Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6). Plaintiff maintains that the Act's three-year statute of limitations for willful violations should apply to his claim because he alleged that his employer willfully violated the Act. Plaintiff asks the court to infer willfulness from the mere fact that he was asked for a period of time to perform job responsibilities typically performed by non-exempt employees even though he was classified as exempt.The court held that the mere allegation of willfulness is insufficient for a plaintiff to secure the benefit of the three-year exception to the Act's general two-year statute of limitations at the pleadings stage. Rather, for the three-year exception to apply at the pleadings stage, a plaintiff must plead facts that plausibly give rise to an inference of willfulness. In this case, plaintiff failed to do so because his allegations permit at most an inference that defendants negligently failed to reclassify him as a non-exempt employee which, without more, is insufficient. The court explained that plaintiff fails to raise a reasonable expectation that discovery will reveal evidence of defendants' willfulness. Instead, he pleads facts that are merely consistent with defendants' purported willfulness, and thus his claim stops short of the line between possibility and plausibility. View "Whiteside v. Hover-Davis, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a putative class action on behalf of himself and similarly-situated employees of Joe's Shanghai restaurant, alleging violations of the New York Labor Law (NYLL). The district court certified the class action under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 23(b)(3) of all nonmanagerial employees at the Flushing, Queens location of Joe's Shanghai on the NYLL claims. However, five days before the trial was scheduled to start, the district court sua sponte decertified the class, determining that class counsel was no longer adequately representing the class. The district court held a bench trial on plaintiff's individual claims and entered judgment in favor of plaintiff against three of the defendants.As a preliminary issue, the Second Circuit concluded that, although plaintiff prevailed on the merits of his claims, this appeal is not moot because he maintains standing as to the class certification issue. On the merits, the court concluded that because class counsel's conduct made clear that counsel was no longer adequately representing the class, the district court acted within its discretion in decertifying the class. In this case, the record is replete with counsel's shortcomings before the class was decertified. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's judgment. View "Jianmin Jin v. Shanghai Original, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a retired "dual status technician" with the National Guard, argues that the civil service pension he received in connection with his employment as a dual status technician – a civilian position that requires concurrent National Guard membership – is not subject to reduction under the Social Security Act's Windfall Elimination Provision because the pension falls within an exception applicable to payments based wholly on work performed as a member of a uniformed service. The district court granted summary judgment to plaintiff and the Administration appealed.The Second Circuit reversed the Administration's calculation of plaintiff's Social Security retirement benefits. The court read the plain language of the statute and used traditional tools of statutory interpretation, holding that a civil service pension based on federal civilian employment as a dual status technician does not fall within the uniformed service exception. Therefore, the court remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court's opinion. View "Linza v. Saul" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a carman for Metro-North, filed suit under the Federal Railroad Safety Act, alleging unlawful retaliation for his refusal to walk outdoors to another building in the railyard in allegedly unsafe winter conditions or, in the alternative, for his reporting those unsafe conditions to a foreman.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of Metro-North's motion for summary judgment, holding that the district court did not commit reversible error. The court adopted the "reasonableness" definition in the Sarbanes-Oxley Act context, which means that a "reasonable belief contains both subjective and objective components," and applied it in the FRSA context. The court agreed with Metro-North and the district court that plaintiff has not identified a genuine dispute of material fact over whether the walkways were safe or over the reasonableness of his own assessment. In this case, plaintiff did not submit any specific evidence to support his generalized contention that the walkways at the railyard were unsafe, other than to assert that other employees slipped as they walked. The court concluded that plaintiff's subjective assessment alone cannot create a genuine issue of material fact.The court agreed with the Seventh and Eighth Circuits and held that some evidence of retaliatory intent is a necessary component of an FRSA claim. The court considered the Eighth Circuit's Gunderson factors and concluded that plaintiff's protected activity was not a contributing factor in his discharge. Finally, the court considered plaintiff's remaining arguments and found them to be without merit. View "Tompkins v. Metro-North Commuter Railroad Co." on Justia Law

The Union represented the workers at the Old Brookville campus. In 2016, LIU contracted out that work to A&A, which became the employer of those workers and assumed an existing collective bargaining agreement, set to expire in August 2017. A&A and the Union entered into a successor CBA, which requires Union membership after 30 days but allows A&A to hire “substitute employees” “to fill in for employees who are out on disability or worker’s compensation or approved extended leaves.” The Union rejected a provision that would have permitted A&A to use non-union “temporary employees” at will for up to 90 days. The agreement has an arbitration provision.Union members noticed new, non-union employees in late 2017. A&A indicated that they were "substitute employees." The Union determined that the number of claimed substitutes exceeded the number of members out on disability, worker’s compensation, and other approved leaves of absence and sent a written grievance. The Union framed the arbitration issue: whether A&A violated the CBA by utilizing temporary employees ... to perform bargaining unit work. A&A argued that the Arbitrator was confined to the issue proposed by the Union in its original grievance, which mentioned only “substitute employees.”The arbitrator held that A&A had violated the CBA and issued an award of $1,702,263.81. The Second Circuit affirmed. The arbitrator did not exceed his authority. While worded differently, the issue that the arbitrator ruled on was substantially identical to the issue in the grievance letter. A party that has previously agreed to arbitrate cannot frustrate the process by refusing to agree on the form of the issue. The arbitrator’s interpretation of the collective bargaining agreement was more than colorable. View "A&A Maintenance Enterprise, Inc. v. Ramnarain" on Justia Law

Time Warner petitions for review of a Board ruling that Time Warner committed an unfair labor practice in violation of Section 8(a)(1) of the National Labor Relations Act by coercively interrogating employees about communications leading to an unprotected demonstration and work stoppage that contravened the no-strike agreement between Time Warner and the Union.The Second Circuit held that the Board's standard, interpreted to prohibit Time Warner from coercively questioning employees who participated in an unprotected work stoppage about any communication prior to the stoppage except to identify actual participants, represented an unexplained and unjustified departure from the Board's precedents. The court explained that the portion of the Board's standard requiring that in coercive questioning, employers "focus closely" on unprotected activity where it might touch on protected activity has a reasonable basis in law, but the Board's requirement that an employer "minimize" intrusion into Section 7 activity in such questioning, at least as understood by the Board in this case, does not. Because the Board's enunciated standard, at least as applied here, lacks a reasonable basis in law, the court vacated the Board's ruling and remanded for further proceedings. On remand, the Board should determine, employing a standard consistent with its precedent, whether Time Warner's questioning interfered unreasonably with employees' rights protected by Section 7. View "Time Warner Cable of New York City LLC v. National Labor Relations Board" on Justia Law

Dylan filed suit in district court seeking a declaration of its rights and obligations under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA). The district court converted defendants' motion to dismiss into a motion to compel arbitration and granted the motion, dismissing Dylan's complaint without prejudice.The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal; clarified that the district court had federal question jurisdiction to decide whether Dylan was entitled to the declaratory relief requested; and held that, because the Funds have adequately initiated arbitration, regardless of timing, Dylan is required to arbitrate by the terms of the CBA. The court also agreed with the district court's analysis that it was proper in this case to compel arbitration and dismiss Dylan's complaint without prejudice. The court considered Dylan's remaining arguments and found them to be without merit. View "Dylan 140 LLC v. Figueroa" on Justia Law

The Second Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the New York City Department of Education and a school principal in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging a claim of First Amendment retaliation and Title VII claims of a sex-based hostile work environment and retaliation.The court concluded that plaintiff's speech consisted of grievances about employment disputes that are not matters of public concern, and therefore his speech was not protected against retaliation by the First Amendment. Even if some of plaintiff's speech were so protected, the court concluded that the district court still would have been correct to grant qualified immunity to the principal. Furthermore, the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff's Monell claim against the Department of Education fails because the principal was not a policymaker, and thus plaintiff cannot identify any municipal policy that allegedly caused a constitutional violation. The court also concluded that summary judgment was properly granted on plaintiff's Title VII claims. The court explained that plaintiff's sex-based hostile work environment claim fails because the principal's actions were not sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms of plaintiff's employment. Finally, the retaliation claim also fails because there is insufficient evidence of a causal link between plaintiff's protected activity and the alleged retaliatory acts. View "Agosto v. New York City Department of Education" on Justia Law

In a challenge to the State of New York's 2011 reduction, through the amendment of a state statute and regulation, of its contribution rates to retired former state employees' health insurance premiums, the Second Circuit certified the following questions to the New York Court of Appeals: (1) Under New York state law, and in light of Kolbe v. Tibbetts, 22 N.Y.3d 344 (2013), M & G Polymers USA, LLC v. Tackett, 574 U.S. 427 (2015), and CNH Indus. 5 N.V. v. Reese, 138 S. Ct. 761 (2018), do 9.13 (setting forth contribution rates of 90% and 75%), 9.23(a) (concerning contribution rates for surviving dependents of deceased retirees), 9.24(a) (specifying that retirees may retain NYSHIP coverage in retirement), 9.24(b) (permitting retirees to use sick-leave credit to defray premium costs), and 9.25 (allowing for the indefinite delay or suspension of coverage or sick-leave credits) of the 2007-2011 collective bargaining agreement between the Civil Service Employees Association, Inc. and the Executive Branch of the State of New York ("the CBA"), singly or in combination, (1) create a vested right in retired employees to have the State's rates of contribution to health-insurance premiums remain unchanged during their lifetimes, notwithstanding the duration of the CBA, or (2) if they do not, create sufficient ambiguity on that issue to permit the consideration of extrinsic evidence as to whether they create such a vested right? (2) If the CBA, on its face, or as interpreted at trial upon consideration of extrinsic evidence, creates a vested right in retired employees to have the State's rates of contribution to health-insurance premiums remain unchanged during their lives, notwithstanding the duration of the CBA, does New York's statutory and regulatory reduction of its contribution rates for retirees' premiums negate such a vested right so as to preclude a remedy under state law for breach of contract? View "Donohue v. Cuomo" on Justia Law

Four female employees, including plaintiff, filed suit alleging hostile work environment claims. The jury awarded plaintiff a total of $400,000 on her claims against defendants under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and 42 U.S.C. 1983. The County then filed motions for judgment as a matter of law or, alternatively, for a new trial, under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(b) and 59(b). The district court then sua sponte denied the motions based on the restrictions established by Rule 6(b)(2) on extending time for filing such motions. The Second Circuit vacated the denial order and remanded. On remand, the district court found that plaintiff "constructively waived" her objection to the timeliness of the County's motions and entered orders reducing plaintiff's Title VII award to $75,000 and overturning the jury verdict in her favor on her section 1983 claim for want of evidence of an unlawful municipal custom or practice under Monell v. Department of Social Services, 436 U.S. 658 (1978). Both plaintiff and the County appealed.The Second Circuit held that plaintiff forfeited her right to object to the untimeliness of the County's post-trial motions by failing to raise the issue contemporaneously with the district court's grant of the extension. The court further rejected the County's position that plaintiff's acceptance of remittitur on her Title VII claims forecloses her appeal of the judgment insofar as it relates to her section 1983 claim. On the merits, the court affirmed the judgment in plaintiff's favor on her Title VII claim and rejected the County's cross-appeal seeking judgment in its favor on that claim as a matter of law. In regard to the section 1983 claim, the court concluded that the district court erred in entering judgment as a matter of law for the County, because the jury had a reasonable basis for its finding of sufficient municipal involvement to support its award to plaintiff. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded. View "Legg v. Ulster County" on Justia Law