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Mealey's Employment

March 13, 2025
States Sue To Halt ‘Dismantling’ Of U.S. Department Of Education

BOSTON — New York, more than a dozen other states and Michigan’s attorney general filed a complaint on March 13 in a federal court in Massachusetts alleging that a March 11 announcement that 50% of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) staff would be laid off is “an effective dismantling of the Department,” an action that is outside the power President Donald J. Trump and his administration.
March 13, 2025
Perkins Coie Granted TRO In Suit Alleging Trump’s EO Seeks To ‘Destroy’ Firm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on March 12 granted Perkins Coie LLP’s motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) in its lawsuit against various federal officials and agencies over a March 6 executive order (EO) that it alleges is meant to “bully” the firm and punish the firm’s more than 1,200 attorneys “even though the two attorneys the Order appears to target have not been with the firm for years.”
March 13, 2025
DOL, DOGE, Others Ask Court To Rethink Expedited Discovery In Unions’ APA Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and other parties accused of improperly providing access to citizens’ confidential information to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) filed a motion asking a District of Columbia federal judge to reconsider his recent grant of expedited discovery to the plaintiff labor unions and nonprofits, asserting that changes to the “factual predicates” have “obviate[d] the need” for such discovery.
March 13, 2025
Federal Judge In Washington Denies Amazon Driver’s Wage Act Ruling Appeal

SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington denied a motion filed by a driver for Amazon.com Inc. and Amazon Logistics Inc. (together, Amazon) to certify a question to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court asking “whether the Massachusetts Wage Act requires an employer to compensate employees for business expenses required in order for a worker to perform their job,” finding that the argument for the question was not “compelling.”
March 13, 2025
Post-Trial Briefs Largely Denied Following $3.9M Verdict For Fired Dean

WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — In a trio of rulings, a federal judge denied a Pennsylvania university’s motion for judgment as a matter of law or a new trial after a jury returned a verdict of more than $3.9 million for a former dean who alleged that he was fired for helping another worker report sexual harassment by the university president, denied the dean’s request for an additional award, granted the dean pre- and postjudgment interest and ordered that the dean’s motion for attorney fees remain stayed during the time in which the school may appeal.
March 13, 2025
3rd Circuit Denies Home Health Agency Rehearing After Finding FLSA Violation

PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc filed by a home health care agency and its president after a panel affirmed a trial court’s grant of summary judgment to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) on claims that the agency willfully violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by, among other things, failing to compensate its employees for the time they spent traveling between clients’ homes.
March 12, 2025
DOGE Ordered To Process FOIA Request On Mass Firings, Disruption To Government

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. DOGE Service (DOGE) must process “on an expedited timetable” a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) that seeks documents related to mass firings of government workers and disruptions to federal programs, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled, granting in part CREW’s motion for a preliminary injunction.
March 12, 2025
Defendants Win Compensation Row; Judge Rules Plan A Bonus One Exempt From ERISA

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Finding that the plan at the center of a compensation dispute “is a bonus plan exempt from” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, a North Carolina federal judge granted summary judgment in favor of Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. and other defendants in a putative class action.
March 12, 2025
5th Circuit Affirms Ruling For Employer In Pension, Shift-Differential Row

NEW ORLEANS — In an unpublished per curiam opinion, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts a Louisiana Wage Payment Act (LWPA) claim concerning a lump-sum pension payment and that summary judgment for an employer on a claim concerning shift-differential pay was appropriate.
March 12, 2025
African Development Agency CEO’s TRO Request Denied In Suit Alleging Takeover

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia on March 11 denied a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by the president and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) in a lawsuit alleging a wrongful takeover by the federal government is occurring, opining that the president and CEO failed to identify irreparable harm to himself.
March 12, 2025
Split D.C. Circuit Enforces NLRB Ruling In Dispute Over Impasse, Employment Terms

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A split District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied an employer’s petition for review of a National Labor Relations Board decision in a case in which the employer alleged that it reached an impasse while trying to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement and accused the union of engaging in delay tactics both before and during the coronavirus pandemic.
March 12, 2025
5th Circuit: No Claim For Relief In Sheriff’s Office Staff Time Off Policy Suit

HOUSTON — Employees in a Texas county sheriff’s office who sued their employer over a compensatory time off policy alleging that it deprived them of their constitutional and statutory rights “have not stated a plausible claim for relief,” a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel said in affirming a district court’s dismissal of their complaint.
March 11, 2025
Workday Says AI-Hiring Suit Inappropriate For Collective Action

SAN FRANCISCO — A lawsuit targeting artificial intelligence hiring software involves too many individual questions surrounding applications, qualifications and the plaintiffs and are “dissimilar in virtually all the ways that matter,” Workday Inc. told a federal judge in California in opposing certification as a collective action.
March 11, 2025
Employer Says Employee Did Not Establish Religious Conflict With COVID-19 Vaccine

PORTLAND, Ore. — Contending that a former employee did not establish a conflict between her faith and the COVID-19 vaccine and that accommodating her objection to the vaccine would impose an undue burden on the company, a sportswear company has moved for summary judgment in a lawsuit by the employee, who alleged that the company failed to make a good faith effort to accommodate her religious beliefs in terminating her.
March 11, 2025
Federal Government Opposes States’ TRO Motion In Suit Over Civil Servant Terminations

BALTIMORE — A motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by 20 states that allege that the mass firing of civil servants violates federal law and is subjecting the states to “chaos” should not be granted as the states can’t show standing, jurisdiction, actions contrary to law or irreparable harm, federal agencies and their leaders argue in a March 10 opposition filed in a federal court in Maryland.
March 11, 2025
Federal Government Opposes TRO Motion By African Development Agency CEO

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) acting deputy administrator and other members of the federal government and agencies filed an opposition on March 10 in a federal court in the District of Columbia opposing a motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) filed by the president and CEO of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF) seeking to stop what he alleges is a takeover of the foundation.
March 11, 2025
U.S. High Court Denies Employer’s Petition Seeking Review Of FLSA Exemption Ruling

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 10 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by an employer that classified inside sales representatives (ISRs) as exempt under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), with the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that those workers “are not employed in a bona fide administrative capacity.”
March 11, 2025
2 High Court Justices Express Interest In Revisiting McDonnell Douglas Framework

WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a March 10 dissent from the U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari in a Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 disparate treatment case, Justice Clarence Thomas, joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, stated that the case brought by a California fire chief who alleged that he was terminated based on his religion presented an opportunity the high court should have seized “to revisit McDonnell Douglas and decide whether its burden-shifting framework remains a workable and useful evidentiary tool.”
March 11, 2025
Judge Upholds Denial Of Over $1.4M In Severance Benefits In ERISA Row

HOUSTON — Asserting that two U.S. circuit courts of appeals “have read the same Plan language differently and have reached different results on similar claims,” a Texas federal judge upheld denial of $1,403,571 in severance benefits in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act case that involved a change of control and disputes over a “good reason” clause and the correct standard of review.
March 11, 2025
Trade Association Asks 6th Circuit To Rehear Its Challenge To NLRB Counsel Memo

CINCINNATI — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has asked the acting general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board to respond to a trade association’s petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc of a panel decision affirming the dismissal of the association’s suit challenging a memorandum on captive-audience meetings issued by the former general counsel; the association argues that the lower court ruling should be vacated because it became moot while the appeal was pending.
March 10, 2025
Special Counsel Moves To Dismiss Appeal, Says He No Longer Challenges Removal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Special Counsel Hampton Dellinger, who sued federal government officials challenging his removal without cause by President Donald J. Trump, filed a motion on March 7 in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to dismiss as moot the federal government’s appeal of a summary judgment ruling for Dellinger, writing that he “no longer contests his removal and is out of office.”
March 10, 2025
DHS: No More Collective Bargaining for TSA Security Officers

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced March 7 that it was ending collective bargaining for the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) transportation security officers.
March 10, 2025
No Injunction For Unions, Group To Stop DOGE Access To Treasury Data

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two labor unions and an advocacy group that sued to stop the Department of the Treasury and the Bureau of the Fiscal Service (BFS) from allowing members of the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to access BFS records saw their motion for a preliminary injunction denied March 7, with a District of Columbia federal judge concluding that they had not established a “likelihood of an irreparable injury that is ‘beyond remediation.’”
March 07, 2025
Employees Fired For Vaccine Refusal Cannot Sue Employer For Civil Rights Violation

EUGENE, Ore. — Determining that a hospital was not a state actor in terminating employees who refused the COVID-19 vaccine pursuant to the hospital’s state-law-compliant vaccination mandate and that there is no private right of action in the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) Act, an Oregon federal court granted a motion to dismiss of the hospital and its chief executive and chief medical officers in the employees’ lawsuit alleging civil rights violations, statutory violations and state law claims stemming from their termination.
March 07, 2025
Financial Advisers’ Stay, Intervention Bids Fail In Compensation Row

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Former Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Inc. financial advisers who said they are unwilling members of a putative class in a compensation dispute were denied permission to intervene after both sides opposed their motion, with the docket showing that a North Carolina federal judge issued an oral order.