Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

In 2006, plaintiff Brenda Gilbert divorced her husband, Monroe Gilbert, who acquired sole possession of the family’s vehicle, which was still registered in plaintiff’s name. In April 2014, Monroe informed plaintiff that he had to report to the Woodland Park Municipal Court (WPMC) regarding many outstanding traffic tickets; the court summonses were issued in plaintiff’s name. On April 15, 2014, plaintiff met Monroe and his attorney, defendant Kenyatta Stewart, at WPMC. The matter was adjourned, and plaintiff, defendant, and Monroe discussed the best way to resolve the outstanding summonses. Plaintiff did not retain defendant as her attorney or request that he represent her; nor did defendant bill plaintiff or enter into a fee agreement with her. Nevertheless, he indicated to plaintiff that the optimal resolution would be for her to plead guilty to the charges because Monroe was at greater risk of license suspension due to his poor driving record. Plaintiff worked in the Passaic probation department since 1994. The parties disputed the extent to which defendant advised plaintiff of certain risks associated with the plea agreement. It was undisputed that defendant failed to advise plaintiff of the impact that a guilty plea might have on her public employment. In July 2014, plaintiff, through different counsel, challenged her conviction; ultimately the disposition against her was vacated, her fines were repaid to her, and the charges against plaintiff were dismissed. Plaintiff ultimately filed a complaint against defendant, alleging he breached a duty of care by “engaging in a clear conflict of interest” and urging her to enter into “unwarranted guilty pleas.” Defendant moved for summary judgment, arguing that he was not the proximate cause of plaintiff’s harm because any discipline from her employer resulted from her failure to notify, not her conviction. Judgment was entered in defendant's favor. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed, finding a jury should have decided whether defendant’s legal advice was a substantial factor in plaintiff's demotion and suspension. View "Gilbert v. Stewart" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs, captains in Cleveland’s Emergency Medical Service division, belong to the same union; all are black. Each fall, captains bid on their schedules for the upcoming year. The city uses a seniority-based bidding system to assign shifts. The collective bargaining agreement also allows Carlton, the EMS Commissioner, to transfer up to four captains to a different shift that conflicts with a captain’s first choice. The 2017 bidding generated a schedule in which three plaintiffs were slated to work a day shift together; only black captains would staff the shift. Carlton removed Anderson from that day shift and replaced him with a white captain to “diversify the shift[].” Informal discussions failed. Discrimination charges were filed with the Ohio Civil Rights Commission and the federal EEOC. A rebidding generated a schedule that again resulted in reassignment to “create diversity.” A local news station ran a story about the shift situation.The captains sued, bringing discrimination and retaliation claims under Title VII and Ohio law, and a section 1983 claims based on the federal constitution. The district court ultimately rejected all of the claims, reasoning the captains could not show that the shift change subjected them to a “materially adverse employment action.” The Sixth Circuit reversed in part. Shifts count as “terms” of employment under Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1) and the shift change is not “de minimus.” View "Threat v. City of Cleveland" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the court of appeal and its award of costs on appeal, holding that a claim for failure to promote brought under the harassment provision of the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA), Cal. Gov. Code 12940, subd. (j), 12960, accrues, and thus the statute of limitations begins to run, at the point when an employee knows or reasonably should know of the employer's allegedly unlawful refusal to promote the employee.Plaintiff alleged that her employer passed her over for promotions because she refused to have sex with the company's executive vice-president, Michael Kelso. The trial court granted summary judgment for Kelso, finding no triable issue of fact as to Kelso's statute of limitations defense. The court of appeal affirmed the trial court's grant of summary judgment for Kelso and two other defendants and awarded costs on appeal to all three defendants. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) the court of appeals erred in concluding that the statute of limitations began to run when Plaintiff's employer offered a promotion to someone else and she accepted it; and (2) the court of appeal erred in awarding costs on appeal to Defendants without first finding that Plaintiff's underlying claim was objectively groundless. View "Pollock v. Tri-Modal Distribution Services, Inc." on Justia Law

After initially disputing that a corrections officer was permanently and totally disabled from injuries suffered at work, the State conceded his disability status. The parties did not enter into a written settlement or stipulation because they disagreed about the amount of attorney’s fees the State should pay the officer’s attorney. After a hearing the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Board awarded attorney’s fees under AS 23.30.145(a) in two parts: it awarded a specific amount of fees for work up to the time of the hearing and statutory minimum fees of 10% of ongoing benefits as long as the officer received permanent total disability benefits. The State appealed to the Alaska Workers’ Compensation Appeals Commission, which affirmed the Board’s decision because in the Commission’s view the award was not manifestly unreasonable. The State then appealed the Commission’s decision to us. Finding no reversible error, the Alaska Supreme Court affirmed the Commission. View "Alaska Department of Corrections v. Wozniak" on Justia Law

T-Mobile’s Wichita service center employs approximately 600 customer service representatives. Since 2009, the Union has been attempting to organize the workers. In 2015, Befort, a customer service representative, emailed her coworkers on her work computer from her work email address encouraging them to join union organizing efforts. She sent several separate email batches sent over the course of a day, while she was on break or finished with her shift, stating, “contact me with any questions, but please do so outside of working hours.” T-Mobile reprimanded Befort for sending the email and sent a facility-wide email stating that it did not permit its employees to send mass emails through the company email system for non-business purposes. An ALJ held that T-Mobile violated the National Labor Relations Act by discriminating against the employee based on the union-related content of her email. The Board reversed, distinguishing evidence that T-Mobile had previously permitted mass emails on the ground that those emails were not similar in character to Befort’s email. The D.C. Circuit reversed. The Board erred by relying on its own post hoc distinction between permissible and impermissible employee conduct to reject the evidence of disparate treatment. The policies and rationales that T-Mobile offered in defense of its actions do not support them. Actions taken and statements made by T-Mobile in response to Befort’s email reflect a singling out of union content. View "Communications Workers of America v. National Labor Relations Board" on Justia Law

After plaintiff was terminated by his former employer for violating company policies prohibiting sexual harassment in the workplace, he filed suit alleging that the stated basis for his termination was pretext and that the real reason he was fired was age discrimination and retaliation, in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA). The district court granted defendants judgment on the pleadings under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(c).Although on a Rule 12(c) motion the district court should not have weighed the plausibility of competing allegations in the movant's pleading or considered evidence extrinsic to the non-movant's pleading, the court affirmed the district court's judgment because plaintiff's complaint failed to plead that either his age or protected speech was a but-for cause of his termination. Likewise, plaintiff's retaliation claim fails for similar reasons. View "Lively v. WAFRA Investment Advisory Group, Inc." on Justia Law

After a Tessier's employee was modifying a hole cover on the roof of an unfinished building when the cover collapsed and he fell 22 feet to the floor below, OSHA issued a citation against Tessier's under 29 C.F.R. 1926.501(b)(4)(i), for failing to protect its employees from falling through holes.The Eighth Circuit denied the petition for review filed by Tessier's, concluding that substantial evidence supported the ALJ's conclusion that the employees had removed a one-foot-by-three-foot section of the cover before it collapsed and, in doing so, exposed a hole. Because this hole was not covered and was more than six feet above the second floor, Tessier's was required to protect its employees from falling by means of an alternative form of fall protection, which it had not done. Therefore, the ALJ did not err in concluding that Tessier's had committed the violation. View "Tessier's, Inc. v. Secretary of Labor" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a tenured professor, filed suit against MSCU, the University, and five University employees, under 42 U.S.C. 1981 and 1983, claiming various discrimination and retaliation counts. Plaintiff's complaint stemmed from a series of decisions made between 2013 and 2016 about faculty class schedules, resource allocation, and participation in certain programs. Plaintiff, a Black man born in Nigeria, claimed the individual defendants made these adverse decisions against him because of his race and national origin. Plaintiff also claimed the individual defendants retaliated against him for an earlier lawsuit against the University, and for reporting a University employee's alleged discriminatory conduct.The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's freestanding section 1981 claims, concluding that he was barred from asserting section 1981 retaliation claims against state actors. The court also affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiff's section 1983 claims, concluding that plaintiff failed to provide direct evidence of retaliation and thus failed to establish causation. View "Onyiah v. St. Cloud State University" on Justia Law

Two former employees of Michael Morse and his firm, Michael J. Morse, PC, sued Morse for workplace sexual harassment, including sexual assault, intentional infliction of emotional distress; negligence, gross negligence, and wanton and willful misconduct; and civil conspiracy. In both cases, the firm moved to dismiss and compel arbitration on the basis that both women signed the firm’s Mandatory Dispute Resolution Procedure agreement (MDRPA) prior to accepting employment with the firm. The trial court granted defendants' motion in each case, concluding that the arbitration agreement was valid and enforceable and that the claims were related to the employees' employment and therefore subject to arbitration. A majority of the Court of Appeals concluded that plaintiffs’ claims of sexual assault were not subject to arbitration because sexual assault was not “related to” plaintiffs’ employment. Further, the Court of Appeals stated that the fact that the alleged assaults would not have occurred but for plaintiffs’ employment with the firm did not provide a sufficient nexus between the terms of the arbitration agreement and the alleged sexual assaults. "Defendants noted certain facts that supported connections between plaintiffs’ claims and their employment, including that the alleged assaults occurred at work or work-related functions. But those facts did not necessarily make plaintiffs’ claims relative to employment; rather, the facts had to be evaluated under a standard that distinguished claims relative to employment from claims not relative to employment. This analysis prevents the absurdity of an arbitration clause that bars the parties from litigating any matter, regardless of how unrelated to the substance of the agreement, and it ensures that the mere existence of a contract does not mean that every dispute between the parties is arbitrable. Neither the circuit courts nor the Court of Appeals considered this standard when evaluating defendants’ motions to compel arbitration." Rather than apply this newly adopted approach in the first instance, the Michigan Supreme Court vacated the judgments of the Court of Appeals and remanded the cases to the circuit courts so that those courts could analyze defendants’ motions to compel arbitration by determining which of plaintiffs’ claims could be maintained without reference to the contract or employment relationship. View "Lichon v. Morse" on Justia Law

The defendant-employer, Steel Technologies, Inc., asked the Michigan Supreme Court to consider whether a medical professional’s conclusory declaration of a claimant’s total disability, without more, could provide competent, material, and substantial evidence of “disability,” as defined by the Worker’s Disability Compensation Act (WDCA), MCL 418.101 et seq. The Supreme Court declined to do so because under the facts of this case, it was unnecessary to reach that issue. The Court instead vacated Part IV of the Court of Appeals’ opinion discussing the issue, but affirmed its result: the magistrate relied on competent, material, and substantial evidence to find that the plaintiff-claimant, Ahmed Omer, had established a disability and was entitled to wage-loss benefits. View "Omer v. Steel Technologies Inc." on Justia Law