The Employment Brief

The Supreme Court recently ruled that a private attorney retained by a local government to conduct an employee investigation was entitled to the same immunity available to government employees.  The decision ensures that private individuals retained by governmental units need not worry - in most cases - about being sued in their individual capacities. Filarsky, a private attorney, was retained by the City of Rialto to investigate a city...

A federal court in Nevada recently rejected a race discrimination claim based upon allegations that the plaintiff was fired after voting for African-American presidential candidate Barack Obama.  Whitfield v. Trade Show Servs. Ltd., Civil Action No.:  2:10-CV-00905-LRH-VCF (D. Nev. Mar. 1, 2012).  William Whitfield started working as an account manager for security firm Trade Show Services in September 2008.  On Election Day, November 4, 2008,...

In Coleman v. Maryland Court of Appeals, No. 10-1016 (decided March 20, 2012), the Supreme Court in a 5-4 decision has decided that - unlike the family leave provisions of the FMLA - Congress did not adequately abrogate the States’s sovereign immunity for the FMLA’s self-care provisions. In so doing, the court affirmed the Fourth Circuit, 626 F.3d 187 (4th Cir. 2010), and agreed with the five other appellate courts that had held the same...

In Lovland v. Employers Mut. Cas. Co., 2012 U.S. App. LEXIS 5503 (8th Cir. March 16, 2012), the Eighth Circuit held that an employee who was fired for her failure to call her supervisor regarding an unscheduled two-day absence, after having been previously warned about excessive absenteeism, had no FMLA claim under either the interference or retaliation theories.   Affirming summary judgment for the employer the appellate court held that the trial...

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit – which covers Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and the Carolinas - has long been thought of as a “pro-employer” court in discrimination cases. Recently, that image has begun to change, and the Court’s recent decision in Dulaney v. Packaging Corp. of Am., No. 10-2316 (3/12/12) is the latest evidence of that change. In Dulaney, the Plaintiff was a former factory worker in Roanoke,...

On February 28, 2012, the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland dismissed a claim by a former Maryland Department of Agriculture worker under federal and state law that the Department failed to accommodate his disability and terminated him because of his disability.  Higgins v. Maryland Dep't of Agric., No. 11-0081 (D. Md., February 28, 2012). The Court found that the employee failed to demonstrate he was a qualified individual with a...

Back in June, I wrote about Mountaire Farms, Inc. v. Perez, 650 F.3d 350 (4th Cir. 2011).  In that case, the Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that held that time spent by chicken processing plant workers donning and doffing their protective gear was “work,” and therefore compensable, under the Fair Labor Standards Act.  The employees in Mountaire sought wages for the time that they spent putting on and taking off gloves, smocks,...

A federal judge in Texas recently ruled that a new mother does not have the right to pump breast milk at work.  (EEOC v. Houston Funding II, Ltd.; no. H-11-2422; S. D. Texas).  The facts in Houston Funding are straightforward.  The plaintiff gave birth to a baby girl in December 2008, after which she took maternity leave.  While the plaintiff claimed that she had been in contact with her employer throughout her leave, her employer claimed that...

Discrimination and wage class actions that rely on statistics are getting harder and harder to maintain.  In the wake of the well-publicized Wal Mart Stores, Inc. v. Dukes case, decided by the Supreme Court last year, the California Court of Appeals recently overturned a $15 million judgment entered on behalf of a class of business banking officers at U.S. Bank.  Duran v. U.S. Bank Nat’l Assoc. (Calif. Court of Appeals, First District, Division...

How many times have you signed a contract that says the law of another state controls the agreement?  The idea is to apply the law of a state more favorable to the person drafting the contract.  It’s a lawyer’s trick that sometimes works. It did not work in the case of Ruiz v. Affinity Logistics Corp., No. 10-55581 (9th Cir., February 8, 2012).  The company in this case tried to get around California labor and employment law with its drivers...