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Mealey's Employment

  • April 17, 2024

    Judge Issues Limited Stay In Catholic Employment Groups’ Gender Transition Case

    FARGO, N.D. — Because a forthcoming final rule governing Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act Section 1557 could impact some portions of religious employers’ case, the action can be stayed until May 1, after which if the rule is not yet finalized the government defendants must answer the complaint, a federal judge in North Dakota said April 16.

  • April 17, 2024

    U.S. High Court: Job Transfer Bias Suit Must Show Harm, Not ‘Significant’ Harm

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — An employee alleging that a lateral job transfer constitutes discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must show harm, but that showing need not be of “‘significant’ harm,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled April 17 in an appeal by a St. Louis Police Department sergeant who alleged that her transfer from a position as patrol detective to the Intelligence Division was discriminatory.

  • April 17, 2024

    Jack In The Box Workers Partially Awarded Attorney Fees, Costs In Wage Suit

    PORTLAND, Ore. — Motions for attorney fees and costs by both sides in a wage-and-hour suit brought by a class of Jack in the Box Inc. workers who saw some success with their claims were partially granted and partially denied by a federal judge in Oregon who ruled that the workers were entitled to a portion of the attorney fees and costs they sought and that the employer was entitled to no attorney fees but was entitled to a portion of the amount it sought for witness fees and other costs.

  • April 16, 2024

    California Appeals Court Upholds Judgment, Sanctions In On-Call Rest Periods Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A California trial court did not err in retroactively applying the state’s Emergency Ambulance Employee Safety and Preparedness Act (EAESPA) to a putative class complaint by an ambulance service employee arguing that she and others were improperly denied rest breaks as they were required to remain on call and did not abuse its discretion in imposing $2,000 in sanctions against the worker’s counsel after they refused to dismiss the lawsuit, a California appellate panel ruled, opining in part that the retroactive application of the EAESPA had already been considered and ruled on.

  • April 16, 2024

    Divided U.S. High Court Rules On Veterans’ Education Benefits

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Service members who earn education benefits under both the Montgomery GI Bill and the Post-9/11 GI Bill may use the benefits under either one in any order up to the 48-month aggregate cap provided in 38 U.S. Code Section 3695(a), the U.S. Supreme Court majority ruled this morning.

  • April 15, 2024

    EEOC Issues Final Rule Implementing The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission on April 15 announced the issuance of the final rule implementing the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) and stating that the rule will provide the clarity needed “that will allow pregnant workers the ability to work and maintain a healthy pregnancy and help employers understand their duties under the law.”

  • April 15, 2024

    Alabama Unemployment Applicants Seek Reinstatement Of Suit Over Pandemic Delays

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should reverse the Alabama Supreme Court’s judgment upholding dismissal of a lawsuit over the delays in processing the large amount of applications filed due to the coronavirus pandemic for failure to exhaust administrative remedies as the case is resolved by Patsy v. Board of Regents, unemployment benefits applicants argue in their petitioner brief.

  • April 15, 2024

    COVID-19 Vaccine Mandate Scrutiny Question Won’t Be Answered By U.S. High Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 15 declined to answer a question posed by a Michigan State University (MSU) worker in putative class complaint concerning whether Jacobson v. Massachusetts requires that a governmental action such as a vaccine mandate is “subject to heightened scrutiny” and whether such a mandate by MSU failed that test.

  • April 15, 2024

    AI Hiring Company Says Court Got Illinois Jurisdiction Ruling Wrong

    CHICAGO — Illinois is an improper jurisdiction for an artificial intelligence-assisted interview case in which five of the six named plaintiffs were never in the state, and the court reached a contrary conclusion by relying on precedent ignoring that application software is not a product and the role a third party played in its use, the company argues in a motion for reconsideration of a federal judge in Illinois’ ruling denying a motion to dismiss.

  • April 12, 2024

    Unanimous High Court: Transportation Industry Work Not Needed For FAA Exemption

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Employees who fall within the carveout in Section 1 of the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) for workers engaged in interstate commerce “‘must at least play a direct and ‘necessary role in the free flow of goods’ across borders,” but do not need to work in the transportation industry, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled April 12, quoting from Sw. Airlines Co. v. Saxon.

  • April 11, 2024

    EEOC Says AI’s Use Doesn’t Redefine Employment Agency Status

    SAN FRANCISCO — Workday Inc.’s use of artificial intelligence and machine learning in screening and sorting job candidates offers a “more sophisticated means” of performing these tasks but does not differentiate the company from traditional employment agencies, the Equal Opportunity Employment Agency (EEOC) says in seeking to file an amicus curiae brief in support of a man who claims to have been discriminated against and is battling a motion to dismiss his case.

  • April 11, 2024

    Judge: Employee Who Quit After Refusing COVID Tests Not Constructively Discharged

    MINNEAPOLIS — A Minnesota federal judge granted the motion of a Minnesota county to dismiss the complaint of a former county public defender alleging that she was constructively discharged from her position and resigned under duress after she refused to submit to COVID-19 testing in lieu of vaccination as the county transitioned back to an in-office working environment, finding that the former employee failed to establish that she had suffered an adverse employment action.

  • April 11, 2024

    Staffing Company Will Pay $2.2M To Settle EEOC Hiring Discrimination Case

    LOS ANGELES — A temporary staffing agency will pay $2.2 million and enter into a consent decree requiring injunctive relief to end a lawsuit in a federal court in California alleging that the agency discriminated while hiring against a class consisting of Black, Asian, white and other non-Hispanic workers, male and female workers and workers with disabilities, the EEOC announced.

  • April 11, 2024

    Golf Attendants Seek Rehearing After 11th Circuit Agrees They Are Not Employees

    ATLANTA — Golf attendants at Palm Beach County, Fla., golf clubs who received discounted golf in exchange for their services filed a petition for rehearing after the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s judgment for the county in their putative class lawsuit, opining that the attendants are public-agency volunteers and not employees under federal and state law.

  • April 11, 2024

    D.C. Circuit Enforces NLRB’s Ruling In Cadillac Dealership Strike Speech Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a petition for review filed by a car dealership in a union dispute after the National Labor Relations Board reconsidered a 2019 decision in light of General Motors LLC and reaffirmed the earlier finding that the firing of a union negotiator violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

  • April 11, 2024

    5th Circuit Denies Rehearing After Cutting $365M From FedEx Retaliation Verdict

    NEW ORLEANS — Treating a petition for rehearing en banc as one for a panel rehearing, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied it and also denied rehearing en banc in a case in which the panel reduced a more than $366 million jury verdict against FedEx Corporate Services Inc. in a former employee’s retaliation case to $248,619.57.

  • April 11, 2024

    Ohio Jury Finds Worker’s 8 Conditions Were Aggravated By Injury, Must Be Covered

    SIDNEY, Ohio — A mechanical contractor’s employee’s eight disc bulge and spinal stenosis conditions were aggravated by an injury he sustained at work in 2003 and should be covered under workers’ compensation, an Ohio jury ruled in eight verdicts.

  • April 11, 2024

    D.C. Circuit: Evidence Didn’t Support NLRB’s Finding In Union Animus Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The evidence presented against an employer accused of reminding a truck driver that he was being surveilled and issuing a written warning rather than a verbal one to another driver for an infraction was not sufficient to support a finding by the National Labor Relations Board that the employer disciplined them due to drivers’ support of unionization, a  District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, granting the employer’s petition for review and denying the NLRB’s cross-application.

  • April 10, 2024

    Consent Judgment OK’d After Summary Judgment Ruling In COVID-Testing Leave Case

    GREENVILLE, Miss. — A federal judge in Mississippi approved a consent judgment between the acting secretary of Labor and a cleaning company that will provide back pay and compensatory and liquidated damages to two workers terminated while on leave from work awaiting COVID-19 test results.

  • April 09, 2024

    Hospital Seeks En Banc Review After Ruling On Ceasing Union Dues Checkoff

    PASADENA, Calif. — A hospital found by the National Labor Relations Board in a supplemental decision to have engaged in an unfair labor practice when it unilaterally ceased union dues checkoff filed a motion seeking en banc review after a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the NLRB followed the proper decisionmaking process.

  • April 09, 2024

    Prevailing Wage Case Worker: Preemption Ruling Doesn’t Need U.S. High Court Review

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court shouldn’t review a preemption ruling by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) in a Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Act case as the decision was not “final,” there are still unresolved issues in the case making it a poor vehicle, the ruling was correct and no further review is warranted, an employee who sued his former employer for failing to pay him according to the act argues in his respondent brief that had been requested by the high court after the employee initially waived his right to respond.

  • April 09, 2024

    Starbucks Workers, Other Amici Support 2-Part Test For NLRB Injunctive Relief

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Interim injunctive relief by the National Labor Relations Board is “critical” where workers are being fired for supporting unionization and “due to the slow pace of unfair labor practice cases,” and such a tool should not be limited, Starbucks Corp. workers argue in an amicus curiae brief filed in the U.S. Supreme Court supporting arguments made by an NLRB regional director in a respondent brief in a dispute over the appropriate standard for reviewing injunctive relief requests.

  • April 08, 2024

    Gig Economy Customer Service Company To Pay $3M To Settle Wage Theft Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Arise Virtual Solutions Inc. will pay $3 million to customer service workers and the District of Columbia to end a lawsuit alleging that it misclassified workers as independent contractors rather than employees, the District of Columbia attorney general announced.

  • April 08, 2024

    N.H. Federal Jury Rules For Supermarket Worker In Age Discrimination Suit

    CONCORD, N.H. — A federal judge in New Hampshire entered a more than $130,000 judgment for a supermarket worker who alleged that he was denied promotion to a full-time position due to his age; the judgment came four days after a jury found that the promotion denial was a willful violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and the New Hampshire Law Against Discrimination (NHLAD).

  • April 05, 2024

    California Jury Awards Former LAPD K9 Trainer $11.56M In Retaliation Case

    LOS ANGELES — A California jury returned a verdict for a former Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) K9 trainer on whistleblower and retaliation claims and partially on his claim of discrimination and awarded him $11.65 million for past and future lost earnings and noneconomic losses; the employee alleged that he was pulled from his training duties due to his race and national origin and in retaliation for reports he made.