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Employment
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May 06, 2024
Bridgewater Fights To Keep Bias Claims Under Wraps
Connecticut asset management firm Bridgewater Associates LP fought Friday to keep dispute with two terminated employees over alleged discrimination in arbitration, saying the Federal Arbitration Act bans its ex-workers from using state court procedures contrary to private dispute resolution agreements, and from airing grievances in public.
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May 06, 2024
Employer's Good Faith Axes Paystub Fine, Calif. Justices Rule
The California Supreme Court on Monday held that if an employer had a good faith belief it was providing complete and accurate wage statements to its employees, it has not knowingly and intentionally violated state labor law, meaning workers cannot recover civil penalties offered for intentional violations of wage statement requirements.
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May 06, 2024
5th Circ. Revives Airline Workers' Hearing-Loss Suit
A pair of flight attendants seeking to hold Boeing liable over hearing loss they suffered due to an aircraft's allegedly faulty smoke alarm have successfully convinced a Fifth Circuit panel to allow them to refile their case, bringing their claims back from the brink almost three years after the appeals court tossed them.
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May 06, 2024
7th Circ. Backs Ford In Black Ex-Plumber's Bias Suit
The Seventh Circuit on Monday upheld Ford Motor Co.'s defeat of a former plumber's lawsuit alleging she was punished for reporting she'd been treated harshly by her supervisor because she's a Black Muslim woman, finding nothing wrong with a lower court tossing the case.
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May 06, 2024
9th Circ. Hints Walmart Can't Avoid Jury In Disability Bias Suit
A Ninth Circuit panel indicated Monday that it doubted Walmart Inc. was being honest when it told a vision-impaired employee seeking to come back from a leave of absence that no jobs were available, with one judge suggesting a jury should decide if the retail giant lied to the worker.
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May 06, 2024
Home Builder Beats NC Trade Secrets Suit
The North Carolina's business court scrapped an interior designer's claims that a competitor stole cabinetry designs and customer information when it hired a former employee, sparing only an accusation that the ex-worker embezzled money.
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May 06, 2024
Workday Defeats In-House Atty's Bias Suit, For Now
A California magistrate judge on Monday dismissed, for now, a lawsuit by a Workday Inc. in-house attorney who accused the company of discriminatory and retaliatory behavior, which included pay inequities and calling the police to conduct an unnecessary wellness check at his house when he was hospitalized.
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May 06, 2024
Chicago To Pay $6M To End Water Workers' Race Bias Suits
The city of Chicago will pay nearly $6 million to end several lawsuits accusing its water management department of allowing racism to go unchecked and subjecting Black employees to harsher discipline than white workers, counsel for the workers said Monday.
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May 06, 2024
Judge Questions Reason For Removing Chem Co. Wage Class
A Pennsylvania federal judge joined chemical company workers Monday in questioning whether the company had plausibly alleged that there were enough people in a proposed class to remove their wage suit from state court.
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May 06, 2024
NJ Justices Erase Gov't Workplace Probe Confidentiality Rule
The New Jersey Supreme Court on Monday struck down part of a state statute that directs investigators to request, but not require, confidentiality in discrimination or harassment investigations involving state workers, ruling the provision still reached too far and chilled protected speech.
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May 06, 2024
Mass. Justices Wary Of Spiking Uber, Lyft Ballot Questions
Justices on Massachusetts' highest court appeared unlikely Monday to strike down ballot proposals to reinvent app-based drivers' relationships with Uber, Lyft and the like, commenting that the scattershot ideas for voters in March all carry the underlying theme of creating a carveout from the state's worker-friendly employee classification law.
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May 06, 2024
Ex-Worker Sues Fla. Krispy Kreme Over Transgender Status
A former employee at a corporate-owned Krispy Kreme restaurant in Miami has sued the company in Florida state court on allegations of sex and gender discrimination, saying that a manager fired her after learning about her transgender status.
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May 06, 2024
Chamber's Noncompete Challenge On Hold For Earlier Case
A Texas federal court has paused the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's case challenging the Federal Trade Commission's pending ban on noncompetes and encouraged the group to join a case filed a day earlier by tax services and software company Ryan LLC.
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May 06, 2024
Colo. High Court Sanctions Ex-Judge Who Harassed Staff
The Colorado Supreme Court on Monday formally censured a former state judge who sought out relationships with court staff and tried to get another judge to expedite his father's probate case, finding the judge "repeatedly abused his power for self-gain," and ordered him to pay $51,000 in sanctions.
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May 06, 2024
Blaze Media Must Show Docs In Harassment Suit, Judge Says
A Texas federal judge ordered Blaze Media to cough up documents relating to a former commentator accused of sexual harassment, finding that the conservative media company didn't do enough to show that the discovery requests were overly broad and concerned confidential information.
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May 06, 2024
Margolis Edelstein Wants Redo Of Malpractice Ruling In Del.
Margolis Edelstein wants the Delaware Supreme Court to reconsider its decision reviving an insurer's malpractice suit claiming its incompetence caused the insurer to have to settle a case for $1.2 million, and is asking the full court to rehear the matter.
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May 06, 2024
Ritz-Carlton Defeats Post-Hurricane Layoff Claims At 1st Circ.
The First Circuit has said a Puerto Rico federal judge was right to rule in favor of a Ritz-Carlton hotel in a suit by a proposed class of employees who claimed they were wrongfully laid off after the island was decimated by back-to-back hurricanes in 2017.
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May 06, 2024
3rd Circ. Won't Revive Ex-Pa. Agency Atty's Firing Suit
The Third Circuit on Monday declined to revive a former Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development attorney's suit alleging his firing violated his 14th Amendment rights, reasoning that the lawyer failed to show how his termination constitutes a deprivation of property.
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May 06, 2024
Prof's Free Speech Suit Over Native Land Statement Falls Flat
A federal judge has tossed a professor's suit alleging the University of Washington violated his First Amendment rights after he opposed including an acknowledgment of Native Americans in his syllabus for a computer science course, saying his stance created a burden for the school.
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May 06, 2024
Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court
A record $100 million settlement, a fishy Facebook decision, a canceled Amazon delivery and an upended $7.3 billion sale dispute topped the news out of Delaware's Court of Chancery last week. There were also new cases involving Hess, Microsoft and the 2022 World Cup.
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May 06, 2024
Amazon Workers Answer Judge's $5.5M COVID Deal Inquiries
Amazon employees assured a California federal court that their $5.5 million proposed class action deal is fit for approval, giving additional information on the terms and saying the company backed ending the lawsuit accusing the e-commerce giant of failing to pay for time spent undergoing COVID screenings before shifts.
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May 06, 2024
Ex-DeKalb Ethics Officer Wants Race Bias Suit Kept Alive
Attorneys for a former DeKalb County Board of Ethics deputy ethics officer told a Georgia federal judge Monday that a magistrate judge ignored "key facts" when recommending the dismissal of her suit alleging she was fired for complaining about racial discrimination.
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May 06, 2024
CBP Denies Delay To Ban Ivorian Cocoa, Says Probe Is Active
U.S. Customs and Border Protection countered accusations that it is taking too long to ban cocoa imports allegedly harvested using child labor, telling the U.S. Court of International Trade it does not have a statutory deadline to complete its investigation.
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May 06, 2024
FDIC, OCC Gear Up For Another Shot At Banker Bonus Rules
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency on Monday revived an Obama-era proposal to set restrictions on incentive-based pay for executives at big banks, a lingering item of unfinished Dodd-Frank Act business, and for now, the Federal Reserve is sitting out.
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May 06, 2024
DOL Wants New Union Officer Vote For Midwestern Bakers
An Illinois federal judge should compel a Midwestern bakery workers union to rerun a 2023 officer election because it didn't properly update its members' addresses before sending out ballots, the U.S. Department of Labor has claimed in a new lawsuit against the union.
Expert Analysis
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Business Litigators Have A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment
As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.
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Generative AI Adds Risk To Employee 'Self-Help' Discovery
Plaintiffs have long engaged in their own evidence gathering for claims against current or former employers, but as more companies implement generative AI tools, both the potential scope and the potential risks of such "self-help" discovery are rising quickly, says Nick Peterson at Wiley.
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5 Ways To Hone Deposition Skills And Improve Results
Excerpt from Practical Guidance
Depositions must never be taken for granted in the preparations needed to win a dispositive motion or a trial, and five best practices, including knowing when to hire a videographer, can significantly improve outcomes, says James Argionis at Cozen O'Connor.
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Series
Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.
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Navigating Trade Secret Litigation In A High-Stakes Landscape
Recent eye-popping verdicts are becoming increasingly common in trade secret litigation — but employers can take several proactive steps to protect proprietary information and defend against misappropriation accusations in order to avoid becoming the next headline, say Jessica Mason and Jack FitzGerald at Foley & Lardner.
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Opinion
UK Whistleblowers Flock To The US For Good Reason
The U.K. Serious Fraud Office director recently brought renewed attention to the differences between the U.K. and U.S. whistleblower regimes — differences that may make reporting to U.S. agencies a better and safer option for U.K. whistleblowers, and show why U.K. whistleblower laws need to be improved, say Benjamin Calitri and Kate Reeves at Kohn Kohn.
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Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC
The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.
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Opinion
There Is No NCAA Supremacy Clause, Especially For NIL
A recent Tennessee federal court ruling illustrates the NCAA's problematic position that its member schools should violate state law rather than its rules — and the organization's legal history with the dormant commerce clause raises a fundamental constitutional issue that will have to be resolved before attorneys can navigate NIL with confidence, says Patrick O’Donnell at HWG.
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Employer Pointers As Wage And Hour AI Risks Emerge
Following the Biden administration's executive order on artificial intelligence, employers using or considering artificial intelligence tools should carefully assess whether such use could increase their exposure to liability under federal and state wage and hour laws, and be wary of algorithmic discrimination, bias and inaccurate or incomplete reporting, say attorneys at ArentFox Schiff.
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The Pros And Cons Of Protecting AI As Trade Secrets
Despite regulatory trends toward greater transparency of artificial intelligence models, federal policy acknowledges, and perhaps endorses, trade secret protection for AI information, but there are still hurdles in keeping AI information a secret, say Jennifer Maisel and Andrew Stewart at Rothwell Figg.
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Complying With Enforcers' Ephemeral Messaging Guidance
Given federal antitrust enforcers’ recently issued guidance on ephemeral messaging applications, organizations must take a proactive approach to preserving short-lived communications — or risk criminal obstruction charges and civil discovery sanctions, say attorneys at Manatt.
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Race Bias Defense Considerations After 11th Circ. Ruling
In Tynes v. Florida Department of Juvenile Justice, the Eleventh Circuit affirmed that the McDonnell Douglas test for employment discrimination cases is merely an evidentiary framework, so employers relying on it as a substantive standard of liability may need to rethink their litigation strategy, says Helen Jay at Phelps Dunbar.
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How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts
Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.
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How Echoing Techniques Can Derail Witnesses At Deposition
Before depositions, defense attorneys must prepare witnesses to recognize covert echoing techniques that may be used by opposing counsel to lower their defenses and elicit sensitive information — potentially leading to nuclear settlements and verdicts, say Bill Kanasky and Steve Wood at Courtroom Sciences.
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6 Ways To Minimize Risk, Remain Respectful During Layoffs
With a recent Resume Builder survey finding that 38% of companies expect to lay off employees this year, now is a good time for employers to review several strategies that can help mitigate legal risks and maintain compassion in the reduction-in-force process, says Sahara Pynes at Fox Rothschild.