Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

The First Circuit affirmed the judgment of the district court granting Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings holding that this case came within the jurisdictional reach of the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. 185(a), and that the district court did not err either in denying Plaintiff's motion to remand or in granting judgment for the pleadings for Defendant.Plaintiff, an employee of Defendant, brought this action in a Massachusetts state court asserting violations of the Commonwealth's labor laws. Plaintiff sought recovery of compensation for unpaid wages and expenses, unpaid overtime, and damages for Defendant's alleged failure to account for her travel time and to maintain required payroll records. Defendant removed the suit to federal district court. Plaintiff moved to remand the case, arguing that her claims arose exclusively under state law. The district court denied the remand motion and subsequently granted Defendant's motion for judgment on the pleadings. The First Circuit affirmed, holding that there was no error in the proceedings below. View "Rose v. RTN Federal Credit Union" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment to the Commission in an action brought by plaintiff, alleging that the Commission discriminated against her in violation of Title VII. Plaintiff argues that her suspension, probation, and termination were discrimination based on race and national origin. The Commission stated that plaintiff's termination was due to failure to comply with requests to provide company passwords to agency programs and documents. The court concluded that plaintiff did not show evidence of pretext or that she could satisfy the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework before the district court or in her opening brief, and thus she cannot prove a circumstantial case of discrimination. View "Towery v. Mississippi County Arkansas Economic Opportunity Commission, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, four Black firefighters who suffer from a skin condition that causes pain and sometimes scarring when they shave their facial hair, filed suit alleging that the FDNY discriminated against them in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and various other laws. Plaintiffs' claims stemmed from the FDNY's refusal to offer them a medical accommodation to the department's grooming policy. The policy requires firefighters to be clean shaven in the areas where an oxygen mask or "respirator" seals against their skin.The Second Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of plaintiffs on their ADA claim, holding that the OSHA regulation, 29 C.F.R. 1910.134(g)(1)(i)(A), unambiguously prohibits plaintiffs' proposed accommodation and that a binding federal regulation presents a complete defense to an ADA failure-to-accommodate claim. Furthermore, plaintiffs waived the issue of alternative accommodation because they failed to raise it until their reply brief on appeal. The court also concluded that plaintiffs' Title VII disparate impact claim mirrors their ADA claim and meets a similar fate. The court explained that, although plaintiffs have made a prima facie case, the FDNY has conclusively rebutted that case by showing that complying with the respiratory-protection standard is a business necessity. Just as in the ADA context, the court concluded that Title VII cannot be used to require employers to depart from binding federal regulations. Nor can the court agree with plaintiffs that the FDNY's failure to consistently enforce the respiratory-protection standard means that complying with the regulation is not a business necessity. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part and reversed in part. View "Bey v. City of New York" on Justia Law

After Houston Methodist fired plaintiff following a job candidate's allegation that he had sexually harassed him, plaintiff filed suit against Houston Methodist for sex discrimination, retaliation, and race discrimination under Title VII.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's dismissal of the sex discrimination and retaliation claims because plaintiff failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. In this case, plaintiff failed to establish that he satisfied the EEOC verification requirements for a charge. The court also affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment on the race discrimination claim where plaintiff failed to show that he was replaced or that a comparator received more favorable treatment. View "Ernst v. Methodist Hospital" on Justia Law

After a jury awarded plaintiff $16 in unpaid minimum wages and $16 in liquidated damages and found against her on causes of action alleging she had been raped by her employer, the trial court determined that plaintiff was the prevailing party for purposes of Code of Civil Procedure section 1032 and awarded her $19,523 in costs, as well as $3.20 in attorney fees based on the formula in section 1031 that multiples the wages recovered by 20 percent.In the published portion of the opinion, the Court of Appeal concluded that, in this case where plaintiff lost all of the California Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) claims, lost some non-FEHA claims, and prevailed on some non-FEHA claims, the award of costs is governed by the interaction of section 1032 and Government Code section 12965, subdivision (b). The court concluded that section 12965, subdivision (b) bars plaintiff from recovering the costs caused solely by the inclusion of the FEHA causes of action in this lawsuit. Furthermore, the other costs incurred in the lawsuit are recoverable under section 1032, subject to the discretionary exception in section 1033, subdivision (a). The court directed the trial court on remand to determine which cost items, if any, are barred by section 12965, subdivision (b) before entering an award in accordance with sections 1032 and 1033.The court also concluded that the parties' dispute over attorney fees requires an interpretation of section 1031 and Labor Code section 1194. The court explained that the literal terms of these attorney fees provisions cover this case because of the recovery of minimum wages. In situations where these statutes overlap, the court concluded that section 1194 controls because it is the more specific statute and its attorney fees provision is the most recently enacted. Therefore, the trial court court should have exercised the discretion granted by section 1194 and awarded plaintiff reasonable attorney fees, rather than applying section 1031 and awarding 20 percent of the wages recovered. The court remanded for reasonable attorney fees. Accordingly, the court affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded for further proceedings on the issues of attorney fees and costs. View "Moreno v. Bassi" on Justia Law

The plaintiffs retired from the Louisville Metropolitan police department and received free health insurance, administered by Kentucky Retirement Systems. Kentucky initially paid all of their healthcare costs. After the officers turned 65, Medicare became the primary payer, leaving Kentucky to cover secondary expenses. Each officer came out of retirement, joining county agencies different from the ones they served before retiring. They became eligible for healthcare benefits in their new positions. Kentucky notified them that federal law “mandate[d]” that it “cannot offer coverage secondary to Medicare” for retirees “eligible to be on [their] employer’s group health plan” as “active employees.” Some of the officers then paid for insurance through their new employers; others kept their retirement insurance by quitting or going part-time. The officers sued.The district court granted summary judgment to the officers, ordered Kentucky to reinstate their retirement health insurance, and awarded the officers some of the monetary damages requested. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. The officers have a cognizable breach-of-contract claim. Under Kentucky law, the Kentucky Retirement Systems formed an “inviolable contract” with the officers to provide free retirement health insurance and to refrain from reducing their benefits, then breached that contract. The Medicare Secondary Payer Act of 1980 did not bar Kentucky from providing Medicare-eligible police officers with state retirement insurance after they reentered the workforce and became eligible again for employer-based insurance coverage, 42 U.S.C. 1395y. View "River City Fraternal Order of Police v. Kentucky Retirement Systems" on Justia Law

The Fourth Circuit held that "job sharing" a single full-time position with a willing partner does not qualify as a reasonable accommodation that an employer must provide under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The court explained that, if the job share in question did not exist at the time it was proposed as an accommodation, the ADA does not require the employer to create the new position to accommodate a disabled employee.In this case, the court concluded that providing plaintiff with the job share position with another employee was not a reasonable accommodation required by the ADA—not because the position was not "vacant" but because the position she sought did not exist. Therefore, summary judgment should have been granted to Sanofi on plaintiff's failure-to-accommodate claim on this ground. Furthermore, because plaintiff failed to demonstrate the existence of a reasonable accommodation, Sanofi cannot separately be liable for failing to engage in the interactive process. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Sanofi. View "Perdue v. Sanofi-Aventis U.S., LLC" on Justia Law

The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment following a jury verdict in favor of the City on plaintiff's claim of hostile work environment based on religion. At issue is whether the district court abused its discretion in precluding plaintiff from introducing testimony and a report by the City's retained but non-testifying expert psychiatrist who had conducted an independent medical examination of plaintiff.The court concluded that the expert's report would have been cumulative with other testimony regarding causation and damages, and any discussion of damages was immaterial because the jury never reached that issue. Therefore, the exclusion did not result in fundamental unfairness in the trial of the case, and the court need not consider whether the district court abused its substantial case management and discovery discretion in excluding the expert's independent medical examination report and testimony, an issue the court has not previously addressed. View "Cooper v. City of St. Louis, Missouri" on Justia Law

Slot-machine technicians at Palace Casino voted to organize. The NLRB certified Local 501 to represent them. The union asked Palace to produce documents. Palace refused, believing that the union should not have been certified. Certification is not a final agency action, so an employer cannot seek judicial review but must first refuse to bargain and suffer an unfair labor practice charge to obtain judicial review, with the claimed invalidity of certification serving as an affirmative defense.The Board found that Palace violated 29 U.S.C. 158(a)(1) and (5). Palace claimed that an order to furnish all requested information would require disclosure of confidential information, like its plans to combat illegal gaming activity and money laundering. The Board concluded that Palace raised a specific confidentiality interest that was “legitimate on its face,” and ordered Palace to bargain over the union’s request. Separately, the Board ruled that the customer complaints requested by the union were not presumptively relevant to the union’s duty as the employees’ bargaining representative but might be relevant in a particular case, and remanded that issue “for further appropriate action.” The D.C. Circuit affirmed with respect to the confidentiality order but dismissed the “customer complaints” remand and not being a final order subject to review. View "National Labor Relations Board v. NP Palace LLC" on Justia Law

This case stemmed from a dispute over the unemployment-insurance tax rate applicable to Great Oaks Country Club, Inc (Great Oaks). The Department of Talent and Economic Development/Unemployment Insurance Agency (the Agency) determined that Great Oaks was not entitled to the new-employer tax rate under the Michigan Employment Security Act (the MESA), specifically MCL 421.13m(2)(a)(i)(A) and (B). An ALJ determined that because Great Oaks had eight quarters of no employment or payroll before January 1, 2014, it was entitled to the new-employer tax rate. The ALJ further ruled that the phrase “beginning January 1, 2014” in MCL 421.13m(2)(a)(i)(A) and (B) was the date by when a client employer must have accrued eight quarters of not reporting employees or payroll. The Agency appealed the ALJ’s decision to the Michigan Compensation Appellate Commission (the MCAC), and the MCAC affirmed the ALJ’s decision. The Court of Appeals adopted the interpretation of Section 13m offered by the Agency, which maintained that a client employer must have switched to client-level reporting before January 1, 2014, to be assessed the new-employer tax rate (the conversion-date interpretation). The Michigan Supreme Court disagreed, holding that in this context, Section 13m was best understood according to the interpretation offered by Great Oaks: that a client employer must have accrued the relevant number of calendar quarters in which it reported “no employees or no payroll” by January 1, 2014, to be assessed the new-employer tax rate (the accrual-date interpretation). And because Great Oaks reported no employees or payroll for eight consecutive calendar quarters before January 1, 2014, the Supreme Court held that Great Oaks was entitled to be assessed the new-employer tax rate under Section 13m of the MESA. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals’ decision was reversed and the matter remanded to the Agency for further proceedings. View "Dept. of Talent & Econ. Dev. v. Great Oaks Country Club" on Justia Law