Mealey's Employment : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Employment

December 19, 2023
DOL Announces Final Rule To Protect Miners From Surface Mobile Equipment

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Labor on Dec. 19 announced a final rule from its Mine Safety and Health Administration to protect miners from surface mobile equipment-related injuries.
December 19, 2023
Nonprofit Law Firm As Amicus Supports Employers In FAA Exemption High Court Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The carveout in Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) for workers engaged in interstate commerce extends only to those workers “who regularly carry goods and passengers across interstate or foreign borders,” the Washington Legal Foundation argues in its amicus curiae brief filed Dec. 18 in the U.S. Supreme Court, supporting the position of a baked goods company and its subsidiaries in a wage-and-hour putative collective and class case by two truck drivers.
December 14, 2023
Government Waives Response To Petition In Case Challenging Military Vaccine Mandate

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on Dec. 13 waived its right to respond to a petition for a writ of certiorari filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by former members of the military whose challenge to a COVID-19 vaccine requirement while they were still active members was deemed moot due to their departure from the military and the termination of the mandate.
December 14, 2023
Colorado Diagnostics Company Will Pay $90,000 To Settle EEOC’s Age Bias Case

DENVER — A Colorado molecular diagnostics company will pay $90,000 and furnish other relief to settle an age discrimination lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, according to a consent decree signed by a federal judge in Colorado on Dec. 13.
December 13, 2023
Parties In Fingerprint Putative Class Suit Against Employer Announce Dismissal

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — An employer accused in a federal court in Illinois of violating that state’s Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by collecting and storing employees’ fingerprints and the son of a deceased employee who brought a putative class complaint filed a joint stipulation of dismissal.
December 12, 2023
Uber Driver Files Supplemental Brief Urging Grant Of FAA Exemption Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An rideshare driver whose petition asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide in his putative class case whether transportation workers who transport passengers across state lines are “‘engaged in interstate commerce’” and exempt from the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) is still pending filed a supplemental brief urging the justices to grant his petition and arguing that a recent ruling by the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals “demonstrates the problems the lower courts are encountering and creating when addressing FAA exemption questions.”
December 12, 2023
Lifting Of Stay Denied In AmazonFlex Drivers’ FAA Class Exemption Case

SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington on Dec. 11 denied a motion by AmazonFlex delivery drivers to lift the stay in their putative collective and class action case alleging misclassification and exemption from the Federal Arbitration Act’s (FAA) enforcement provisions as transportation workers engaged in interstate commerce.
December 12, 2023
Class Suit Accuses NCAA, Conferences Of Fixing Prices Of Athletes’ Scholarships

OAKLAND, Calif. — Division I college sports is “a massive commercial exercise” where the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and the “Power Five Conferences” bring in billions of dollars and provide “lucrative compensation” to executives, commissioners, athletic directors and coaches but fix the price of scholarships for the college athletes and “forbid, with few exceptions, any other compensation for their athletic services,” three college athletes argue in a putative class complaint filed in a federal court in California seeking treble damages for the compensation they say they would have otherwise received.
December 12, 2023
Summary Judgment Bid Mostly Fails In Suit Over Reinsurance Distributor Deal

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on Dec. 11 mostly ruled against insurance brokerages in a case over their acquisition of a managed health care reinsurance distribution company and employment of that company’s members, granting summary judgment only “as to one theory of breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.”
December 12, 2023
Final Judgment Entered In Maine Health Workers’ COVID-19 Vaccine Challenge

BANGOR, Maine — A federal judge in Maine on Dec. 11 granted a motion for entry of final judgment by health care employers after dismissal of the claims against them by workers who refused the COVID-19 vaccine citing religious beliefs.
December 12, 2023
Jury Awards Philadelphia Doctor $15M In Title IX Gender Bias Suit

PHILADELPHIA — A federal jury in Pennsylvania on Dec. 11 returned a $15 million verdict for a Philadelphia doctor who alleged that he was forced out of his job after a female colleague initiated sexual intercourse and then later used the encounter to try and extort him.
December 11, 2023
Solicitor General Invited To Respond To Distributor’s FLSA Exemption Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 11 invited the solicitor general to file a brief expressing the views of the United States on a petition by a food distributor seeking a ruling on whether the evidence standard necessary for an exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “is a mere preponderance of the evidence” or if it is “clear and convincing evidence.”
December 11, 2023
U.S. High Court Grants Cert In Federal Vaccine Cases, Finds Case, Injunctions Moot

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 11 granted petitions in three cases concerning various federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates and, citing United States v. Munsingwear, Inc., remanded with instructions to dismiss one of the cases as moot and to vacate as moot preliminary injunctions in the other two cases.
December 08, 2023
U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Appeal On 60-Day Merits Board Review Deadline

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court justices today granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a former federal employee asking the high court to decide whether the 60-day deadline for petitions seeking review of a final decision by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) is jurisdictional.
December 07, 2023
Majority: Insurance Code Does Not Bar Indemnification For Retaliation Settlement

LOS ANGELES — Addressing an “important” question of first impression “whose answer will influence enforcement of our employment laws,” a majority of a California appeals court held Dec. 6 that not all California Labor Code Section 1102.5 claims involve necessarily willful conduct and, therefore, a lower court erred in finding that California Insurance Code Section 533 barred indemnification for a $3 million underlying settlement of police officers’ retaliation lawsuit against a California city.
December 07, 2023
11th Circuit Vacates Dismissal Of Exotic Dancer Applicant’s Race Bias Claims

ATLANTA — A trial court erred in dismissing with prejudice race bias claims brought by a woman who applied for a position as an exotic dancer and alleges that she was denied the job based on her race because “such a sanction of last resort is unwarranted,” an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled in an unpublished per curiam opinion.
December 07, 2023
EEOC Granted Summary Judgment In Wage Age Bias Case Against School District

CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois granted summary judgment to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in an age discrimination case accusing a school district of limiting annual pay increases of teachers older than 45 to avoid a pension-contribution surcharge pursuant to a provision in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA).
December 07, 2023
NLRB Director Tells U.S. High Court Injunctive Relief Standard Needs No Review

WASHINGTON, D.C. — No U.S. Supreme Court review is necessary of the standard courts should use to evaluate requests by the National Labor Relations Board for an injunction under Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) while an NLRB adjudication is pending as the use of “different verbal formulations to describe the standard” by different courts “are essentially terminological rather than substantive,” an NLRB regional director argues in a Dec. 6 respondent brief.
December 07, 2023
FCA Engineers’ LMRA, RICO Claims Filed Years After Transfer Were Untimely

CINCINNATI — Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) and Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) claims by FCA US LLC engineers stemming from a years-earlier transfer that they allege was in violation of their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and that they say they unsuccessfully challenged due to collusion between their employer and union were untimely, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, affirming a trial court’s dismissal.
December 07, 2023
Health Workers’ Vaccine Case Discontinued After New York Mandate Repealed

SYRACUSE, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York signed off on the discontinuance of a case previously appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court by health care workers challenging the New York Department of Health’s (DOH) COVID-19 vaccination requirements after the mandate was repealed.
December 07, 2023
U.S. High Court Passes On Appeal Challenging Standard For Review Of OSHA Citations

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a manufacturer cited three times by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that argued that it was unfairly prejudiced while challenging the citations due to improper exclusion of evidence.
December 07, 2023
5th Circuit: NLRB Lacks Authority To Make All Uniforms Presumptively Unlawful

NEW ORLEANS — The National Labor Relations Board erred when it decided that when an employer’s uniform policy “advances a legitimate interest of the employee” and doesn’t discriminate “against union communication,” it is unlawful, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel wrote, granting a petition for review by Tesla Inc., denying the NLRB’s application for enforcement and vacating the NLRB’s decision.
December 06, 2023
U.S. High Court Hears Arguments On Bias In A Lateral Job Transfer

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A lateral job transfer may constitute discrimination and be actionable under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, an attorney representing a St. Louis Police Department sergeant who is challenging the transfer from her position as patrol detective to the Intelligence Division argued before the U.S. Supreme Court this morning.
December 06, 2023
Preliminary Approval Granted To Jan-Pro $30M Worker Classification Settlement

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California on Dec. 5 granted preliminary approval of a class settlement in a worker classification suit under which Jan-Pro Franchising International Inc. will pay $30 million and make changes to its business practices that will benefit California franchisees.
December 06, 2023
EEOC Announces Settlement With Frontier Airlines In Pregnancy, Lactation Dispute

DENVER — Frontier Airlines Inc. has agreed to make several policy changes to address the needs of pregnant and lactating pilots, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced Dec. 5, stating that the agreement will resolve EEOC charges filed in 2018 and a lawsuit filed by four pilots in 2019.