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Mealey's Employment

June 25, 2024
Split Vermont High Court: Whistleblower Verdict For DOC Employer Must Be Vacated

MONTPELIER, Vt. — A Vermont trial court erred when it denied the Vermont Department of Corrections’ (DOC) motion for judgment as a matter of law filed during a whistleblower trial for a former superintendent who claimed that he was fired for reporting potential costs savings and understaffing, a divided Vermont Supreme Court ruled.
June 25, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Appeal On Differential Pay For Reservists

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a U.S. Coast Guard reservist asking the justices to decide whether he was wrongly denied differential pay while performing active duty during a national emergency where his service was found to be not a part of a contingency operation.
June 24, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Will Hear Appeal Over Disability Bias Rights Of Former Employee

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 24 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a retired employee of a Florida city asking whether she has the right to sue under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for discrimination related to the distribution of fringe benefits that took effect after she was no longer employed.
June 21, 2024
Pharmacy Will Pay $515,000 To Settle EEOC’s Disability, Genetic Info Bias Lawsuit

DENVER — A complex medications pharmacy doing business in Colorado will pay $515,000 and provide other equitable relief to end a complaint by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the former owner of the business of unlawfully inquiring about employees’ disabilities and genetic information and pressuring them to use its pharmacy services, according to a signed consent decree filed in a federal court in Colorado.
June 21, 2024
California Urges High Court To Not Review Arbitrability Of Uber, Lyft Wage Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — California on June 20 filed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court opposing petitions for writs of certiorari filed by Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc., arguing that a state appellate court properly affirmed the denial of Uber and Lyft’s attempt to compel arbitration of state officials’ lawsuits against them for allegedly misclassifying drivers in violation of California’s unfair competition law (UCL).
June 19, 2024
Judge Rejects AI Hiring Firm’s Attack On Class Jurisdiction Ruling

CHICAGO — An artificial intelligence hiring platform’s contacts in Illinois satisfy Ford Motor Co. v. Mont. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct. and provide for jurisdiction in the state, a federal judge said June 18 in denying a motion for reconsideration of a ruling denying a motion to dismiss.
June 19, 2024
California Class Complaint Accuses Apple Of Paying Women Less Than Men

SAN FRANCISCO — Apple Inc. “systematically” pays females employees lower wages than similarly situated male employees, a putative class complaint filed in a California court by two female employees alleges.
June 18, 2024
2nd Circuit Vacates Addition Of Former Subsidiary In Wage Class Case, Remands

NEW YORK — A trial court erred when it joined an employer’s former subsidiary as a necessary party in a wage-and-hour putative class suit and when it dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA), the Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in a summary order, vacating the judgment in the former employee’s case and remanding for further proceedings.
June 18, 2024
Cheese Makers, Workers Settle Wage Claims After Verdict For Employers

FRESNO, Calif. — A $3.5 million settlement negotiated between Leprino Foods Co. and Leprino Foods Dairy Products Co. (together, Leprino) and workers whose wage-and-hour class claims resulted in a jury verdict for Leprino was granted final approval by a federal magistrate judge in California on June 17.
June 18, 2024
U.S. High Court Won’t Review Separating Individual, Non-Individual PAGA Claims

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 17 denied petitions in two cases raising questions about separating individual and non-individual claims filed under the California Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA).
June 18, 2024
Federal Judge: EEOC Exceeded Authority With Pregnant Workers Fairness Act Rule

LAKE CHARLES, La. — One business day after an Arkansas federal judge ruled that Tennessee and 16 other states lack standing to sue the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission challenging the portions of regulations “to carry out” the Pregnancy Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) that deal with abortion, a federal judge in Louisiana on June 17 partially granted preliminary injunction motions by Louisiana and Mississippi and several Catholic entities postponing the effective date of the EEOC’s final rule that implements and interprets the PWFA.
June 18, 2024
$2.5M Wage-And-Hour Settlement For Arizona Chauffeurs Preliminarily OK’d

PHOENIX — A federal judge in Arizona granted preliminary approval of a $2.5 million class settlement between employers and chauffer drivers who say that they were improperly denied minimum, straight and overtime wages.
June 17, 2024
9th Circuit: Class Scope Ambiguity ‘Should Be Resolved In Favor Of Tolling’

SAN FRANCISCO — Where a class definition is narrowed, any dispute or ambiguity regarding the applicability to certain plaintiffs “should be resolved in favor of tolling so that bystander members of the class need not rush to file separate actions to protect their rights,” the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled June 14, answering a question the panel stated was one of first impression.
June 17, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Grants Petition Seeking Standard Of Proof For FLSA Exemptions

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A petition for a writ of certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court justices to decide whether the standard of proof for an exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) “is a mere preponderance of the evidence” or “clear and convincing evidence” was granted June 17 (E.M.D. Sales, Inc., et al. v. Faustino Sanchez Carrera, et al., No. 23-217, U.S. Sup.).
June 13, 2024
U.S. High Court Finds Winter Test Appropriate For NLRB Injunctive Relief

WASHINGTON, D.C. — District Courts must apply the four-factor test in Winter v. Nat. Res. Def. Council when considering a preliminary injunction request by the National Labor Relations Board under Section 10(j) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 13 in an appeal by Starbucks Corp.; however, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson opined in a partial dissent that the majority’s ruling ignored the second step in the two-part inquiry in Hecht Co. v. Bowles.
June 12, 2024
5th Circuit Grants Airline Stay Of ‘Religious-Liberty Training’ Pending Appeal

NEW ORLEANS — An order that Southwest Airlines Co. lawyers attend “religious-liberty training” as a sanction in a flight attendant’s case over her firing for online speech “likely exceeded the district court’s civil contempt authority,” a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, granting Southwest’s motion for a stay pending appeal.
June 12, 2024
Company Says Worker Fails To Plead Discrimination Case As To Its Vaccination Policy

PORTLAND, Ore. — In a lawsuit by a former employee alleging that her employer failed to make a good faith effort to accommodate her religious beliefs and medical disability, both of which led her to decline a company-mandated COVID-19 vaccination, which caused her dismissal, the employer moved an Oregon federal court for judgment on the pleadings, contending that the employee failed to plead facts sufficient to show that she held a bona fide religious belief that conflicted with the employer’s vaccination policy or that she was disabled within the meaning of state or federal law.
June 12, 2024
Los Angeles Jury Awards Former UCLA Doctor $14M In Gender Bias Suit Retrial

LOS ANGELES — A former University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) Medical Center doctor whose previous award of more than $13 million for gender bias and retaliation claims was reversed by an appellate panel that found that “grave errors” were made during the jury trial was awarded $14 million in damages by a jury following the retrial.
June 12, 2024
9th Circuit Certifies Public Worker Military Leave Question To Wash. High Court

SEATTLE — The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued an order asking the Washington Supreme Court to decide whether public employees are entitled to paid military leave under that state’s law when the worker is not “scheduled to work” based on the military leave of absence.
June 11, 2024
En Banc 9th Circuit Upholds Dismissal Of Gig Workers’ Suit Over Calif. Status Law

SAN FRANCISCO — A California law that extended the application of the “ABC test” for determining worker status and exempted certain occupations was created for “plausible reasons,” the en banc Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled June 10, upholding a trial court’s dismissal of a complaint brought by two gig workers and the operators of two mobile applications that provide delivery and rideshare services.
June 11, 2024
6th Circuit Affirms NLRB’s Jurisdiction In Audit Row Involving Multiemployer Funds

CINCINNATI — In an unpublished opinion that drew a partial dissent, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed summary judgment against multiemployer trust funds that sought to compel an employer to submit to an audit under the Labor Management Relations Act (LMRA) and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
June 11, 2024
Former Walgreens Worker Asks U.S. High Court To Consider FMLA Questions

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court justices should decide whether 29 U.S. Code Section 2615(a)(1) prohibits retaliation for exercising rights under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and, if it does, the appropriate standard for proving such a claim, a former Walgreen Co. employee argues in a petition for a writ of certiorari filed after the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled that the proper standard for such claims is the but-for causation.
June 10, 2024
Rehearing Denied After 4th Circuit Vacates Wage Ruling For Jailed Workers

RICHMOND, Va. — The Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing filed by a Maryland county after a panel cleared the way for a former detainee’s collective and class wage-and-hour claims to proceed after determining that the incorrect legal standards were used when granting the county summary judgment.
June 07, 2024
Preliminary Injunction Upheld In Noncompete Suit Against Former Cigna Executive

ST. LOUIS — A trial court’s preliminary injunction in a case by Cigna Corp. seeking to enforce a noncompete agreement with a former executive was not an abuse of discretion as Missouri law was correctly interpreted and there was no clear error in the factual findings, an Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, noting in part that the company where the executive went was Cigna’s “largest direct competitor.”
June 06, 2024
Judge: Amazon Immune From Workers’ Temperature Scan Class Suit Under PREP Act

CHICAGO — A warehouse worker’s putative class complaint accusing her employer of violating Illinois’ Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) by scanning workers’ temperatures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 was terminated by a federal magistrate judge in Illinois who found that the employer was entitled to statutory immunity based on the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act).