Human resources & employment law cumulative case briefs
Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit
Download 5.55 Mb.
|
- Navigate this page:
- Jurisdiction: Ninth Circuit trial court
- Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit
- Jurisdiction: New Mexico
- Jurisdiction: Illinois Eastham v. The Housing Authority of Jefferson County and IDES
- Jurisdiction: Ninth Circuit
Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit Menge v. AT&T, Inc., et al., No. 14-1210 (10th Cir., 12/17/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]: http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/14/14-1210.pdf. Appellate court summary: Kent D. Menge appeals pro se from a district court order that upheld the denial of his claim for short-term disability benefits under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, and we affirm. Conclusion: We cannot conclude that the independent physician advisors selectively reviewed Mr. Menge’s medical records so as to render the denial of benefits arbitrary and capricious. An administrator’s decision to deny benefits need not be the most logical decision available. Nance v. Sun Life Assurance Co., 294 F.3d 1263, 1269 (10th Cir. 2002). So long as the decision “falls somewhere on a continuum of reasonableness—even if on the low end”—we cannot disturb it. Id. Because the QRU’s denial of Mr. Menge’s short-term disability benefits was a reasonable decision, it must stand. Evidence: social media, spoliation = destruction – failure to produce, consequences – sanction – penalty Jurisdiction: Ninth Circuit trial court Painter v. Atwood, No. 2:12–CV–1215 JCM (NJK) (USDCNV, 7/21/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
Occasionally a reminder is appropriate. Though this is a trial court order binding only on the parties, it is persuasive authority of a longstanding evidentiary precedent. Evidence not presented my result in a jury instruction that the “destroyed evidence” was “detrimental to Plaintiff’s claims.” In plain language, an attempted cover-up seldom turns out well. From the order of the trial judge affirming the order of the magistrate[edited slightly for readability]: The party seeking an adverse inference instruction must establish:
[Comment: Evidence needs to be preserved. Often a “hold order” of some sort is issued by a judge to preserve evidence. Even if there is no such order, often the better practice is to preserve it anyway. If the employer has electronic systems with programmed destruction dates, copying critical evidence to safe place is good practice. Check with experienced employment counsel.] Whistleblower: statute of limitations – Minnesota Whistleblower Act (MWA) Jurisdiction: Minnesota Ford v. Minneapolis Public Schools, No. A13-1072 (MCA, 12/15/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]: http://www.mncourts.gov/opinions/coa/current/opa131072r-121514.pdf. Littler Mendelson law firm article at http://www.littler.com/publication-press/publication/minnesota-court-overturns-20-years-precedent-extend-whistleblower-stat. The statute of limitations is extended from 2 years to 6 years. Wage and Hour: employee – independent contractor, FLSA test – control, Nevada Revised Statutes (NRS) – 608.010 – 608.011 Jurisdiction: Nevada Terry, et al., v. Sapphire Gentlemen's Club, No. 59214 (NVSC, 1-/30/14):59214 (NVSC, 1-/30/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
Topless dancers were determined to be employees, not independent contractors because the state supreme court adopted the FLSA’s “economic realities” test – 29 U.S.C §§ 201-219 (2012) – http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/29/chapter-8. Union, Benefits, Arbitration: unilateral modification, Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local #111, et al., v. Public Service Company of Colorado, et al., No. 13-1207 (10th Cir., 12/9/14); http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/13/13-1207.pdf [enhanced lexis.com version] Appellate court summary: In 2009, the Public Service Company of Colorado entered into a collective-bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local #111, a union that represents some of the Company’s employees. About two years later, the Company unilaterally modified its retired workers’ healthcare benefits by increasing their copayment obligations for prescription drugs. The Union claimed that the Company had violated the collective-bargaining agreement by doing so and demanded arbitration. When the Company refused to arbitrate, the Union sued and asked the district court to stay the case and compel arbitration. When the district court denied that motion, the Union filed an interlocutory appeal. This appeal presents two questions sharing a common theme: where does this case belong? The first question is whether it belongs in front of us—that is, whether appellate jurisdiction exists to hear it. We conclude that appellate jurisdiction does indeed exist under the Federal Arbitration Act. The second question is whether this case belongs in a courtroom or a conference room—that is, whether the district court should have sent the case to arbitration. We conclude that the district court properly kept the case in the courtroom because the collective-bargaining agreement’s arbitration provision is not susceptible to an interpretation that covers disputes over retired workers’ healthcare benefits. Thus, we affirm the district court’s order and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings. Teachers: adverse employment action, heightened substantive and procedural rights, timing Jurisdiction: New Mexico Weiss, et al. v. The Board of Education of The Santa Fe Public Schools, et al., No. 32,844 (NMSC, 6/3/14), Certiorari Denied, No. 34,797 (NMSC, 9/24/14)
Appellate court summary: {1} New Mexico law provides heightened substantive and procedural rights to teachers who have been employed with a school district for three consecutive years if the school board elects not to renew the teacher’s contract for a subsequent year. This case presents the question of whether those protections apply when notice of a board’s intent not to renew a teacher’s contract is served on the teacher during, but prior to the completion of, her third year. We conclude that they do and therefore affirm the district court’s declaratory judgment in favor of Plaintiffs. BACKGROUND {2} Plaintiff Rosa Weiss was a teacher employed by the Santa Fe Public Schools during the 2008-09, 2009-10, and 2010-11 school years, pursuant to three one-year contracts. On May 12, 2011, approximately two weeks before the end of her third year, Weiss was served notice that Defendant Board of Education of the Santa Fe Public Schools intended not to renew her contract for a fourth year. Weiss requested a hearing on the decision, but her request was denied. {3} Weiss and Plaintiff National Education Association-New Mexico then filed suit in district court against the Board of Education and the Superintendent of the Santa Fe Public Schools, seeking a declaratory judgment that Defendants were required by New Mexico law to provide Weiss with a hearing to contest her termination. The district court ruled that Weiss was employed for three consecutive years as a certified school instructor and that, therefore, she was entitled to such a hearing. Defendants appeal. Title VII: gender, retaliation, adverse employment action, McDonnell Douglas – no pretext, misconduct, investigation, Performance Agreement Letter, summary judgment affirmed Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit From the appellate opinion: The district court considered Mr. Hartigan’s discrimination claim under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. Under that framework, “the plaintiff b ears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of sex discrimination, whereupon the burden shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the discharge, and then back to the plaintiff to s how that the stated reason is pretextual.” * * * The court assumed that Mr. Hartigan could establish a prima face case of retaliation, but again concluded that UTA had provided legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its employment actions, and that Mr. Hartigan had failed to demonstrate that those reasons were pretextual. FLSA: Amazon.com – warehouse workers, security screening – not compensable Jurisdiction: All Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. v. Busk, No. 13-433 (USSC, 12/9/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
Two Integrity Staffing Solutions hourly employees working at Amazon.com warehouses claimed they ought to be paid for their time spent during security screening. The Supreme Court disagreed because:
Court staff syllabus: Petitioner Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc., required its hourly warehouse workers, who retrieved products from warehouse shelves and packaged them for delivery to Amazon.com customers, to undergo a security screening before leaving the warehouse each day. Respondents, former employees, sued the company alleging, as relevant here, that they were entitled to compensation under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA) for the roughly 25 minutes each day that they spent waiting to undergo and undergoing those screenings. They also alleged that the company could have reduced that time to a deminimis amount by adding screeners or staggering shift terminations and that the screenings were conducted to prevent employee theft and, thus, for the sole benefit of the employers and their customers. The District Court dismissed the complaint for failure to state a claim, holding that the screenings were not integral and indispensable to the employees’ principal activities but were instead postliminary and noncompensable. The U. S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed in relevant part, asserting that postshift activities that would ordinarily be classified as noncompensable postliminary activities are compensable as integral and indispensable to an employee’s principal activities if the postshift activities are necessary to the principal work and performed for the employer’s benefit. Court summary: Held : The time that respondents spent waiting to undergo and undergoing security screenings is not compensable under the FLSA. Pp. 3–9. (a) Congress passed the Portal-to-Portal Act to respond to an economic emergency created by the broad judicial interpretation given to the FLSA’s undefined terms “work” and “workweek.” See 29 U. S. C. §251(a); Tennessee Coal, Iron & R. Co. v. Muscoda Local No. 123, 321 U. S. 590, 598. The Portal-to-Portal Act exempted employers from FLSA liability for claims based on “activities which are preliminary to or postliminary to” the performance of the principal activities that an employee is employed to perform. §254(a)(2). Under this Court’s precedents, the term “principal activities” includes all activities which are an “integral and indispensable part of the principal activities.” Steiner v. Mitchell, 350 U. S. 247, 252–253. An activity is “integral and indispensable” if it is an intrinsic element of the employee’s principal activities and on e with which the employee cannot dispense if he is to perform his principal activities. This Court has identified several activities that satisfy this test—see, e.g., id., at 249, 251; Mitchell v. King Packing Co., 350 U. S. 260, 262—and Department of Labor regulations are consistent with this approach, see 29 CFR §§790.8(c), 790.7(g). Pp. 3–7. (b) The security screenings at issue are noncompensable postliminary activities. To begin with, the screenings were not the principal activities the employees were employed to perform— i.e., the workers were employed not to undergo security screenings but to retrieve products from warehouse shelves and package them for shipment. Nor were they “integral and indispensable” to those activities. This view is consistent with a 1951 Department of Labor opinion letter, which found noncompensable under the Portal-to-Portal Act both a preshift screening conducted for employee safety and a postshift search conducted to prevent employee theft. The Ninth Circuit’s test, which focused on whether the particular activity was required by the employer rather than whether it was tied to the productive work that the employee was employed to perform, would sweep into “principal activities” the very activities that the Portal-to-Portal Act was designed to exclude from compensation. See, e.g., IBP, supra, at 41. Finally, respondents’ claim that the screenings are compensable because Integrity Staffing could have reduced the time to a de minimis amount is properly presented at the bargaining table, not to a court in an FLSA claim. Pp. 7–9. 713 F. 3d 525, reversed. Unemployment Benefits: marijuana, off-duty, eligible Jurisdiction: Illinois Eastham v. The Housing Authority of Jefferson County and IDES, No. 5-13-0209 (5th Dist., 12/2/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
The employee admitted to smoking marijuana:
Appellate court summary: ¶ 1 The plaintiff, William F. Eastham III, was required to submit to a random drug test by his employer, the Housing Authority of Jefferson County. The plaintiff informed his supervisor that he believed he would fail the drug test because he had smoked marijuana during a recent vacation. His employment was terminated before the results of the drug test were available. The test subsequently came back negative. The plaintiff 's claim for unemployment insurance benefits was denied. The basis for this decision was a policy of the employer which provided that employees may not use or be under the influence alcohol or any controlled substance "while in the course of employment." The plaintiff filed a petition for administrative review. The circuit court reversed the administrative decision , finding that (1) the phrase "while in the course of employment" includes only the times during which an employee is performing work duties; and (2) the policy is unreasonable to the extent it can be interpreted to regulate an employee's conduct outside of work. The defendants, the Housing Authority of Jefferson County and the Board of Review of the Department of Employment Security, appeal. They argue the circuit court erred in reaching both of these conclusions . We affirm Social Media: Facebook – threats – free speech, perceived propensity for violence, independent medical examinations (IME) – assess mental health/emotional stability, adverse employment action Jurisdiction: Ohio Ames v. Ohio Dept. of Rehab. & Corr., No. 2014-Ohio-4774/ No. 14AP-119 (OHCA.Dist10, 10/28/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
Diedree Ames was a Senior Parole Officer.
The facts are numerous - misbehavior was investigated, and ultimately her employment was terminated for threats and for not cooperating with investigation. She sued under the disabilities laws on the ground that actually she was fired because she was perceived to be disabled. Appellate court summary: This appeal involves a claim under R.C. 4112.02 and 4112.99 for employment discrimination on the basis of a perceived disability. Plaintiff-appellant, Diedree Ames, appeals the January 14, 2014 judgment of the Court of Claims of Ohio granting summary judgment for defendant-appellee, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction ("ODRC"), and denying summary judgment for plaintiff-appellant. For the reasons that follow, we affirm the judgment of the trial court. ERISA: insurers, health care providers, assignments of claims – anti-assignment provision, no fiduciary duty, standing to sue Jurisdiction: Ninth Circuit Spinedex Physical Therapy v. United Healthcare of Arizona, Inc. No. 12-17604 (9th Cir., 11/5/14) [enhanced lexis.com version]:
Appellate court staff summary: The panel reversed in part, affirmed in par t, and vacated in part the district court’s summary judgment in a healthcare provider’s action, as assignee and would-be assignee of health plan beneficiaries, seeking payment of denied benefit claims under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The panel held that the healthcare provider, Spinedex Physical Therapy U SA, Inc., had Article III standing as assignee of plan beneficiaries to bring claims for payment of benefits against defendant health plans and their claims administrator and insurer. The panel held that Spinedex was not assigned the right to bring claims for breach of fiduciary duty. The panel held that plaintiff Arizona Chiropractic Society, a non-profit association of chiropractors, lacked associational standing to bring suit against the claims administrator. The panel held that an individual plan beneficiary’s claim for breach of fiduciary duty was time-barred. The panel held that Spinedex’s claims as assignee of beneficiaries under the Martz Agency Plan and the Acoustic Technologies Plan were not time-barred. The panel held that the anti-assignment provision of the Discount Tire Plan precluded assignment by Plan beneficiaries to Spinedex. The panel vacated in part and reversed in part the district court’s holding s that another individual beneficiary’s claim for breach of fiduciary duty was not exhausted, that the claims administrator was not a proper defendant for benefit claims under the American Express Plan, and that some of the claims assigned to Spinedex were not administratively exhausted. The panel remanded the case to the district court. Title VII: retaliation – no connection between protected activity and adverse employment action, indirect discrimination – McDonnell Douglas, no “Cat’s Paw” Jurisdiction: Tenth Circuit Ward v. Jewell, No. 14-4006 (10th Cir., 11/24/14); http://www.ca10.uscourts.gov/opinions/14/14-4006.pdf [enhanced lexis.com version]. Appellate court summary: Mr. Mike C. Ward is an employee of the United States Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation. Mr. Ward once held a supervisory position; but during a department reorganization in 2005, he was demoted and given only technical duties. When the department began a second reorganization in 2008, Mr. Ward asked for a position with his old supervisory responsibilities. But those responsibilities were then being handled by another employee, Mr. James Durrant. Without a vacancy, Mr. Ward had to remain in his nonsupervisory job. Dissatisfied with that job, Mr. Ward applied in 2010 for a managerial position in Provo, Utah. The application process included interviews with a panel and the person who would ultimately make the hiring decision. After interviewing with the panel and the decision-maker, however, Mr. Ward did not get the job. He blames his employer (the Department of Interior), invoking Title VII and claiming retaliation for the refusal (1) to reinstate him in his old job and (2) to promote him to the Provo managerial position. To survive summary judgment on these claims, Mr. Ward had to show a connection between the protected activity and the refusal to give Mr. Ward his prior supervisory responsibilities or to hire him for the Provo managerial job. In this appeal, we must decide:
We conclude no reasonable fact-finder could infer retaliation; thus, we affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment to the Department of Interior. Its rational and conclusion: Mr. Ward had to show that, but for his participation in the EEOC proceedings, he would have been given his old supervisory responsibilities or been selected as the Provo manager. He has not made this showing. Thus, we affirm the district court’s award of summary judgment to the Department of Interior. [Review: The version of the McDonnell Douglas evidentiary framework applicable in this kind of case is stated at p. 5.] SOX: Sarbanes-Oxley § 806 – 18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), whistleblower, questionable accounting practices, workplace ostracism – retaliation Download 5.55 Mb. Share with your friends:
|