Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

San Diego County Sheriff's Deputies ("deputies") shot and killed Shane Hayes inside his home after the deputies arrived at Hayes' residence in response to a domestic disturbance call from a neighbor. Plaintiff, Hayes' daughter, asserted a claim for negligence based in part on the deputies' preshooting conduct, specifically their alleged failure to properly assess the situation before entering the house. The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the deputies and found that the deputies owed Hayes no duty of care in their preshooting conduct. The district court did not address whether the deputies' preshooting conduct could be considered a breach of any standard of care, if such a duty were owed. The court certified the following question to the California Supreme Court: "Whether under California negligence law, sheriff's deputies owe a duty of care to a suicidal person when preparing, approaching, and performing a welfare check on him." In light of the court's decision to certify the issue presented, the opinion filed in this case on March 22, 2011 was withdrawn.

Appellant appealed the grant of summary judgment in his civil rights action arising from the suspension of his medical staff privileges at the University Medical Center of Southern Nevada ("UMC"), a county hospital organized under the laws of Nevada, as well as the denial of his motion for leave to file a third amended complaint asserting claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The principal issue on appeal was whom, if anyone, could appellant sue under 42 U.S.C. 1983 for his constitutional injury. The court held that the district court erred in determining that only the MEC, not named a party to the suit, could be liable for appellant's alleged section 1983 claims. The court also held that, because appellant alleged sufficient facts that the individually named voting members of the MEC acted under color of state law in effecting the unconstitutional deprivation of his protected property interest, amending his complaint to include reference to section 1983 would not be futile or prejudice defendants.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation ("CDCR") had a paid chaplaincy program that employed Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, and Native American clergy. These chaplains served all inmates but other religions were also served by volunteer chaplains. A Wiccan volunteer chaplain and a small group of inmates challenged the paid chaplaincy program asserting that the Wiccan chaplain should be eligible for employment in the paid-chaplaincy program. The court held that the inmates failed to exhaust their claims or brought them in an untimely fashion and the chaplain was pursuing constitutional claims that were derivative of the inmates' claims rather than his own. Accordingly, the court held that the district court properly dismissed and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on the Wiccan chaplains' claims because, for the most part, he lacked standing. The court agreed that the district court need not exercise jurisdiction over these derivative claims. The court also held that, although the Wiccan chaplain had standing to pursue his personal employment claims, and also constitutional claims for different treatment as a volunteer chaplain and retaliation, ultimately he could not prevail on those claims.

Appellant, director of a child development center on the Elmendorf Air Force Base, sued appellees alleging claims of discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-16, and a claim of unlawful removal from employment pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 7702. Appellant appealed from the district court's denial of summary judgment affirming a decision of the Merit Systems Protection Board ("MSPB"), which in turn upheld a decision by the United States Air Force ("Agency"), to terminate her employment after she requested 120 days leave without pay pursuant to the Family Medical Leave Act ("FMLA"), 5 U.S.C. 6382(a)(1)(D), and failed to provide the minimum information required by section 6383(b) of the FMLA. The court held that the MSPB's finding was supported by substantial evidence where appellant's WH-380 form and the two doctors' notes she submitted did not provide the minimum information required by section 6383(b). The court further held that, because appellant refused to submit the minimal mandated medical certification, she could not show any harm arising from the Agency's request for more documentation that was required by the FMLA. The court further held that the administrative law judge properly rejected appellant's argument that the Agency failed to give her adequate time to provide medical certification. The court finally held that substantial evidence supported the MSPB's finding and therefore, the Agency acted within its discretion in removing her from her position.

Defendants, the chairman and chief executive officer of Lunde Electric Company ("company"), appealed convictions stemming from the misappropriation of employee 401(k) contributions to pay the company's operating expenses. At issue was whether there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions under 18 U.S.C. 664, for embezzlement or conversion of elective deferrals, and 18 U.S.C. 1027, for false or misleading statements in a required Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 ("ERISA"), 29 U.S.C 1001 et seq., document. The court held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions on Counts 17 and 18 under section 664 where there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the 1991 Profit Sharing Plan had been restated before defendants retained their employees' elective deferrals in the company's general account; where defendants commingled their employees' contributions with the company's assets to prop up their failing business and therefore, intentionally used their employees' assets for an unauthorized purpose; where they sent participants account statements showing 401(k) balances which were in fact non-existent; where defendants' decision to deviate was the wilful criminal misappropriation punished by section 664; and where defendants were alerted repeatedly about their obligation to remit the deferrals and defendants hid their actions from employees. The court also held that there was sufficient evidence to support defendants' convictions on Count 21 under section 1027 where defendants' initial decision to mislead their own employees about the solvency of their retirement plans by filing false account statements and false Form 5500s were the behaviors targeted by section 1027.

Plaintiffs, working as auditors in The Boeing Company's ("Boeing") IT Sarbanes-Oxley ("SOX") Audit group, filed SOX whistleblower complaints under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, U.S.C. 1514(a)(1), with the Occupation Safety and Health Administration after they were terminated by Boeing when they spoke with a reporter from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer ("Post-Intelligencer") about Boeing's compliance with SOX. At issue was whether plaintiffs' disclosures to the Post-Intelligencer were protected under section 1514(a)(1), which protected employees of publicly-traded companies who disclose certain types of information. The court held that section 1514(a)(1) did not protect employees of publicly-held companies from retaliation when they disclosed information regarding designated types of fraud or securities violations to members of the media.

Plaintiff and defendant, the United Parcel Service, Inc. ("UPS"), appealed a jury verdict awarding plaintiff unpaid overtime, meal, and rest-period wages. The district court originally certified a class comprised of full-time supervisors employed by UPS under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23 and appointed plaintiff as class representative under California's Industrial Welfare Commission ("IWC") Wage Order No. 9, Cal. Code Regs. tit. 8 11090. At issue was whether the district court erred in subsequently decertifying the class on the ground that plaintiff failed to establish that common issues of law or fact predominated over individual ones. The court held that the district court did not abuse its discretion in decertifying the class where the district court held that plaintiff had not established predominance, had relied heavily on a survey that was neither reliable nor representative of a class, that his remaining evidence similarly was not representative of the class, and did not address the "primarily engaged" element of the exemptions under the IWC Wage Order No. 9.

Plaintiff, the Department of Fair Employment and Housing ("DFEH") and plaintiff-intervenor appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of defendant, Lucent Technologies, Inc. ("Lucent"), plaintiff-intervenor's former employer, on claims that he was terminated in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act, ("FEHA"), Cal.Gov't Code 12920.5. DFEH also challenged the district court's finding of diversity jurisdiction and plaintiff-intervenor challenged the district court's denial of his motion to intervene. The court held that the district court correctly determined that it possessed jurisdiction where the statutory scheme did not support a finding that DFEH was a real party in the controversy for the purposes of diversity jurisdiction. The court also held that the district court's denial of plaintiff-intervenor's motion to intervene as a right was not in error where he failed to demonstrate that he was not adequately represented by California and that the court did not abuse its discretion in placing various limitations on him as a permissive intervenor. The court further held that summary judgment was proper where there was no genuine issue of material fact as to DFEH's claims and where DFEH failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact as to pretext. The court finally held that there was no genuine issue of material fact as to plaintiff-intervenor's wrongful termination claim where DFEH could not prevail on any of its claims under the FEHA.

Plaintiff, who was of Iranian descent, appealed a summary judgment order where plaintiff alleged that defendant wrongfully terminated him in violation of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act when plaintiff failed to obtain security clearance by the Department of Defense. At issue was whether federal courts lacked jurisdiction to decide discrimination cases involving security clearance decisions and whether summary judgment was proper where plaintiff had not introduced evidence to satisfy his burden under McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. The court held that federal courts did have jurisdiction to adjudicate plaintiff's discriminatory termination claim where plaintiff was not disputing the merits of his security clearance denial. The court also held that summary judgment was improper where plaintiff introduced evidence that raised a triable dispute regarding whether a security clearance was in fact a bona fide occupational qualification for defendant's engineers when defendant retained similarly situated, non-Iranian engineers who lacked security clearances.