Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Arizanovska, born in Macedonia, was employed part-time by Wal-Mart, as an overnight stocker. After experiencing some vaginal bleeding while pregnant, she informed Wal-Mart that her doctor told her that she could not lift more than 20 pounds. She was assigned to stock the baby food and toothbrush aisles. She miscarried. When she became pregnant again she provided a medical restriction; she was not to lift more than 10 pounds. She could no longer perform the essential lifting functions of her position as a stocker. She told human resources that she would not take a leave of absence and that she wanted to fold clothes. No such position existed. Arizanovska did not return to work and miscarried again. She filed suit, claiming violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, as amended by the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, failure to accommodate her under Wal-Mart’s Accommodation in Employment Policy because of her pregnancy and/or national origin, and retaliation for filing a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She also claimed intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligent supervision, and liability for employees’ actions. The district court granted summary judgment against Arizanovska. The Seventh Circuit affirmed.

From 2005-2007 plaintiff, an African-American, was employed as a driving instructor for defendant, a trucking company. After a number of incidents involving reported use of racial slurs and warnings about attendance, plaintiff's employment was terminated and he sued, alleging racial discrimination, harassment and retaliation in violation of 42 U.S.C. 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. He also alleged that the company retaliated against him for having filed a workers’ compensation claim, in violation of Indiana law. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. Plaintiff appealed only the retaliation claim. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Plaintiff made a number of assertions, none of which could lead a reasonable jury to conclude that the stated reason for his firing was pretextual. He argued that his termination was unfair, but did not provide any evidence to refute that his cumulative exercise of leave was excessive or to demonstrate that his absences did not affect his job performance and ability to instruct.

Nation left his position as CEO of Spring Air in 2007 with a severance package of $1.2 million to be paid over 15 months provided he did not work for competitors through 2008. Spring Air paid Nation more than $836,000, but in August 2008 ceased making payments due to liquidity problems. Spring Air ultimately filed for bankruptcy. Nation sued defendant, Spring Air's majority shareholder and primary creditor, asserting tortious interference with contract: that defendant used its majority position on Spring Air's board of directors to induce the company to breach his severance agreement. The district court dismissed, finding that defendant was conditionally privileged based on its status as Spring Air's majority shareholder and that Nation had not presented sufficient evidence to overcome the privilege. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. Illinois law recognizes that a corporation's directors, officers, and shareholders are conditionally privileged to interfere with the corporation's contracts. The privilege is an aspect of the business-judgment rule. Nation failed to overcome the privilege with evidence that defendant induced breach for the specific purpose of injuring him or to further its own goals and that it acted against the best interests of the corporation.

Smith claimed (42 U.S.C. 1981) that he endured serious racist harassment from his immediate supervisor at former defendant Equistar and was fired for complaining about it. Equistar was an affiliate of another former defendant, Lyondell, but both are now bankrupt. Smith has settled his claims against the primary wrongdoer, his former supervisor Bianchetta. He also brought claims against Equistar’s human resources manager, Bray, who, Smith says conspired with Bianchetta to retaliate against him. The district court granted Bray for summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. The retaliation claim did not satisfy the causation element of the direct method of proof because Smith did not present sufficient circumstantial evidence showing that his complaints about discrimination motivated Bray to seek his termination. Constructive discharge occurs when working conditions become so unbearable that an employee is forced to resign; the evidence showed that Smith was fired.

Plaintiff, hired as a police officer in 1992 and promoted to sergeant and shift supervisor in 1996, publicly criticized several departmental officials at two police officers’ union meetings. Roughly during that same time period, he also committed several violations of departmental policy and was punished accordingly with, among other things, a written reprimand and a two-day suspension. After plaintiff failed to clear a fitness-for-duty evaluation, the department filed termination charges. The matter was assigned to arbitration where he was suspended but not terminated. The district court rejected his claims of retaliation under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The Seventh Circuit affirmed. None of the employment actions that plaintiff complained about followed close on the heels of his purportedly protected speech. The context in which these actions were taken indicates that they were not related to his speech. Significant intervening, particularly plaintiff's own negative behavior, were the cause of the negative or disciplinary employment actions.

KSM failed to reinstate strikers after the union made an unconditional offer to return to work in 1997. In 2001, the NLRB ruled that KSM violated the NLRA, 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(3), and ordered backpay. The parties entered into partial settlement 2006, but there was no further progress. The ALJ attempted a remedial order in 2007, but the case was held up for a year and a half pending the Board having the necessary quorum. In 2010 the Board issued a Second Supplemental Decision and Order requiring KSM to compensate 42 former striking employees with backpay totaling $383,461.11. The Seventh Circuit granted a petition to enforce that order, upholding a seniority method of recall and rejecting challenges to pay for specific workers.

In 1997 Javier unlawfully entered the U.S.; he married in 2001. In 2007 the bank hired wife. Husband, attempting to start a business, could not open a bank account without a social security number. He obtained an individual tax identification number. Wife named him a joint owner on her account and helped use his ITIN to open accounts of his own. The business failed. Husband returned to Mexico to deal with his citizenship. Wife revealed the situation to her supervisor, requesting time off to help husband obtain citizenship. The supervisor agreed and called the bank security officer, who was concerned that the accounts might implicate bank fraud laws. During a meeting, the security officer became angry and berated wife. Wife refused to attend another meeting without her attorney The bank terminated her employment and reported her activity to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and a consortium of area banks. Wife sued, claiming blacklisting, defamation, emotional distress, and employment discrimination, 42 U.S.C. 2000e. The district court granted the bank summary judgment. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, holding that any discrimination was not based on race or national origin, but on an unprotected classification, husband’s status as an alien lacking permission to be in the country.

The State of Illinois, facing a significant and unprecedented fiscal deficit, brokered a series of compensation agreements with the exclusive bargaining representative for 40,000 state employees. The parties trimmed several hundred million dollars in fiscal years 2011 and 2012 by deferring general wage increases and instituting a voluntary furlough program. Despite these measures, the fiscal year 2012 budget did not contain sufficient appropriations for deferred wage increases due employees of 14 state agencies. The state froze the pay of those employees, repudiating agreements with the union. The district court dismissed a suit that alleged violations of the Contracts Clause and the Equal Protection Clause and state law. The Seventh Circuit affirmed, finding the Contracts Clause claim barred by the Eleventh Amendment. The court noted that the state’s actions did not bar a breach of contract suit. There was a rational relationship between those actions and a legitimate governmental purpose, precluding an equal protection claim.

Plaintiffs, hourly steel workers, argued that the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201 by failing to compensate for time spent putting on and removing work clothes in a locker room and walking to and from the locker room. The union contract does not require such compensation. Plaintiffs argued that the Act requires compensation and overrides contractual provisions. The district court ruled that the Act does not require compensation for changing time, but may require that walking time be compensated, and refused to dismiss. The Seventh Circuit held that the suit has no merit and should be dismissed. The court included a picture of the clothing and stated: "From a worker's standpoint any time spent on the factory grounds is time 'at work' in the sense of time away from home or some other place where he might prefer to be … But it is not time during which he is making steel, and so it is not time for which the company will willingly pay. If the workers have a legal right to be paid for that time, the company will be less willing to pay them a high wage for the time during which they are making steel."

Plaintiffs in consolidated cases claim that, during their tenures as pharmaceutical sales representatives employed by Lilly and Abbott, they were misclassified as exempt employees and denied overtime pay in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201-19. The employers argued that the administrative exemption and the outside sales exemptions removed the sales representatives from overtime protections. The two district courts reached opposite conclusions. After considering an amicus brief from the Department of Labor, the Seventh Circuit held that, under regulations of the Department of Labor, the pharmaceutical sales representatives are classified properly within the administrative exemption to overtime requirements. The court did not address the outside sales exemption. The sales representatives were compensated on a salary basis and their work is directly related to the general business operations of the pharmaceutical companies; they were required to exercise a significant measure of discretion and independent judgment, despite the constraints placed on them, and on all representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, by the regulatory environment in which they work.