Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

After plaintiff's employer failed to respond to his suit for wage underpayment, plaintiff obtained a default judgment for himself and two other employees. The district court subsequently vacated its default judgment as to the two employees because they failed to opt-in to the lawsuit, concluding that it had lacked subject matter jurisdiction to enter the judgment. The DC Circuit held that the opt-in omission did not oust the district court of subject matter jurisdiction. The court held, nonetheless, that the judgment may be void for a different reason. In this case, two defendants claimed they were never served with the complaint and thus the district court must hold an evidentiary hearing on remand. View "Montes v. Janitorial Partners, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit contending that USAID and NOAA violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. 2000e et seq., by terminating his employment because of his national origin. He also contended that NOAA violated 18 U.S.C. 1001, which criminalizes false statements to the government, by lying about why he was terminated. The DC Circuit affirmed the dismissal of plaintiff's claim under section 1001 because the statute did not create a private right of action. The court determined that plaintiff's remaining contentions lacked merit and affirmed, with one modification of the order of dismissal. View "Lee v. USAID" on Justia Law

The company petitioned for review of the Board's order to reinstate an employee with make-whole relief, and to reimburse the employee for search-for-work and interim employment expenses regardless of whether those expenses exceeded her interim earnings. The DC Circuit held that the Board's determination that it unlawfully interrogated the employee must be vacated because this charge was not added to the General Counsel's complaint until after the commencement of the hearing before the ALJ. Therefore, the company had no reasonable notice of the interrogation charge or a fair opportunity to defend itself. The court found no merit in the company's remaining claims. The court granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement as to all matters except the finding that the company violated the National Labor Relations Act when it allegedly interrogated the employee about complaints she raised with the union. The court granted the company's petition for review as to that charge, but denied the petition for review as to the remaining matters. View "King Soopers, Inc. v. NLRB" on Justia Law

The DC Circuit held that the district court properly dismissed plaintiff's claims against DHS for failure to exhaust his administrative remedies. Although plaintiff initiated this administrative exhaustion process for his claims of race discrimination and retaliation when his supervisors denied him leave in 2002, he did not file a formal complaint with DHS's EEO office until 2010. The court explained that such a lengthy and unexplained delay in filing his formal complaint with DHS did not evidence the diligent pursuit of Title VII rights that was required for equitable tolling. Therefore, the district court properly dismissed the complaint. View "Niskey v. Kelly" on Justia Law

Piedmont Garden petitioned for review of the Board's determination that Piedmont Gardens violated the National Labor Relations Act by withholding certain of the requested information, and order requiring Piedmont Gardens to produce that information to the union and refrain from violating the Act in the same manner in the future. The DC Circuit enforced the cited language in the cease-and-desist order only to the extent that it required Piedmont Gardens to comply with the witness-statement disclosure requirements that the Board actually applied in this case: those of Anheuser-Busch (the Anheuser-Busch rule). In other respects, Piedmont Gardens must be treated as any other employer. Because the court's holding eliminated any risk of the only injury that Piedmont Gardens asserted it will suffer due to the Board's adoption of the new rule, Piedmont lacked standing to challenge that portion of the Board's decision. Accordingly, the court denied in part and dismissed in part the petition for review. The court granted the Board's cross-application for enforcement of its order with clarifications. View "American Baptist Homes of the West v. NLRB" on Justia Law