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

Mealey's Employment

March 27, 2024
7th Circuit Rejects Conduct Argument In $2.3M Withdrawal Liability Row

CHICAGO — Reversing summary judgment in a Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA) case it called “the flip side of” Cent. States, Se. & Sw. Areas Pension Fund v. Gerber Truck Serv., a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that “the terms of pension contributions to multi-employer plans cannot be changed orally” or via adoption by conduct.
March 26, 2024
Preliminary Injunction Over Illinois Temp Worker Provision Draws Appeal

CHICAGO — After an Illinois federal judge ruled that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act likely preempts an “equivalent benefits” amendment to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (DTLSA) and then issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of that amendment, the leader of an Illinois regulatory department on March 25 filed notice of interlocutory appeal.
March 26, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Jurisdiction To Hear Late MSPB Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments March 25 in a suit filed by a former federal employee who claims that the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals erred in treating a 60-day deadline for petitioning for review of decisions by the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) as jurisdictional.
March 25, 2024
Retrial Ordered On Title IX Claim After Philadelphia Doctor Awarded $15M

PHILADELPHIA — Three months after a federal jury returned a $15 million verdict for a Philadelphia doctor, a federal judge in Pennsylvania granted judgment as a matter of law on the doctor’s tortious interference with contractual relations claims and ordered a new trial on the doctor’s Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 claim in a lawsuit in which the doctor alleges 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.
March 22, 2024
DOJ Announces Ohio Company Will Settle Claims Of Bias Against National Guardsman

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Development Corp., doing business as Akro-Plastics, will pay $15,000 and provide other relief to end a lawsuit in a federal court in Ohio by an Ohio national guardsman accusing the employer of failing to promote the worker based on his military service obligation and constructively discharging him on his return from military service, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced March 21.
March 22, 2024
Conn. Appeals Court: Law Permits Firing For Medical Marijuana Use During Work

HARTFORD, Conn. — The termination of an employee for allegedly using medical marijuana while working doesn’t violate Connecticut’s Palliative Use of Marijuana Act where the employee is aware of the employer’s policy requiring the workplace to be drug free, a state appellate court panel ruled, upholding a trial court’s summary judgment ruling for an employer.
March 22, 2024
6th Circuit Largely Upholds Dismissal Of Vaccine Religious Exemption Claims

CINCINNATI — Putative class claims by 46 hospital workers whose requests for religious exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate were largely properly dismissed by a trial court as 44 of the 46 workers failed to establish standing, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing only as to two workers who sufficiently alleged that they resigned after their requests were denied but before the hospital reversed its decision.
March 22, 2024
Pennsylvania Top Court Set To Decide Application Of Occupational Law’s Exclusivity

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Similarly situated plaintiffs moved to appear at oral arguments after briefing wrapped up in a case where the Pennsylvania Supreme Court will decide whether the exclusivity provision in the state’s occupational disease law precludes a man’s tort action even when the four-year statute of limitations precludes him from recovering under the statute.
March 21, 2024
University Worker Asks U.S. High Court To Decide COVID-19 Vaccine Question

WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Supreme Court justices should decide whether Jacobson v. Massachusetts requires that a governmental action like a vaccine mandate is “subject to heightened scrutiny” and whether such a mandate by Michigan State University (MSU) failed that test, an MSU worker argues in her petition for a writ of certiorari.
March 21, 2024
6th Circuit Vacates, Remands 2 Pizza Delivery Driver Suits On Calculating Costs

CINCINNATI — A trial court that found that pizza delivery drivers should be reimbursed for their costs using a mileage rate published by the IRS and a trial court that found in a different case that pizza delivery drivers’ employers could reimburse drivers for their costs with a “reasonable approximation” both erred, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating both decisions and remanding for the courts to consider the appropriate regime to use given the difficulty of proof.
March 20, 2024
Ohio Amusement Park Will Pay $50,000 To Settle EEOC Age Biased Housing Suit

TOLEDO, Ohio — The owner and operator of Cedar Point Amusement Park will pay $50,000 and provide other relief to end a lawsuit in a federal court in Ohio by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the owner of discriminating against older workers by prohibiting those 30 and older, other than entertainers, from living in employee housing, the EEOC announced March 19.
March 19, 2024
Judge Will Grant Preliminary Injunction For Illinois Temp Worker Provision

CHICAGO — Ruling that trade associations and staffing agencies are likely to succeed on the merits of their argument that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts one of three challenged amendments to the Illinois Day and Temporary Labor Services Act (DTLSA), an Illinois federal judge agreed to grant a preliminary injunction enjoining enforcement of that “equal pay” amendment.
March 19, 2024
Disability And Race Bias, Whistleblower Petitions Denied By U.S. High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 denied several employment-related petitions, including one by an employee who alleged that his employer’s policy regarding coronavirus and the accommodations it provided him violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), one concerning alleged whistleblowing and one by a former employee alleging race discrimination.
March 19, 2024
U.S. Supreme Court Denies McDonald’s Petition In No-Poach Appeal

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on March 18 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by McDonald’s USA LLC and McDonald’s Corp. (together, McDonald’s) after a Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel held that the no longer enforced no-hire agreement between the fast food franchisor and its franchisees might violate antitrust laws.
March 18, 2024
Tesla, Former Employee Reach Settlement After Race Bias Retrial

SAN FRANCISCO — Tesla Inc. and a former worker who was awarded nearly $3.2 million by a jury after a retrial in a racial discrimination case filed March 15 in a federal court in California a joint stipulation for dismissal, saying they executed an undisclosed final, binding settlement.
March 18, 2024
Calif. Federal Judge Rejects Claims That State Worker Status Bill Is Preempted

SAN DIEGO — A California bill that codified the “ABC test” for classifying worker status isn’t preempted by the Federal Aviation Administration Authorization Act of 1994 (FAAAA or F4A) or prohibited by the U.S. Constitution’s dormant commerce clause or the equal protection clause of the U.S. and California constitutions, a federal judge in that state ruled March 15, opining that fixing any deficiencies in the bill is “the kind of work better left to the soap box and the ballot box than to the jury box.”
March 18, 2024
6th Circuit Affirms Denial Of Intervention In Now Settled Vaccine Mandate Dispute

CINCINNATI — A trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied a motion to intervene filed by one of more than 4,000 potential class members in a since settled case by employees over a health care provider’s mandatory COVID-19 vaccine policy, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled.
March 15, 2024
AI Hiring Program Maker Says It Makes Software, Isn’t An Employment Agency

SAN FRANCISCO — A man’s amended complaint hides an “old theory in artful vagary” and cannot show that Workday Inc., rather than an end user, directs an artificial intelligence applicant review program or that providing the application transforms Workday into an employment agency, the company tells a federal judge in California in seeking dismissal of an employment discrimination case.
March 15, 2024
High Court: State Action On Social Media Requires Exercise Of Actual Authority

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Vacating and remanding two lawsuits in which public officials were accused of violating the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution by blocking naysayers on social media, the U.S. Supreme Court on March 15 established a two-step test for determining whether such activity by an official constitutes state action, making it susceptible to legal action under U.S. Code Title 42 Section 1983, or is merely their own private, protected speech.
March 15, 2024
Former Volvo Worker Seeks Rehearing After 7th Circuit USERRA Ruling

CHICAGO — A former Volvo Group North America LLC employee filed a motion in the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on March 14 seeking to correct a quote in her petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc filed two days earlier; in the petition, the former employee argues that the Seventh Circuit erred when it affirmed a trial court’s refusal to alter or amend its judgment after the second trial in the worker’s Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA) case ended in a verdict for Volvo.
March 14, 2024
5th Circuit Affirms Ruling Against Beneficiary In Business Travel Accident Row

NEW ORLEANS — Affirming summary judgment in an Employee Retirement Income Security Act dispute involving business travel accident (BTA) insurance, a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel issued an unpublished opinion ruling that the trial court “correctly reviewed the denial [of benefits] for abuse of discretion.”
March 13, 2024
EEOC, Cable Company Settle Temporary Schedule Suit After Claims Reinstated

MILWAUKEE — A cable company accused by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission of discriminating against an employee with a disability by denying him an extension of his modified work schedule will pay $60,000 to settle the lawsuit, according to a consent decree signed by a federal judge in Wisconsin on March 12.
March 13, 2024
Dried Fruit Company Agrees To $2M Settlement In EEOC Sex Harassment Case

FRESNO, Calif. — A dried fruit supplier will pay $2 million to end a lawsuit by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission accusing the employer of subjecting female workers in California to a sexually hostile work environment, according to a consent decree signed by a federal judge in California on March 12.
March 11, 2024
NLRB’s New Joint Employer Rule Vacated By Federal Judge In Texas

TYLER, Texas — A federal judge in Texas on March 8 vacated the National Labor Relations Board’s new final rule on the standard for determining joint employer status, opining that enforcing it against a variety of employer groups and “their members would be contrary to law as to the Rule’s addition of a new 29 C.F.R. § 103.40 and arbitrary and capricious as to the Rule’s removal of the existing 29 C.F.R. § 103.40 (2020).”
March 07, 2024
Christian Employment Group, Members Have Standing In ACA Challenge, Judge Says

BISMARCK, N.D. — Both the individual members of a Christian employers’ group and the association itself have standing in the face of imminent and concrete injury from a Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) rule including gender identity under the definitions of discrimination, a federal judge in North Dakota said in granting the plaintiffs summary judgment on Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) claims.