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

Mealey's Employment

January 31, 2025
California Transit Agency Seeks Stay Of $7.8M Judgment Against It Pending Appeal

SAN FRANCISCO — A state transit agency on Jan. 30 moved a California federal court for stay of enforcement of judgment pending appeal after seeking review by the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals of the lower court’s decision denying its motion for judgment as a matter of law or, in the alternative, for a new trial in the wake of a California federal jury’s award to six former employees of more than $1 million each for failing to accommodate their religious objections to being vaccinated for COVID-19.
January 31, 2025
Amici To 2nd Circuit: Reverse ERISA Determination On Deferred Compensation Plans

NEW YORK — A handful of amici curiae organizations are urging the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals to vacate or reverse a determination that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act governs the compensation incentive and equity incentive plans at issue in a suit over a Morgan Stanley deferred compensation program, with the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) arguing that the lower court’s “conclusions run counter to significant contrary case law and regulatory guidance and upend employers’ longstanding understanding of the rules applicable to incentive plans.”
January 30, 2025
2 Unions Representing Federal Workers Sue President, OPM Over Reclassification EO

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An executive order (EO) signed by President Donald J. Trump following his inauguration “puts politics over professionalism” as it strips civil service protections from “many career civil servants” and leaves them more vulnerable to firing, two unions that represent federal workers allege in a complaint filed Jan. 29 in a federal court in the District of Columbia against the president, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the OPM acting director.
January 29, 2025
Lawsuit Filed Over Presidential Executive Order Banning Transgender Service Members

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Six transgender service members and two prospective service members filed a complaint on Jan. 28 in a federal court in the District of Columbia alleging that an executive order signed by President Donald J. Trump on Jan. 27 violated the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by banning transgender people from serving in the military.
January 29, 2025
Nonprofit Sues Alleging Executive Order Ends Civil Servants’ Job Protections

GREENBELT, Md. — An executive order (EO) signed by President Donald J. Trump on Inauguration Day “undermine[s] the meritocratic system Congress enacted and return[s] to a spoils system” in violation of the Civil Service Reform Act (CSRA) and the U.S. Constitution, a nonprofit that provides legal services to federal employees and whistleblowers alleges in a complaint filed Jan. 28 in a federal court in Maryland.
January 29, 2025
Federal Judge Approves Alaska Airlines’ $4.75M USERRA Payless Leave Settlement

SPOKANE, Wash. — A federal judge in Washington granted final approval of a $4.75 million settlement between Alaska Airlines Inc., Horizon Air Industries Inc. and a class of commercial airline pilots who allege that they were denied pay during short-term military leaves; the agreement will result in a gross average of $8,928 per class member plus prospective relief.
January 28, 2025
Contractor Seeks High Court Ruling On Removals, Review Standard For NLRB Rulings

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A road construction contractor petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court asking it to decide whether the deferential standard of review is still applicable post-Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo to interpretations of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) by the National Labor Relations Board and whether cause is required for the president to remove the NLRB general counsel.
January 28, 2025
Judge Issues Show Cause Order After Potential AI Citation Issue In Employment Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — After concluding that a plaintiff’s attorney may have used artificial intelligence (AI), a federal judge in the District of Columbia dismissed the employment case and ordered the attorney to explain how briefing included nonexistent citations, in a lawsuit that involves a woman who claims that mental health issues prevented her from properly prosecuting the case.
January 27, 2025
Pa. Top Court Permits Torts For Time-Barred Occupational Disease Claimants

HARRISBURG, Pa. — The bargain between employees and employers in the occupational disease system cannot countenance completely extinguishing an asbestos claim that would be time-barred by the law, a divided Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in affirming lower courts while relying on the same logic it applied in the workers’ compensation system setting a decade ago.
January 27, 2025
No Error In Excluding Experts, Dismissing Claim In Suit Against Driver, Employer

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals said a district court did not abuse its discretion in barring experts from testifying on the timing of inclement weather that a tractor-trailer driver encountered before a crash or in excluding expert testimony on whether the driver was acting within the standard of care.
January 27, 2025
1st Circuit Revives Religious Discrimination Claims Over COVID-19 Vaccine Firing

BOSTON — A woman who was terminated from her job at a global biopharmaceuticals company for not getting the COVID-19 vaccine stating that it went against her “personal, private and sincerely held religious beliefs” may still have grounds to sue her employer for religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the corresponding Massachusetts state law after a panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals partially reversed the lower court’s dismissal of her claims.
January 27, 2025
NLRB Appeals Constitutional Ruling On NLRB Judges’ Multiple Tenure Protections

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The National Labor Relations Board, the general counsel, three NLRB members and an administrative law judge (ALJ) filed a notice of appeal after a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that NLRB ALJs are “‘officers of the United States’” and must not be protected from presidential removal via multiple levels of protection.
January 24, 2025
U.S. High Court Will Consider Limited Question In Class Case Over Veterans’ Pay

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a veterans’ petition for a writ of certiorari in a class case over retired pay and agreed to hear a limited question concerning whether the Barring Act’s “default procedures and limitations” is displaced by a “settlement mechanism” in 10 U.S. Code Section 1413a.
January 23, 2025
1st Circuit Panel Upholds Firing For COVID-19 Refusal, But On Different Grounds

BOSTON — While disagreeing with a Massachusetts federal court as to the basis for its decision, a panel of the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of a communications company in a former employee’s lawsuit alleging both disability and religious discrimination in terminating him for his refusal to become vaccinated against COVID-19.
January 22, 2025
‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Settlement Providing Discharge Changes Preliminarily OK’d

SAN FRANCISCO — A federal magistrate judge in California granted preliminary approval of a class settlement between veterans and the federal government that will remove references to sexual orientation from the discharge paperwork of servicemembers discharged under “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) and other similar policies.
January 21, 2025
Former Employee With Long COVID Alleges Her Firing By UPS Violated ADA, FMLA

PORTLAND, Maine — A former employee of a package delivery company filed suit against her former employer, alleging that her termination after developing “long COVID” was a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and state and federal family and medical leave statutes.
January 21, 2025
Federal Employees Union Sues President, Others Over Day 1 Executive Order

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A labor union that represents federal government workers in 37 agencies and departments filed a complaint on Jan. 20 in a federal court in the District of Columbia against President Donald Trump and five others alleging that an executive order (EO) signed shortly after the inauguration “attempts to strip civil service and due process protections from a large swath of federal employees.”
January 21, 2025
Medical Services Provider Accused Of Unlawfully ‘Annexing’ Sports Clinic

LOS ANGELES — Two entities involved in operating a provider of sports medicine and orthopedic surgery and two affiliated doctors filed a complaint in California state court accusing a nonprofit medical services provider and its executives of unlawfully seeking to “absorb . . . and unlawfully control” the sports medicine providers in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL), trademark dilution laws and other state laws prohibiting employment-related retaliation.
January 21, 2025
Union, 2 Nonprofits Sue President, OMB Over Government Efficiency Department

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Shortly after the inauguration on Jan. 20, Donald J. Trump and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) were sued in a federal court in the District of Columbia by a government employees union and two nonprofits that allege that the formation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) violates the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA).
January 17, 2025
Michigan Jury Awards $133,000 To Employee Fired For Refusing COVID-19 Vaccination

DETROIT — A Michigan federal jury on Jan. 16 awarded $133,000 to a former employee of a resort after determining that his refusal to take the COVID-19 vaccine was based on a sincerely held religious belief and that the resort failed to prove that accommodating the employee’s religious beliefs would have caused it to suffer an undue hardship.
January 16, 2025
2nd Circuit: No Gender Bias By Trader Joe’s For Pandemic Trip Firing

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel, in affirming a Connecticut federal judge’s order granting summary judgment, has determined that “no reasonable factfinder could conclude on” the record presented that Trader Joe’s termination of a female employee after she took a vacation out of the country during the escalation of the COVID-19 pandemic following a written warning and negative performance review “was a pretext for sex discrimination or that sex discrimination was an otherwise motivating factor” in the decision.
January 15, 2025
High Court: Preponderance Of Evidence Standard Applies To FLSA Exemption Cases

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled Jan. 15 that the preponderance of the evidence standard applies when an employer seeks to show that an employee is exempt from the minimum and overtime compensation requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), rejecting the argument by employees that the clear and convincing evidence standard must apply.
January 15, 2025
3rd Circuit Denies Rehearing After Dismissal Of Cannabis Use Suit Upheld

PHILADELPHIA — The Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing filed by a job applicant after the panel majority upheld a ruling finding that a New Jersey law prohibiting the firing of workers for cannabis use does not create a private cause of action.
January 15, 2025
Split 7th Circuit Denies Rehearing En Banc After FLSA Jurisdiction Ruling

CHICAGO — The majority of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing and/or rehearing en banc filed by a worker in the United States on an H-2A visa who brought collective wage-and-hour claims after a divided panel ruled that “[a] court overseeing a collective action must secure personal jurisdiction over each plaintiff’s claim, whether representative or opt-in, individually.”
January 15, 2025
4th Circuit Reverses Dismissal Of Fired Worker’s Religious Bias Vaccine Suit

RICHMOND, Va. — A nurse who alleged religious discrimination and failure to provide reasonable accommodation after her employer denied her request for a religious exemption to its COVID-19 vaccination policy sufficiently alleged that her vaccination beliefs were rooted in her religious beliefs, a Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s dismissal of the complaint.