Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Defendants Bank of New York Mellon Corporation, LLP and its subsidiary, The Bank of New York Mellon (collectively, “BNYM”), retained Plaintiff as an independent contractor to work on an investment valuation project. Plaintiff developed the so-called Pauwels Model. At various times between 2014 and the end of his working relationship with BNYM in 2018, Plaintiff shared spreadsheets derived from the Pauwels Model with various employees and executives at BNYM. In 2016, BNYM retained Defendants Deloitte LLP, Deloitte Tax LLP, and Deloitte USA LLP (collectively, “Deloitte”) to take over the work that Plaintiff had been performing for BNYM. Plaintiff alleged that Deloitte used the spreadsheets to reverse engineer the Pauwels Model and was using the model to conduct the services it provided to BNYM. Plaintiff brought suit against BNYM and Deloitte, alleging, among other claims, that the Pauwels Model embodied a trade secret that they misappropriated.   The Second Circuit reversed and remanded the district court’s judgment insofar as it dismissed Plaintiff’s unjust enrichment claim. The court affirmed the remainder of the judgment. The court explained that misappropriation is not an element of a claim for unjust enrichment under New York law. Therefore, a plaintiff’s claim for unjust enrichment does not necessarily rise or fall with a claim of trade secret misappropriation. The court explained that because Plaintiff’s theory of liability is distinct from those underpinning Plaintiff’s claim for trade secret misappropriation, his claim for unjust enrichment should not have been dismissed as duplicative of his claim for trade secret misappropriation. View "Pauwels v. Deloitte LLP" on Justia Law

Plaintiff worked as a hospital nurse for St. Vincent’s Health System. After St. Vincent’s fired her, Plaintiff sued, alleging race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII and 42 U.S.C. 1981. The district court granted summary judgment for St. Vincent’s, and Plaintiff appealed.On appeal, Plaintiff claimed she presented sufficient evidence to survive summary judgment as to all her claims. She also claimed that the district court erred in applying the McDonnell Douglas framework to a “mixed-motive” retaliation claim.The Eleventh Circuit held that Plaintiff's hostile work environment claim failed because there was no evidence of severe or pervasive harassment; Bostock v. Clayton County, 140 S. Ct. 1731 (2020) did nothing to undermine the application of McDonnell Douglas to retaliation claims because but for causation still applies; Plainitff's retaliation claim cannot survive; and disparate-treatment claim fails because there is no evidence that race played a role in her termination. View "Cynthia Diane Yelling v. St. Vincent's Health System" on Justia Law

NCR's customer engineers (CEs) service NCR devices in the field, working remotely. NCR instructed CEs to work only during their official shifts, prohibited off-the-clock work, and required CEs to record their time in an electronic system. If a CE worked overtime—contrary to NCR guidance—the CE would be paid for the time only if she recorded it. Meadows worked as a CE from 2008-2019; when he recorded unauthorized overtime, he was paid for that time. When he did not record that time, he was not compensated.Meadows sued NCR under the Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. 201, seeking compensation for his unrecorded overtime work. The district court held that Meadows’s off-the-clock activities were not part of his core responsibilities but were incidental. Under the FLSA, employers are required to compensate an employee’s performance of all principal activities but not incidental activities unless an exception applies, including if the employer elected to do so by contract or custom. The court stated that NCR could not escape liability by imposing a recording requirement on its custom of paying for incidental activities because NCR had constructive knowledge of those activities.The Seventh Circuit reversed. The FLSA does not mandate overtime pay for the performance of incidental activities—which an employer has chosen to remunerate by custom or practice—if the employee failed to comply with requirements for payment imposed by that custom or practice. View "Meadows v. NCR Corp." on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals issuing a limited writ of mandamus and ordering the Industrial Commission of Ohio to determine Appellee's appropriate pre-injury visual baseline and to apply that baseline to his request for compensation, holding that the Commission has discretion to use a claimant's vision as corrected by a hard contact lens as the claimant's pre-injury visual baseline.Appellee sustained an industrial injury to his right eye and underwent three surgical procedures to address the conditions allowed under his workers' compensation claim. Appellee then sought scheduled-loss compensation under Ohio Rev. Code 4123.57. After staff hearing officer denied Appellee's request Appellee filed a mandamus action arguing that the Commission had abused its discretion. The court of appeals reversed. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that the writ was appropriate to determine Appellee's pre-injury visual baseline and to then use that baseline to determine whether the medical evidence supports an award for total loss of sight under Ohio Rev. Code 4123.57(B). View "State ex rel. Cogan v. Industrial Comm'n of Ohio" on Justia Law

Plaintiff was hired as the Superintendent of Dothan City Schools in Dothan, Alabama. The employment contract stated Plaintiff could only be terminated for cause. Furthermore, the contract stated that the termination would not be effective until the Board provided Plaintiff with a statement of the cause for termination and allowed her an opportunity for a hearing. Lastly, the employment contract provided that Plainitff could resign with or without cause as long as she gave at least 120 days notice in writing of her resignation to the Board. Six days after Plaintiff’s intent to resign was sent, Plaintiff alleges that the Board voted to terminate Plaintiff’s contract. She brought claims for deprivation of due process and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, conspiracy to violate civil rights in violation of 42 U.S.C. Section 1985, and breach of contract. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s claims with prejudice.   The Eleventh Circuit reversed the district court’s denial of Plaintiff’s due process claims and affirmed the district court’s denial of Plaintiff’s conspiracy and breach of contract claims. The court explained that instead of construing all ambiguities in Plaintiff’s favor, the district court used the minutes to recharacterize the allegations within Plaintiff’s complaint. When taking the factual allegations in Plaintiff’s complaint as true, there is a plausible claim for relief. In paragraph 18 of the complaint, Plaintiff’s classifies her communication as an “intent” to resign, not an actual resignation. The court wrote that the district court erred by ignoring that Plaintiff had a plausible claim to relief and not drawing reasonable inferences in her favor. View "Phyllis Edwards v. Dothan City Schools, et al" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a black nurse who was disciplined and ultimately fired by her employer, Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County—appealed the district court’s entry of summary judgment on her Title VII and state-law claims alleging (1) employment discrimination, (2) hostile work environment, and (3) retaliation. Harris contends that the district court erred in rejecting all three claims.   The Eleventh Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that Public Health Trust says that several incidents that occurred at Jackson Reeves shouldn’t be considered because they weren’t caused by Plaintiff’s race. The court wrote that it agreed with Public Health Trust that three of the incidents weren’t caused by Harris’s race and, accordingly, shouldn’t be considered as part of the hostile-work-environment calculus. Further, the court reasoned that even considering Plaintiff’s limited evidence in the light most favorable to her, these are not, given the totality of the circumstances, sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the terms and conditions of her employment and create an abusive working environment. View "Mary E. Harris v. The Public Health Trust of Miami-Dade County" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment of the court of appeals concluding that the Industrial Commission of Ohio did not abuse its discretion in denying Appellant's request for a violation of specific safety requirements (VSSR) award, holding that there was no error.Appellant suffered a work-related hand injury while working for Employer and requested an award in addition to her workers' compensation benefits, alleging that her injury was a result of Employer's VSSR violation. The Commission found that Appellant did not commit a VSSR and denied the request for an additional award. The Supreme Court affirmed and denied Appellant's motion for an oral argument, holding that some evidence in the record supported the Commission's decision. View "State ex rel. Levitin v. Industrial Commission" on Justia Law

Plaintiff resigned from her tenured professorship at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law at Texas Southern University (TSU) in August 2020. She then sued TSU and several TSU employees for Title VII constructive discharge, Equal Pay Act (EPA) retaliation, and civil rights violations under 42 U.S.C. Section 1983. The district court dismissed all her claims, holding that res judicata barred her Section 1983 claims and that she failed to state Title VII and EPA claims.   The Ffith Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that Plaintiff alleges that TSU investigated her for discrimination but found no evidence that Plaintiff discriminated, that defendant “threw her hair into Plaintiff’s face in the law school lobby,” and that defendant yelled at Plaintiff that she couldn’t park in a church parking lot. But no facts suggest that these were more than personal disputes between the parties. Indeed, their parking lot confrontation was not even on school property. Plaintiff also alleges that defendant “has made comments about [her] race,” but she does not identify the comments or their context. The court explained that Plaintiff does not allege conduct by TSU that plausibly—not just possibly—states a constructive discharge claim. Further, the court held that Plaintiff fails to allege that Defendant acted under color of state law and thus fails to state a Section 1983 claim. View "Sacks v. Texas Southern University" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs brought two actions against KeyPoint Government Solutions: a collective action under the Fair Labor Standards Act (the FLSA) on behalf of KeyPoint employees nationwide, and a state-law putative class action on behalf of California employees. They alleged KeyPoint violated the FLSA through policies requiring employees to work uncompensated overtime and also violated certain provisions of California’s wage-and-hour laws. On appeal, KeyPoint argued: (1) the district court erred in denying KeyPoint’s motion to compel arbitration of California state-law claims by some California Plaintiffs; and (2) the district court erred in certifying under Fed. R. Civ. P. 23 of the California employee class. After review, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeal reversed the district court’s denial of KeyPoint’s motion to compel arbitration, vacated the court’s certification of the Rule 23 class, and remanded for further proceedings. "The district court did not distinguish Plaintiffs’ meal- and rest-break claims from Plaintiffs’ off-the-clock claims. It analyzed only KeyPoint’s allegedly unlawful policy and assumed that the policy could 'prohibit[] Plaintiffs from taking required meal and rest breaks.' This was insufficient. ... The court abused its discretion in failing to perform claim-specific analysis. We vacate the district court’s Rule 23 class certification so that the district court can properly consider predominance." View "Brayman, et al. v. Keypoint Government Solutions" on Justia Law

The People filed suit alleging Uber and Lyft violated the Unfair Competition Law (Bus. & Prof. Code 17200 (UCL)) by misclassifying California rideshare and delivery drivers as independent contractors, depriving them of wages and benefits associated with employee status, thereby harming workers, competitors, and the public. The suit sought injunctive relief, civil penalties, and restitution under the UCL and injunctive relief under Assembly Bill 5, Labor Code 2786. The court of appeal affirmed a preliminary injunction under Assembly Bill 5. Proposition 22 subsequently altered the standards for determining whether app-based drivers are independent contractors. The parties stipulated to dissolve the preliminary injunction. The Labor Commissioner filed separate actions against Uber and Lyft, pursuant to her Labor Code enforcement authority, alleging misclassification of drivers.The two direct enforcement actions were coordinated. Uber and Lyft moved to compel arbitration of those actions to the extent they seek “driver-specific” or “ ‘individualized’ ” relief, such as restitution under the UCL and unpaid wages under the Labor Code. The motions did not seek arbitration of the requests for civil penalties and injunctive relief; they relied on arbitration agreements the defendants entered into with drivers. The court of appeal affirmed the denial of the motions. The People and the Labor Commissioner are not parties to those arbitration agreements. View "In re Uber Technologies Wage and Hour Cases" on Justia Law