacated and remanded. When Auday filed for bankruptcy, her estate became the owner of all of her property, including tort claims that accrued before filing, 11 U.S.C. 541(a)(1) The trustee may bring the claim or abandon it, returning it to Auday, which would require notice to creditors View "Auday v. Wet Seal Retail, Inc." on Justia Law

Mortgage banker Henry and 445 of his colleagues sued Quicken Loans, claiming failure to pay them overtime wages from 2003 to 2007, in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201. Quicken responded that the mortgage bankers fell within an exemption to the FLSA. The district court entered judgment for Quicken. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, based on an FLSA exemption for employees, compensated at a rate of not less than $455 per week, whose primary duty is the performance of office or non-manual work directly related to the management or general business operations of the employer or the employer’s customers, and whose primary duty includes the exercise of discretion and independent judgment with respect to matters of significance. View "Henry v. Quicken Loans, Inc." on Justia Law

Blizzard, born in 1951, was hired as a part-time clerk at MTC in 1992 and was promoted to in 1996. Blizzard’s supervisor, Nutter, began as MTC’s Controller in 2001. In 2005, MTC began installing a new management information system, overseen, in part, by Nutter. Blizzard experienced difficulty. MTC asserts that Blizzard resisted and fell behind in learning to use the new software. Blizzard contends that Nutter gave a co-worker special treatment, more opportunities for training, and sometimes required Blizzard to work extra hours so that the co-worker could attend training. In 2006 and 2007, Blizzard made several oral complaints to MTC. In 2006, Nutter evaluated Blizzard’s work as falling below expectations in several areas. Blizzard submitted a rebuttal. In 2008, Nutter wrote a memo, “Conduct of Peggy Blizzard,” which documented reasons for recommending termination. Blizzard, fired at age 57, filed a charge with the EEOC, claiming retaliation, age discrimination, and sex discrimination. In 2009, she filed a complaint against MTC and Nutter, asserting age discrimination and retaliation under the federal Age Discrimination Enforcement Act and Ohio law, as well as claims for “Breach of Policy” and intentional infliction of emotional distress. The district court granted MTC summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Blizzard v. Marion Tech. Coll." on Justia Law