By Celeste Bott

Law360 (May 7, 2020, 7:56 PM EDT) -- A labor union says United Airlines violated an agreement with the U.S. Department of the Treasury when it cut workers' pay and benefits amid the coronavirus pandemic, retailers have been hit with suits over unpaid rent, and eBay has been accused of encouraging sellers to jack up the prices of high-demand products like masks and hand sanitizer.

While courts across the country are altering procedures, restricting access and postponing certain cases to stem the spread of the coronavirus, the outbreak has also prompted a wave of new litigation.

Here's a breakdown of some of the COVID-19-related cases from the past week.

Commercial Contracts

A unit of midstream giant Enterprise Products Partners LP said in a Texas state court suit that a driller owes $2.3 million in pipeline gathering fees and can't use the COVID-19 pandemic to nullify its contractual obligations.

EFS Midstream LLC alleges in its suit that Sundance Energy Inc. has refused to pay fees for failing to deliver the minimum amount of annual revenues for an EFS pipeline-gathering system in the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas, breaking a condition of a 2018 gathering agreement between the companies.

And in Ohio, a Chinese manufacturer of aluminum alloy wheels for General Motors, Ford and other major automakers told a federal court on Monday that a U.S. warehousing company must arbitrate a dispute over the Chinese company's alleged failure to fulfill minimum shipment volumes due to COVID-19 and other events beyond its control.

Zhejiang Wanfeng Auto Wheel Co. Ltd. says that Sunland Logistics Solutions Inc. — which receives, stores and prepares the Chinese company's wheels for delivery to its customers — is obligated under their agreement to arbitrate the dispute. Sunland is seeking "tremendous damages" after Wanfeng was unable to fulfill its obligations to ship the 60,000 wheels per month required under their deal, according to the suit.

Employment

Shearman & Sterling LLP was hit with an age discrimination suit in New York federal court Thursday from a 62-year-old former IT employee laid off due to the COVID-19 pandemic, alleging he was chosen as the first to go due to his age and that Shearman's way of thanking him for a 25-year tenure was to "throw him on the street with two weeks' pay in the middle of a global pandemic" and "humiliate and lodge blatantly false accusations of 'unethical conduct' against him."

Meanwhile, a Florida air conditioning technician claims he was unlawfully fired after he complained about overtime violations and a lack of protections to guard against workers' contracting COVID-19, according to a federal lawsuit filed in Orlando.

Robert Macke said he worked as a service technician at HT Airsystems of Florida LLC from April 2018 until just a few weeks ago, when he was fired in retaliation for complaining about not being properly paid for overtime and raising concerns about a lack of personal protective equipment, or PPE.

And United Airlines Inc. was hit with a lawsuit Tuesday in New York federal court claiming the company reneged on its promise not to cut workers' pay rates or benefits in exchange for receiving federal relief funds less than two weeks after it accepted $5 billion under the coronavirus rescue package.

Consumer Protection

Students continue to seek refunds for tuition and other fees from universities that have been forced to shift to online and remote learning amid the pandemic, with Seton Hall University among the latest to face litigation. 

The private university was hit with a putative class action in New Jersey federal court Tuesday, alleging online schooling has been "subpar" since the university stopped in-person classes due to the COVID-19 outbreak and demanding the university refund spring tuition.

The governing body for Florida's state university system was also hit with a proposed class action Monday in state court seeking a prorated refund of fees paid for campus services students did not receive when the system's dozen institutions shifted to remote learning because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The suit affects Florida A&M University, Florida Atlantic University, Florida Gulf Coast University, Florida International University, Florida Polytechnic University, Florida State University, New College of Florida, University of Central Florida, University of Florida, University of North Florida, University of South Florida and University of West Florida.

And a University of Southern California graduate student hit the university with a proposed class action in California federal court Tuesday alleging it unlawfully held on to tuition and meal plan fees while failing to provide quality education and campus services, pointing to USC's $19 million CARES Act payout and $6 billion endowment.

Also in California, eBay is facing a putative price-gouging class action accusing it of encouraging sellers to jack up the prices of masks, hand sanitizers and other products that are in high demand during the coronavirus pandemic. An eBay Inc. shopper claimed in federal court Monday that she was forced to pay a 300% markup for the N95 masks she bought to protect herself from the virus. 

Food & Beverage

​​In what attorneys say is a first-of-its-kind case in Pennsylvania, the family of a deceased JBS SA meatpacking worker filed suit in state court Thursday alleging unsafe conditions at a company plant outside of Philadelphia resulted in him contracting a fatal case of COVID-19.

The family of Enock Benjamin, who served as a union steward at a plant in Montgomery County, said JBS promoted the spread of the coronavirus by forcing employees to continue working in close proximity without adequate protective equipment for weeks after both state and federal officials started sounding alarm bells about the disease in March.

In a similar wrongful death lawsuit in Texas state court, the wife of a forklift driver who died from COVID-19 in late April has accused his employer of refusing to take the coronavirus pandemic seriously and forcing sick employees to continue working.

Blanca Esther Parra claims in a complaint made publicly available Tuesday that her late husband, Hugo Dominguez, 36, contracted COVID-19 from sick co-workers at Quality Sausage Co. LLC's Dallas factory in early April and was told to continue working or lose his job.

Real Estate

A growing number of landlords are taking businesses to court over unpaid rent, claiming the impact of the coronavirus pandemic isn't a good enough reason to skip out on the obligation. 

A Manhattan landlord sued the Gap in New York federal court Monday for allegedly failing to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent, saying the clothing retailer has breached the terms and conditions of its 2015 lease extension.

And Ross Stores Inc. owes $5.5 million in unpaid rent, according to its landlord, who filed suit against the clothing retailer Monday in Florida federal court.

While landlord Palm Springs Mile Associates Ltd. said it "recognizes the challenges" posed by COVID-19 on businesses and tenants, Ross is obligated to continue paying rent on three of its stores in Lake Worth, Florida, under its lease agreements.

Chuck E. Cheese, meanwhile, sued Tuesday to stop a Dallas landlord from using the restaurant's rent forgiveness request and the economic downturn related to the coronavirus pandemic to terminate a lease it says is valid through the end of 2021.

Public Policy

A nonprofit government watchdog has sued the Trump administration for ignoring requests to release emails sent by top officials related to the government's response to the coronavirus pandemic.

American Oversight filed the suit Tuesday in D.C. federal court against the Treasury Department, State Department, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the HHS' Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services. The watchdog said it sent the Freedom of Information Act requests in mid-March and that the federal agencies all failed to hand over the emails in the time required by law.

The organization requested all emails sent by Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and HHS head Alex Azar containing COVID-19-related terms such as "corona," "pandemic," "Covid-19," "Wuhan," "mask," "distancing," "quarantine" and "vaccine."

And three tech businesses have filed suit in California federal court to block recent regulatory guidance that was meant to turn large companies away from the Paycheck Protection Program, arguing the guidance overreaches and risks undermining the program's mission of keeping workers employed.

In a complaint dated Monday, the California-based Zumasys Inc. and two subsidiaries challenged the legality of the April guidance warning that public and private companies with other means of financing themselves probably don't qualify for the PPP, which offers forgivable loans of up to $10 million each for small businesses struggling amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The guidance was issued by the Small Business Administration and U.S. Treasury Department after reports of national restaurant chains and other publicly traded companies qualifying for the program prompted a backlash, and it set a May 7 deadline for companies like these to repay their PPP loans or else face possible government scrutiny.

--Additional reporting by Keith Goldberg, Caroline Simson, Mike LaSusa, Vin Gurrieri, Danielle Nichole Smith, Katie Pohlman, Matt Fair, Hailey Konnath, Lauren Berg, Dorothy Atkins, Hannah Albarazi, Nathan Hale, Daphne Zhang and Jon Hill. Editing by Philip Shea.

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