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Mealey's Employment

August 01, 2025
3rd Circuit Reverses Dismissal Of N.J. Farm’s Suit Over Migrant Worker Fines

PHILADELPHIA — A Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed a trial court’s dismissal of a New Jersey family farm’s claims that the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) unlawfully assessed hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines through in-house administrative proceedings for alleged violations related to the federal H-2A visa program for migrant workers, stating the case should be “decided by an Article III court” based on a 2024 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
July 31, 2025
Maryland Legal Services Nonprofit Sues EEOC Over ‘Trans Exclusion Policy’

BALTIMORE — A Maryland nonprofit legal services organization that serves the LGBTQ+ community is suing the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission over its new “Trans Exclusion Policy” through which it has ceased to carry out charge investigations regarding all gender-identity discrimination claims outside of hiring, firing and promotion.
July 31, 2025
Fired Copyrights Register Denied Preliminary Injunction For No Irreparable Harm

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office who was purportedly fired in May by President Donald J. Trump failed to show that she will be irreparably harmed without a preliminary injunction, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled July 30, denying a motion for that relief.
July 31, 2025
Prima Facie Discrimination Case Not Established In COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Suit

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Finding that a former employee had failed to establish a prima facie case of failure to accommodate her religious beliefs or of racial discrimination, a North Carolina federal judge granted the summary judgment motion of her employer in the employee’s lawsuit stemming from her termination for declining to become vaccinated for COVID-19.
July 30, 2025
Driver AI Surveillance Data Collection Class Suit Settled With Lytx For $4.25M

EAST ST. LOUIS, Ill. — A $4.25 million class settlement between a class of drivers and a technology company was granted final approval by a federal judge in Illinois ending a lawsuit that accused a transportation company and a machine vision and artificial technology company of collecting and holding truck drivers’ biometric data when scanning their faces via a camera that employs artificial intelligence to monitor drivers in violation of the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA); the transportation company previously paid a settlement of $56,800 for the benefit of 71 settlement class members.
July 30, 2025
Truck Drivers’ BIPA Claims Over In-Cab Cameras Partly Remanded

CHICAGO — Two truckers’ claims against their former employer under the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) were partly remanded for lack of jurisdiction under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, with an Illinois federal judge retaining jurisdiction over part of the claims while denying the trucking company’s motion to dismiss.
July 30, 2025
5th Circuit Panel Orders Reinstatement Of Fired Mississippi School Worker

NEW ORLEANS — A fired Mississippi school district employee will be reinstated after a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a trial court failed to address future reinstatement opportunities and prior circuit decisions in reversing and remanding denial of the employee’s request for reinstatement or front pay.
July 29, 2025
Trial Court Denies Stay Of Ruling For Removed FTC Commissioner

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia denied a motion by President Donald J. Trump and Federal Trade Commission officials to stay pending appeal a summary judgment ruling for one of two FTC commissioners purportedly removed from the FTC without cause in March, writing that “the court refuses to allow Defendants to continue breaking the law while this litigation proceeds.”
July 29, 2025
1 Of 2 Suits Over USAID Layoffs Dismissed For Lack Of Jurisdiction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia in a single opinion granted a motion to dismiss one complaint brought by two unions and one humanitarian group challenging the placement of U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) employees on administrative leave, citing a lack of jurisdiction, and denied in a second similar complaint a union’s motion for preliminary injunction, citing a “likely” lack of jurisdiction.
July 29, 2025
Judgment Against Fired State Farm Employee Who Aided Disabled Coworker Reversed

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel majority ruled that a fired State Farm employee who helped a disabled coworker seek an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) accommodation can pursue retaliation claims pursuant to the ADA and Ohio law “on a theory of vicarious liability” because of a “supervisor’s alleged bias,” reversing a trial court’s summary judgment order in favor of State Farm.
July 29, 2025
Tow Truck Driver, Employer Stipulate To Dismissal Of Wage-And-Hour Class Suit

CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A tow truck driver and the employer he accused of violating New York Labor Law by failing to pay timely wages and unlawfully deducting wages stipulated to dismissal of the putative class complaint in a federal court in New York with prejudice following an undisclosed settlement.
July 25, 2025
Judge Severs Fee Provision In Cruise Company’s Employment Arbitration

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge on July 24 granted in part and denied in part a cruise company’s motion to compel arbitration of an indigent Nicaraguan employee’s claims related to an injury sustained while aboard the company’s vessel, severing from the agreement fee-splitting provisions that would bar the employee from participating due to his inability to pay.
July 24, 2025
Florida High Court Says Former Employee’s Complaint Against Employer Can Proceed

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A former employee’s failure to file a complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations and failure to reference that the discrimination and retaliation claims were brought under the Florida Civil Rights Act (FCRA) did not doom his right to file a civil suit against the employer because he filed the complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which has a work-sharing agreement with the commission, and the FCRA does not require a claimant to state the specific law that was violated when filing a complaint with the EEOC or commission, the Florida Supreme Court said in affirming an appellate court’s decision.
July 24, 2025
D.C. Circuit: NLRB’s New Tenure Protections View Eliminates Controversy In Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s dismissal of a case by two baristas challenging the constitutionality of National Labor Relations Board members’ statutory tenure protections, opining that the court lacks jurisdiction under Article III of the U.S. Constitution after the NLRB switched its position mid-appeal, resulting in full agreement on that issue by both sides.
July 24, 2025
Split U.S. Supreme Court Stays Reinstatement Of CPSC Members

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on July 23 granted a stay sought by the federal government after a trial court’s June 13 ruling reinstating three members of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission who were terminated without cause in May by President Donald J. Trump.
July 23, 2025
Cruise Rape Claim Can’t Be Arbitrated Under New York Convention, Judge Says

MIAMI — A Florida federal judge denied a cruise company’s motion to compel arbitration of an employee’s allegations that she was drugged and raped by another employee on a vessel at sea, ruling that the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act (EFAA) prohibits arbitration of the dispute under the Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards (New York Convention).
July 23, 2025
Union Seeks Rehearing After Stay Of Collective Bargaining EO Injunction

WASHINGTON, D.C. — American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) filed a petition for rehearing en banc in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals after an appellate panel stayed pending appeal a trial court’s preliminary injunction in the union’s case challenging a March executive order (EO) that eliminated the collective bargaining rights of various agencies and agency subdivisions.
July 23, 2025
11th Circuit: APA’s ‘Good Cause’ Removal Procedure Applies To DOJ ALJs

ATLANTA — The Administrative Procedure Act’s (APA) “good cause” removal procedure does not violate the U.S. Constitution when applied to U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) administrative law judges (ALJs), an 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, reversing a trial court’s summary judgment ruling for Walmart Inc. in an immigration law violation case and vacating a permanent injunction barring the chief ALJ from adjudicating 20 Immigration and Customs Enforcement complaints against the retailer.
July 23, 2025
Workers’ Religious Exemption Vaccine Claims Don’t Survive 6th Circuit A 2nd Time

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel that in 2024 reversed the dismissal of two of 46 hospital workers’ religious discrimination claims over exemption from a COVID-19 vaccine mandate ruled in subsequent appeals that the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the hospital against one of the workers and dismissal of the other’s claims with prejudice were the proper decisions.
July 21, 2025
En Banc Reconsideration Of Stay Denied In Collective Bargaining EO Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a motion for reconsideration en banc, which it noted was filed as a petition for rehearing en banc, filed by National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) after a panel majority on May 16 stayed pending appeal a trial court’s preliminary injunction ruling in the NTEU’s lawsuit challenging a March executive order (EO) issued by President Donald J. Trump that the union says eliminates collective bargaining for approximately two-thirds of the federal workforce.
July 21, 2025
Judge Dismisses Privacy Suits By FBI Agents Who Worked On Trump Cases

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal Bureau of Investigation agents and a nonprofit organization who in two complaints seek to stop the publication or dissemination of a list allegedly being compiled of FBI employees who were involved in investigating two events involving President Donald J. Trump have made claims that “are too speculative,” a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled, granting a motion to dismiss filed by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the United States.
July 21, 2025
Fired Motel Worker Awarded $3.6M After Trial For Harassment, Retaliation Claims

ANNISTON, Ala. — A U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Alabama jury awarded more than $3.6 million to a fired motel employee in compensatory and punitive damages for federal and state claims of retaliation, private intrusion and intentional infliction of emotional distress stemming from allegations of racial and sexual harassment at the hands of the company’s CEO.
July 18, 2025
Government Seeks Stay Of, Appeals Ruling For Removed FTC Commissioner

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump and other federal officials on July 17 filed in a federal court in the District of Columbia a notice of appeal and a motion to stay pending appeal a summary judgment ruling issued the same day for one of two Federal Trade Commission commissioners purportedly removed from the FTC without cause in March.
July 18, 2025
6th Circuit Rules Against Top Hat Plan Participants In Preemption, Remedies Row

CINCINNATI — Ruling that the Employee Retirement Income Security Act expressly preempts state law claims and that lost monetary benefits are not equitable relief, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on July 17 affirmed judgment for the administrator of so-called “top hat” deferred compensation and retirement plans.
July 18, 2025
‘Blanket’ Protective Order In Farmworkers’ Suit Found Restrictive By 9th Circuit

SEATTLE — A protective order issued by a trial court in a forced labor class action is overly restrictive, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, because of the “presumptively public” nature of discovery and the lack of good cause to prevent the plaintiffs’ counsel from using the discovered items in similar worker advocacy matters.