Justia Labor & Employment Law Opinion Summaries

Kellogg testified that when the Indiana Academy hired her as a teacher in 2006, its director, Dr. Williams, told her that she “didn’t need any more [starting salary, $32,000], because he knew [her] husband worked.” In 2017, Kellogg complained to the Dean of Ball State’s Teacher’s College, which oversees the Academy, that she received less pay than her similarly-situated male colleagues. The Dean responded that “[t]he issue [wa]s salary compression, which means those who [we]re hired after [Kellogg] began at a higher salary.” The Dean also noted that Kellogg’s salary increased by 36.45% during her time at the Academy while her colleagues’ salaries increased by less. In Kellogg’s 2018 lawsuit, the district court granted the Academy summary judgment, reasoning that there were undisputed gender-neutral explanations for Kellogg’s pay.The Seventh Circuit reversed. Williams’s statement contradicts the Academy’s explanations for Kellogg’s pay and puts them in dispute. It does not matter that Williams uttered the statement long ago, outside the statute of limitations period. Under the paycheck accrual rule, Williams’s statement can establish liability because it affected paychecks that Kellogg received within the limitations window. Kellogg can rely on Williams’s statement to put the Academy’s explanations in dispute. View "Kellogg v. Ball State University" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court affirmed the order of the district court granting a preliminary injunction based on a blue-penciled noncompetition agreement, holding that Golden Road Motor Inn, Inc. v. Islam, 376 P.3d 151, 159 (Nev. 2016), does not prohibit a district court from blue-penciling an unreasonable noncompetition agreement if the agreement allows for it.Defendants signed an employment contract containing a blue-penciling provision providing that, if any provision is found to be unreasonable by the court, the provision shall be enforceable to the extent the court deemed it unreasonable. When Defendants quit their employment and began work elsewhere, Plaintiff filed a complaint to enforce the agreement, alleging that Defendants violated the agreement's noncompetition clause. The district court found that the noncompetition agreement was overbroad and blue-penciled it. The court then granted Plaintiff's motion for a preliminary injunction to enforce the revised agreement. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that because the noncompetition agreement had a blue-penciling provision, the district court did not abuse its discretion by blue-penciling the noncompetition agreement and enforcing the revised agreement. View "Duong v. Fielden Hanson Isaacs Miyada Robison Yeh, Ltd." on Justia Law

Daylight, an expedited less-than-truckload carrier, contracts with independent truck drivers. Daylight’s California drivers only provided services within California. The plaintiffs each entered into an “Independent Contractor Service Agreement” before beginning to drive for Daylight and regularly signed materially identical contract extensions while driving for Daylight. All of those Agreements contained an identical arbitration provision. The plaintiffs filed a putative class action, requesting relief from Daylight’s “unlawful misclassification of former and current Daylight delivery drivers as ‘Independent Contractors,’ ” and alleging violations of Labor Code and wage order provisions, and the law against unfair competition.The court of appeal affirmed the denial of Daylight’s motion to compel arbitration, applying California law and finding the agreement procedurally and substantively unconscionable, and that severance of the unconscionable terms is not possible. Daylight was in a superior bargaining position and presented the contracts on a take it or leave it basis. The Agreement’s 120-day limitations period is substantially shorter than the statutory limits. The Agreement permits Daylight to seek a provisional judicial remedy but precludes plaintiffs from equivalent access and requires that the parties split the cost of arbitration, a cost greater than litigation filing fees. Because Daylight had waived its argument, the court did not address preemption under the Federal Arbitration Act, which“provides a limited exemption from FAA coverage to contracts of employment of seamen, railroad employees, or any other class of workers engaged in foreign or interstate commerce (9 U.S.C. 1). View "Ali v. Daylight Transport, LLC" on Justia Law

The Ninth Circuit reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the Bank on plaintiff's claim of gender harassment under Title VII and the Washington Law Against Discrimination. Plaintiff, a former employee of the Bank, alleged that a bank customer stalked and harassed her in her workplace and that the Bank failed to take effective action to address the harassment.The panel held that to establish sex discrimination under a hostile work environment theory, a plaintiff must show she was subjected to sex-based harassment that was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of employment, and that her employer is liable for this hostile work environment. Because the panel concluded that a trier of fact could find that the harassment altered the conditions of plaintiff's employment and created an abusive working environment, it turned to the question of the Bank's liability. In this case, there is more than enough evidence to create a genuine issue of material fact as to the sufficiency of the Bank's response. Because a jury reasonably could conclude that the Bank ratified or acquiesced in the customer's harassment, the panel held that the district court erred in granting summary judgment in favor of the Bank. The panel remanded for further proceedings. View "Christian v. Umpqua Bank" on Justia Law

Wilson was a marine construction worker on the New Jersey Route 3 bridge replacement project, which spans the Lower Passaic River from Clifton to Rutherford, at a location where the navigation channel was authorized to be 150 feet wide and 10 feet deep. Wilson drove steel piles for a cofferdam, a watertight structure that allows construction below the waterline, and was routinely exposed to extremely loud working conditions. He was diagnosed with a permanent hearing impairment resulting from those conditions. Wilson sought compensation benefits under the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, 33 U.S.C. 901–50. An ALJ and the Benefits Review Board dismissed Wilson’s claim, finding that he was not covered under the LHWCA because he was not injured on navigable waters of the United States.The Third Circuit reversed. The waters where Wilson was injured were navigable, looking to whether a waterway “by itself or by uniting with other waterways, forms a continuous [commercial] highway,” and whether commercial vessels could navigate within the noted physical constraints. There were no impediments blocking the navigation channel between its confluence with the Newark Bay and the Route 3 bridge. At all points in between, the channel exceeded four feet in depth and 72 feet in width. View "Wilson v. Creamer-Sanzari Joint Venture" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Oregon Supreme Court's review centered on whether ORS 652.200(2) and ORCP 54 E(3) could be construed in a way that “will give effect” to both, in the words of the Oregon Legislature’s longstanding requirement for construing statutes. Plaintiff was employed by defendant for several years. Defendant terminated plaintiff’s employment, and, several months later, plaintiff filed the underlying action alleging defendant failed to pay wages that were due at termination. The case was assigned to mandatory court-annexed arbitration, and defendant made an offer of judgment under ORCP 54 E, which plaintiff rejected. The arbitrator ultimately found that defendant had failed to timely pay some of the wages that plaintiff claimed and that the failure was willful, entitling plaintiff to a statutory penalty. In addition, the arbitrator awarded plaintiff an attorney fee under ORS 652.200(2) and costs, but he applied ORCP 54 E(3) to limit those awards to fees and costs that plaintiff had incurred before defendant’s offer of judgment, because that offer of judgment exceeded the amount that plaintiff had ultimately recovered on his claims. Plaintiff filed exceptions to the arbitrator’s application of ORCP 54 E(3) to limit the award of fees and costs, but the award was affirmed by operation of law when the court failed to enter a decision within 20 days. In a divided en banc opinion, the Court of Appeals held that ORCP 54 E(3) could be applied to wage claims without negating the effect of ORS 652.200(2) and thus, both could be given effect. The Supreme Court concurred with the appellate dissent, finding that and need to limit the attorney fees of an employee who unreasonably rejects a good faith offer or tender could be addressed on a case-by-case basis under ORS 20.075(2), but the “reasonable” attorney fee required by ORS 652.200(2) could not be categorically limited through ORCP 54 E(3). Judgment was reversed and the matter returned to the circuit court for further proceedings. View "Mathis v. St. Helens Auto Center, Inc." on Justia Law

McAllister began working for Innovation in 2014. In June 2016, an automobile accident left McAllister with serious head and back injuries. On her Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. 2601, application her doctor wrote she could not perform “any & all” functions and estimated that McAllister could not return to work until September 2016. McAllister was granted short-term disability benefits. According to McAllister, Innovation indicated that “all restrictions had to be lifted before [she] could return to work.” Thereafter, her doctors extended the date for her return to work. Her FMLA leave expired. At an October 2016 meeting, Innovation told McAllister that an employee unable to return to work after six months of leave would be terminated but granted her additional leave, to expire upon her November neuro-psychological evaluation. Her doctors failed to complete the required testing.Innovation terminated her in December. McAllister was granted long-term disability benefits, which ended in October 2018 when the insurer determined she no longer had “functional deficits," and Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, retroactive to the date of her accident. McAllister sued for failure to accommodate her under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 42 U.S.C. 12111(8)). The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment in favor of Innovation. McAllister was not “qualified” under the ADA; there was no genuine dispute of material fact that she could perform another job with or without accommodations. View "McAllister v. Innovation Ventures, LLC" on Justia Law

After plaintiff filed suit against his former employer, TAW, in Nebraska state court, TAW removed to federal district court where the action was dismissed with prejudice. On appeal, a panel of the Eighth Circuit vacated the dismissal and ordered the action remanded to state court, concluding that a removal defect left the district court without subject-matter jurisdiction. TAW Enterprises petitioned for rehearing en banc and the Eighth Circuit vacated the panel opinion, granting rehearing en banc.The en banc court now overrules prior circuit precedents, Horton v. Conklin, 431 F.3d 602, 605 (8th Cir. 2005), and Hurt v. Dow Chemical Co., 963 F.2d 1142, 1146 (8th Cir. 1992), to the extent they hold that a violation of 28 U.S.C. 1441(b)(2), the so-called forum-defendant rule, is an unwaivable jurisdictional defect in removal. Therefore, the court has jurisdiction to reach the merits of plaintiff's appeal. On the merits, the court affirmed the district court's dismissal, holding that plaintiff failed to state a claim as a matter of law for retaliatory demotion and discharge in contravention of public policy under Nebraska law. View "Holbein v. TAW Enterprises, Inc." on Justia Law

The District appeals from a judgment following a jury verdict in favor of plaintiff, a former employee of the District, on her Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) claims. Plaintiff's claims were based on the District's alleged failure to provide reasonable accommodations for and/or engage in an interactive process to identify reasonable accommodations for two injuries, each of which was sufficient to render plaintiff disabled for the purposes of FEHA.The Court of Appeal agreed with the District that a Government Code section 12940, subdivision (n) plaintiff must prove an available reasonable accommodation. The court also concluded that the evidence presented is sufficient to establish only that a reasonable accommodation of plaintiff's wrist injury, not her shoulder injury, was available. In this case, the jury did not indicate whether it relied on the District's response to one or both of these disabilities in reaching its verdict, and the record does not permit the court to make such a determination. Therefore, the court reversed with instructions that the trial court conduct a new trial on plaintiff's failure to accommodate and interactive process claims based solely on the District's handling of her wrist injury. The court also concluded that the Workers' Compensation Act does not bar such claims, because they seek recovery for a harm that is distinct from the harms for which the Workers' Compensation Act provides a remedy. To the extent plaintiff prevails on limited retrial, the trial court must reassess attorney fees. View "Shirvanyan v. Los Angeles Community College District" on Justia Law

Maras's application for tenure as an associate professor at the University of Missouri Department of Educational, School and Counseling Psychology was denied. She filed suit, claiming discrimination on the basis of sex, citing the Missouri Human Rights Act and Title VII, 42 U.S.C. 2000e-2(a)(1), and violations of the implied covenants of good faith and fair dealing in her employment contract. The district court granted the defendants summary judgment.The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Describing the university's tenure-review process as “elaborate and painstaking,” the court noted that numerous people over four years expressed concerns about Maras's record of scholarship. Many throughout the application process, including people outside the university, expressed similar concerns. That widely shared opinion strongly supports the university's proffered reason for tenure denial. The comparators Maras identified are not similarly situated in all relevant respects to Maras; they did not share the same ultimate decision-maker. One comparator was in a completely different department. Each of them had several positive recommendations at many steps in the tenure process, while Maras did not; it is not obvious that their records of scholarship were no better than Maras's. Maras did not show "that the circumstances permit a reasonable inference of discriminatory animus." View "Maras v. Curators of the University of Missouri" on Justia Law