Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Nitro-Lift contracts with operators of oil and gas wells to provide services. Howard and Schneider entered a confidentiality-noncompetition agreement with Nitro-Lift that contained an arbitration clause” After working for Nitro-Lift on wells in Oklahoma, Texas, and Arkansas, they quit and began working for one of Nitro-Lift’s competitors. Nitro-Lift served them with a demand for arbitration. The former employees filed suit Oklahoma, asking the court to declare the agreements void and enjoin enforcement. The court dismissed. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered the parties to show cause why the matter should not be resolved by application of Okla. Stat., Tit. 15, 219A, which limits the enforceability of noncompetition agreements. Nitro-Lift argued that any dispute as to the contracts’ enforceability was a question for the arbitrator. The Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the existence of an arbitration agreement in an employment contract does not prohibit judicial review of the underlying agreement. The U.S. Supreme Court vacated, holding that the state court misconstrued the Federal Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. 1, which favors arbitration. View "Nitro-Lift Techs., L.L.C. v. Howard" on Justia Law

The Civil Service Reform Act permits federal employees, subjected to serious personnel actions, to appeal to the Merit Systems Protection Board, 5 U. S. C. 7701. “Mixed cases,” based on discrimination, are governed by the CSRA and MSPB and EEOC regulations. An employee may initiate a mixed case with the agency-employer or directly with the MSPB. The CSRA provides that review of MSPB decisions “shall be filed in the ... Federal Circuit,” except that discrimination cases may be filed in district court. Kloeckner, a Department of Labor employee, filed a hostile work environment complaint with the DOL civil rights office. Following EEOC regulations, DOL completed an internal investigation; Kloeckner requested an EEOC hearing. While the EEOC case was pending, Kloeckner was fired and brought her mixed case directly to the MSPB. Concerned about duplicative expenses, she successfully moved to amend her EEOC complaint to include her claim of discriminatory removal and asked the MSPB to dismiss without prejudice. The MSPB granted a right to refile by January 18, 2007. The EEOC case continued until April 2007, when it was terminated as a sanction for Kloeckner’s discovery conduct and returned to DOL, which ruled against Kloeckner. The MSPB dismissed Kloeckner’s appeal as untimely. The district court dismissed for lack of jurisdiction, reasoning that the only discrimination cases that could go to district court under 5 U.S.C. 7703(b)(2) were those the MSPB had decided on the merits. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded. Each referenced enforcement provision authorizes action in federal district court. Regardless of whether the MSPB dismissed on the merits or threw it out as untimely, Kloeckner brought the kind of case that the CSRA routes to district court. View "Kloeckner v. Solis" on Justia Law

California law permits public employees to create an agency shop bargaining unit so that all employees are represented by a union. Employees who do not join must pay "chargeable expenses;" the union may not require nonmembers to fund ideological projects. In 2005, SEIU, a public-sector union, sent its annual "Hudson notice," setting and capping monthly dues, and stating that the fee could increase without notice. That month, the Governor called for a special election on propositions opposed by SEIU. After the 30-day objection period, SEIU sent a letter announcing a temporary 25% dues increase and elimination of the cap: an "Emergency Temporary Assessment to Build a Political Fight-Back Fund." Nonmembers could not avoid paying. The district court entered summary judgment favoring a class of nonmembers who paid into the fund. The Ninth Circuit reversed, employing a balancing test: whether procedures reasonably accommodated interests of the union, the employer, and nonmember employees. The Supreme Court reversed, holding that the case is not moot, despite SEIU offering a refund. When a state establishes an agency shop that exacts union fees as a condition of public employment, dissenting employees are forced to support an organization with whose principles they may disagree. Compulsory subsidies for private speech are subject to exacting First Amendment scrutiny and cannot be sustained unless there is a comprehensive regulatory scheme and compulsory fees are a necessary incident of the larger regulatory purpose that justified the required association. When a union imposes a special assessment or dues increase to meet undisclosed expenses, it must provide fresh notice and may not exact funds without consent. Failure to provide a fresh Hudson notice was unjustified; treatment of nonmembers who opted out after the initial Hudson notice also ran violated the First Amendment. They were required to pay 56.35% of the special assessment even though all the money was slated for electoral uses.

Petitioners, employed by respondent as pharmaceutical sales representatives, filed suit alleging that respondent violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 206-207, by failing to compensate them for overtime. At issue was whether the term "outside salesman," as defined by the Department of Labor regulations, encompassed pharmaceutical sales representatives whose primary duty was to obtain nonbinding commitments from physicians to prescribe their employer's prescription drugs in appropriate cases. The Court concluded that these employees qualified as outside salesmen under the most reasonable interpretations of the Department's regulations.

Under the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 (CSRA), 5 U.S.C. 1101 et seq., certain federal employees could obtain administrative and judicial review of specified adverse employment actions. At issue was whether the CSRA provided the exclusive avenue to judicial review when a qualifying employee challenged an adverse employment action by arguing that a federal statute was unconstitutional. The Court held that it did. The CSRA precluded district court jurisdiction over petitioners' claims because it was fairly discernible that Congress intended the statute's review scheme to provide the exclusive avenue to judicial review for covered employees who challenged covered adverse employment actions, even when those employees argued that a federal statute was unconstitutional.

Respondent, a firefighter employed by the City of Rialto, brought an action under 42 U.S.C. 1983 against the City, the Fire Department, the private attorney hired by the City, and other individuals. The district court granted summary judgment to the individual defendants based on qualified immunity. The Ninth Circuit concluded that the attorney the City hired was not entitled to seek qualified immunity because he was a private attorney, not a City employee. At issue before the Court was whether an individual hired by the government to do its work was prohibited from seeking qualified immunity, solely because he worked for the government on something other than a permanent full-time basis. The Court held that a private individual temporarily retained by the government to carry out its work was entitled to seek qualified immunity from suit under section 1983. Therefore, the Court reversed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.

Petitioner filed suit, alleging that his employer, the Maryland Court of Appeals, an instrumentality of the State, violated the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA), 29 U.S.C. 2612(a)(1). The provision at issue required employers, including state employers, to grant unpaid leave for self care for a serious medical condition, provided other statutory requisites were met, particularly requirements that the total amount of annual leave taken under all the FMLA's provisions did not exceed a stated maximum. The Court held that suits against States under the self-care provision, section 2612(a)(1), were barred by the States' immunity as sovereigns in the federal system. Therefore, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Fourth Circuit.

Petitioner was injured at an Alaska marine terminal while working for respondents and subsequently filed a claim against respondents under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 901 et seq. The Act capped benefits for most types of disability at twice the national average weekly wage for the fiscal year in which an injured employee was "newly awarded compensation." The Court held that an employee was "newly awarded compensation" when he first became disabled and thereby became statutorily entitled to benefits, no matter whether, or when, a compensation order issued on his behalf. Therefore, the Court affirmed the judgment of the Ninth Circuit.

Respondent, widow of an employee of Pacific Operators Offshore, sought benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. 901 et seq., pursuant to the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA), 43 U.S.C. 1333(b), which extended LHWCA coverage to injuries "occurring as the result of operations conducted on the [OCS]" for the purpose of extracting natural resources from the shelf. The ALJ dismissed her claim, reasoning that section 1333(b) did not cover the employee's fatal injury because his accident occurred on land, not on the OCS. The Labor Department's Benefits Review Board affirmed, but the Ninth Circuit reversed. The Court concluded that the Ninth Circuit's "substantial-nexus" test was more faithful to the text of section 1333(b). The Court understood the Ninth Circuit's test to require the injured employee to establish a significant causal link between the injury that he suffered and his employer's on-OCS operations conducted for the purpose of extracting natural resources from the OCS.

Hosanna-Tabor, a member congregation of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, operated a small school in Michigan offering a "Christian-centered education" to students in kindergarten through eighth grade. The Synod classified its school teachers into two categories: "called" and "lay." "Called" teachers, among other things, were regarded as having been called to their vocation by God. To be eligible to be called from a congregation, a teacher must satisfy certain academic requirements. "Lay" or "contract" teachers, by contrast, were not required to be trained by the Synod or even to be Lutheran. "Called" teacher, Cheryl Perich filed a charge with the EEOC, claiming that her employment had been terminated in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. 12101 et seq. The EEOC brought suit against Hosanna-Tabor, alleging that Perich had been fired in retaliation for threatening to file an ADA lawsuit. Perich intervened. Invoking what was known as the "ministerial exception," Hosanna-Tabor argued that the suit was barred by the First Amendment because the claims concerned the employment relationship between a religious institution and one of its ministers. The Court held that the Establishment and Free Exercise Clauses of the First Amendment barred suits brought on behalf of ministers against their churches, claiming termination in violation of employment discrimination laws. Because Perich was a minister within the meaning of the ministerial exception, the First Amendment required dismissal of this employment discrimination suit against her religious employer.