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Mealey's Employment

  • June 17, 2025

    1st Circuit Affirms ERISA Preemption In Termination Row Involving Severance

    BOSTON — Affirming summary judgment against an appellant who had asserted wrongful termination and other claims under Rhode Island state law in a dispute involving severance benefits, the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 16 ruled that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act preempts all her claims.

  • June 17, 2025

    $5.25 Million Settlement Approved In Recruiter Misclassification Class Case

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $5.25 million nonreversionary class settlement in a lawsuit alleging systemic misclassification of recruiters as exempt employees and granted in part a motion for attorney fees, costs and a service award.

  • June 16, 2025

    Law Firm Seeking COVID-19 Employee Retention Credit Refund Settles With Government

    PHILADELPHIA — The parties having reported that they have reached a settlement, a Pennsylvania federal judge on June 13 dismissed with prejudice a lawsuit by a law firm seeking a tax refund of $790,318.08 for 2020 and 2021 for employee retention tax credits as provided for by the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act for wage payments it paid to its employees during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • June 16, 2025

    Texas Railway Conductor Wants 5th Circuit Rehearing After Disability Claim Denial

    NEW ORLEANS — A Texas railway conductor says in a petition for rehearing that a split Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel strayed from “settled law” and left he and his colleagues “powerless to contest workplace discrimination” when it affirmed a federal judge’s dismissal of claims that his employer violated the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)by using “a discriminatory test” to deny recertification after he failed vision tests.

  • June 16, 2025

    Panel: Arbitration Agreement In Dancer’s Wage Dispute Case Not ‘Unconscionable’

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that an arbitration agreement signed by a dancer at an Ohio adult entertainment club who filed a putative class and collective action complaint against her employer alleging violations of state and federal wage laws is not “procedurally” or “substantially unconscionable" in vacating and remanding for further review a federal judge’s denial of the club’s motion to stay pending completion of arbitration.

  • June 13, 2025

    Deaf Applicant Accepts Damages Remittitur, Is Awarded Postjudgment Interest

    SYRACUSE, N.Y. — An amended decision and second amended judgment were issued in a federal court in New York in a disability discrimination case brought by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against a distribution company accused of discriminating against a deaf applicant; pursuant to the filings, the job applicant was awarded the statutory cap of $300,000 for compensatory and punitive damages after remittitur was accepted by the EEOC, just over $8,000 as compensation for the negative tax consequences of receiving the lump sum back pay award, postjudgment interest and $25,000 for lost wages and benefits.

  • June 13, 2025

    Federal Judge Upholds Trump’s Removal Of U.S. African Development Foundation Head

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The president of the U.S. African Development Foundation (USADF), who sued President Donald J. Trump and other federal government parties over his removal from the foundation and the appointment of Pete Marocco in his place, failed to show that he was lawfully the USADF president, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled, granting the defendants’ cross-motion for summary judgment.

  • June 13, 2025

    Calif. Tech Company Accused Of Favoring Foreign Workers Settles Discrimination Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A California-based global technology company will pay nearly $72,000 for violating the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) pursuant to settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) after an investigation determined that the company was recruiting foreign H-1B workers over U.S. workers.

  • June 12, 2025

    DOGE Enjoined From Further Access To OPM Records By Federal Judge

    NEW YORK — In a 99-page ruling, a New York federal judge granted a preliminary injunction motion filed by two labor unions and a group of federal employees to halt any further access of U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) computer systems and records by U.S. Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) agents, who have not been sufficiently vetted, credentialed or trained per the Privacy Act.

  • June 12, 2025

    U.S. High Court Delivers Unanimous Opinion For Veterans In Pay Class Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The settlements of combat-related special compensation (CRSC) requests are controlled by the statute that directs secretaries of the various military branches to pay CRSC to eligible veterans and not the Barring Act, a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 12, reversing an opinion by the Federal Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.

  • June 11, 2025

    Government, Unions And Others File High Court Briefing In Federal Worker RIF Appeal

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Unions representing federal workers as well as various groups, counties and cities impacted by recent widespread layoffs of federal workers filed a response in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that a stay application filed by the federal government after a preliminary injunction in a case challenging that layoffs should be denied as the “request contravenes the fundamental purpose of preliminary relief,” but the government in its reply filed one day later, on June 10, insists that a stay is necessary.

  • June 11, 2025

    5th Circuit Remands Fired United Worker’s Dismissed Age Discrimination Claims

    NEW ORLEANS — A terminated United Airlines employee who sued her employer for age discrimination can bring her federal and state claims back to a federal court in Texas after the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that the Railway Labor Act (RLA) does not preclude or preempt hearing the claims in a federal forum.

  • June 09, 2025

    9th Circuit Institutes Test For ERISA Releases, Reverses As To Named Plaintiffs

    SAN FRANCISCO — Saying it is taking the same approach as two sister circuits, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals quoted Vizcaino v. Microsoft Corp. in holding “that releases and waivers under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act “must ‘withstand special scrutiny designed to prevent potential employer or fiduciary abuse’”; it accordingly reversed and remanded summary judgment against the two named plaintiffs in a long-running class action concerning severance benefits.

  • June 09, 2025

    Split U.S. Supreme Court Resumes DOGE Access To SSA Records

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority on June 6 concluded that the Social Security Administration (SSA) must again provide access to agency records to a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) SSA team, staying a preliminary injunction issued in April by a federal judge in Maryland.

  • June 09, 2025

    Supreme Court Grants Petition In DOGE Discovery Order Case; Narrowing Ordered

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority on June 6 treated a stay application as a petition for a writ of certiorari and granted it in an appeal challenging two trial court discovery orders in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case regarding U.S. DOGE Service’s (DOGE or USDS) authority.

  • June 06, 2025

    3rd Circuit Partially Restores Fire Department Admin’s Beard Discrimination Claims

    PHILADELPHIA — An Atlantic City Fire Department employee who sued the city after it failed to allow him exemption from a facial hair grooming policy for religious reasons can pursue a religious accommodation claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and a U.S. Constitution freedom of religion claim following a Third Circuit U.S. Appeals Court order that partially vacated a New Jersey federal judge’s opinion.

  • June 06, 2025

    Panel Upholds Constructive Discharge Claim Of Employee Who Refused COVID Tests

    MINNEAPOLIS — Finding that a former county employee had established that her objection to her employer’s COVID-19 vaccination-or-test policy was based on sincerely held religious beliefs and that she plausibly alleged constructive discharge in being faced with giving up certain benefits, a panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on June 5 reversed the dismissal of her lawsuit by a Minnesota federal court.

  • June 06, 2025

    Vaccine Refusal Discrimination Lawsuit Based On ‘Body-As-A-Temple’ Belief Settles

    COLUMBIA, S.C. — Having been advised by counsel that the parties had settled a claim of religious discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act stemming from a former employee’s refusal to become vaccinated against COVID-19 as mandated by the employer, a South Carolina federal magistrate judge on June 5 dismissed the case without prejudice.

  • June 05, 2025

    1st Circuit Denies Stay After Department of Education Staffing Cuts Enjoined

    BOSTON — The federal government failed to provide evidence warranting a stay of a trial court’s preliminary injunction in two consolidated cases challenging the alleged dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) that halts a reduction-in-force (RIF), the First Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled June 4.

  • June 05, 2025

    U.S. High Court Rejects ‘Background Circumstances’ Rule In Worker’s Bias Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ “additional ‘background circumstances’ requirement” in a bias case brought by a member of a majority group “is not consistent with Title VII’s text or our case law construing the statute,” a unanimous U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 5.

  • June 04, 2025

    11th Circuit Vacates FMLA Interference Damages, Upholds ADA Damages, Reinstatement

    ATLANTA — A trial court erred in upholding the portion of a jury’s verdict in an age and leave discrimination case that awarded a former employee $200,000 in damages for Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) interference as the worker “presented no evidence of lost compensation or actual monetary losses, let alone any evidence supporting the amount of the award,” the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in an unpublished per curiam opinion.

  • June 03, 2025

    Dismissal Of BIPA Suit Denied; Amendment Limiting Damages Is Not Retroactive

    CHICAGO — An August 2024 amendment to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) that limits the amount of damages an individual may recover was a change rather than a clarification and was not retroactive, a federal judge in that state ruled, denying a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction filed by the operators of medical facilities accused by employees of collecting and storing their information.

  • June 03, 2025

    Government Files New High Court Stay Application In Federal Worker RIF Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The federal government on June 2 filed a new application to stay in the U.S. Supreme Court after a trial court issued a preliminary injunction in a case challenging layoffs of federal workers; the application was filed less than two weeks after the government withdrew its initial application in the case seeking a stay of a temporary restraining order (TRO).

  • June 03, 2025

    High Court Majority Says It Won’t Hear Houston Adult Club Race Discrimination Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A U.S. Supreme Court majority on June 2 denied a petition for writ of certiorari filed by an African-American female entertainer who asked the court to determine whether the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct in determining that her allegations of civil rights violations by two Houston clubs for refusing her entry to work on multiple occasions because of her race were barred by the statute of limitations.

  • June 03, 2025

    Aerospace Engineering Firms’ Settlements Granted Final OK In No-Poaching Suit

    NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut issued a pair of orders granting final approval of approximately $60.5 million in settlements reached in a class case by workers who accuse aerospace engineering firms and executives of conspiring to not solicit, recruit, hire without prior approval or otherwise compete for engineers and other skilled employees and awarding attorney fees, costs and service awards.