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Mealey's Employment

  • November 14, 2025

    2nd Circuit: Vt. Law Misapplied When Attorney Fees Reduced In Termination Suit

    NEW YORK — A federal judge in Vermont properly reduced attorney fees for an employee’s counsel in a wrongful termination case after determining that the counsel’s billing was unreasonable; however, the judge’s additional reduction based on the worker’s degree of success was incorrect as it was based on the disproportionality of the requested amount to the monetary relief for the worker, a Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, vacating the attorney fee award and remanding for recalculation.

  • November 14, 2025

    6th Circuit OKs ‘Anti-Union’ Order But Claws Back Remedy For Fired Starbucks Worker

    CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority found that the National Labor Relations Board presented sufficient evidence to show that Starbucks Corp. showed an “anti-union animus” under the National Labor Relations Act when it terminated a Michigan employee who was making staunch efforts to unionize but ruled that the board “exceeded its statutory authority in awarding” the worker “‘direct or foreseeable’ monetary damages.”

  • November 13, 2025

    Parties Settle In COVID-19 Vaccine Refusal Religious Discrimination Case

    DENVER — The parties to a lawsuit by a former employee of a nursing facility alleging religious discrimination by her employer stemming from her termination as a result of the employee’s refusal to be vaccinated for COVID-19 filed a notice of settlement on Nov. 12 indicating that they expect to file a stipulated motion to dismiss with prejudice on or before Dec. 15.

  • November 13, 2025

    Workers File WARN Act Class Suits Against Sonder In New York, Delaware

    Employees of Sonder USA Inc. in San Francisco and New York filed two class complaints, one in a federal court in New York and one in a federal court in Delaware, accusing the company that manages short-term rentals of violating the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN) Act and state WARN acts when it abruptly ceased operations and terminated employees with one day’s notice.

  • November 12, 2025

    Existence Of Circuit Split In ADA Interpretation Disputed In SCOTUS Back Pay Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A former correctional officer who sued the county and the sheriff that employed him for alleged violations of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the U.S. Constitution for requiring release of his medical records to complete a fitness-for-duty exam to return to work after he was put on leave says his former employers “are flatly incorrect” in asserting in a U.S. Supreme Court petition “that decisions from four circuits disagree” with an appellate panel’s interpretation of the ADA that reversed a lower court’s denial of back pay.

  • November 12, 2025

    University Of Pennsylvania Alumna Files Class Suit Following Data Breach

    PHILADELPHIA — The University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) failed to protect its network containing personally identifiable information (PII) of students, alumni, faculty and donors, resulting in cybercriminals obtaining access to the university’s systems and sending “‘a series of mass emails’” to more than 700,000 people that were critical of the university’s security practices and institutional culture, a UPenn alumna alleges in a putative class complaint filed against the school’s trustees in a federal court in Pennsylvania.

  • November 11, 2025

    Education Department’s Shutdown Email Auto Replies Deemed Unconstitutional

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Department of Education “infringed upon its employees’ First Amendment rights” when it “commandeer[ed] its employees’ e-mail accounts to broadcast partisan messages” during the federal government shutdown, a federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled, granting summary judgment to a union that sued over auto replies set up by the department on workers’ email accounts.

  • November 11, 2025

    High Court Denies Petitions From Workers Fired Over COVID-19 Vaccines, Protocols

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 10 denied multiple petitions filed by employees who were terminated from their positions for refusing to adhere to COVID-19 vaccine mandates and safety protocols, leaving stand appellate court rulings that dismissed their claims and granted summary judgment to their employers.

  • November 11, 2025

    FTC Commissioner Argues Removal Protections Don’t Violate Separation Of Powers

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Agencies such as the Federal Trade Commission have at-will removal protections created by Congress and affirmed by Humphrey’s Executor v. United States, an FTC commissioner who was purportedly removed by President Donald J. Trump argues in a U.S. Supreme Court respondent brief.

  • November 11, 2025

    Copyright Register Opposes High Court Stay Of Injunction In Court Battle Over Post

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump and others should not be granted a stay of an interlocutory injunction by the U.S. Supreme Court in a case over the president’s ability to remove Shira Perlmutter from her position as the register of copyrights and director of the U.S. Copyright Office as the applicants have failed to show they are likely to succeed on the merits of their claims or that they will be irreparably harmed without such a stay, Perlmutter argues in a Nov. 10 opposition.

  • November 11, 2025

    Consolidation Of 13 Data Breach Class Action Cases Granted, Interim Counsel OK’d

    MILWAUKEE — A Wisconsin federal judge consolidated 13 class action lawsuits against a corporation over a 2023 data breach that exposed personal information of its employees and clients; the judge additionally granted the consolidated plaintiffs’ request to appoint interim co-lead class counsel and an executive committee to oversee the coordinated litigation.

  • November 11, 2025

    U.S. High Court Won’t Consider Question On Pleading Standard In Defamation Suit

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 10 denied an employer’s petition for a writ of certiorari asking the justices to consider the pleading standard in a case it brought against a union for a malicious defamation when it argued that the “speech implies false and defamatory facts about the plaintiff.”

  • November 10, 2025

    Supreme Court Hears Arguments On Immunity Appealability In Forced Labor Class Case

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal government contractors following federal government instructions are immune from a class case alleging forced labor, and a denial of such immunity is immediately appealable, the attorney representing the for-profit company that operates a private immigration detention facility in Colorado argued Nov. 10 before the U.S. Supreme Court.

  • November 10, 2025

    5th Circuit: NLRB Lacks Authority To Award Full Damages To Fired Striking Workers

    NEW ORLEANS — A Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled, in partially granting a Houston restaurant’s petition for review and remanding the case for further proceedings, that the National Labor Relations Board “lacks statutory authority to award full compensatory damages” to a group of employees who were terminated for striking due to a series of workplace grievances.

  • November 10, 2025

    High Court Denies Writ Challenging ‘Integral’ Activities Measurement Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 10 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a Pennsylvania battery manufacturer asking for review of the proper measurement for time spent performing “‘integral and indispensable’” activities and to consider overruling Steiner v. Mitchell, thus affirming a Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s order requiring the company to pay its workers for the time they actually spent completing tasks rather than the time the employer determined was “reasonable.”

  • November 10, 2025

    6th Circuit Will Not Rehear Judgment Ruling In Fired Sales Rep’s Title VII Case

    CINCINNATI — Despite noting that its ruling departed from decisions of “most circuits” and the interpretation of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) of Title VII, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel will not revisit a ruling affirming a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to a cleaning products manufacturer on claims made by a terminated employee pursuant to Title VII and Michigan law alleging she was retaliated against for reporting an incident of sexual harassment and discriminated against because she is African-American.

  • November 10, 2025

    8th Circuit Denies BNSF’s Petition For Rehearing On Reversal Of EEOC Suit Rulings

    OMAHA, Neb. —  An Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a petition filed by BNSF Railway Co. to revisit a ruling reversing and remanding a trial court’s partial dismissal and grant of summary judgment on claims the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed alleging that the company created a hostile work environment for a female employee and a class of similarly situated female workers.

  • November 07, 2025

    High Court Signals Interest In Petition For Review Of ERISA Releases Ruling

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Nov. 6 requested a response to a certiorari petition in which an employer and related entities seek review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in a long-running class action concerning severance benefits, with the petitioners arguing that the decision “creates a roadmap for plaintiffs to evade” releases of Employee Retirement Income Security Act claims.

  • November 05, 2025

    Seattle Granted Preliminary Injunction In Challenge Of DEI, Gender Executive Orders

    SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington enjoined various federal government officials from enforcing two executive orders (EOs) concerning diversity and inclusion and gender against Seattle and denied the federal government parties’ request for a bond and a stay.

  • November 05, 2025

    California Court Affirms Workplace Violence Order, Wants Cite Errors Explained

    LOS ANGELES — The legal system relies on the integrity of counsel and courts, a California appellate court said in issuing an order to show cause why an attorney should not be sanctioned for filing a brief with what appears to be errors generated by artificial intelligence.  In the unpublished ruling itself, the court affirmed a workplace violence restraining order issued after a firefighter complained about workplace conditions and referenced a recent shooting involving a colleague.

  • November 04, 2025

    10th Circuit Reverses Judgment In Fired Doctor’s Title VII Retaliation Suit

    DENVER — A 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel concluded that a reasonable jury could find that a Kansas doctor who was fired after filing a whistleblower complaint alleging that another doctor sexually harassed nurses and provided shoddy medical care to patients could satisfy each step of the McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green framework in reversing and remanding a federal district court’s grant of summary judgment on Title VII retaliation claims.

  • November 03, 2025

    Indicative Ruling Denied After Preliminary Injunction In DEI EO Challenge

    CHICAGO — A federal judge in Illinois denied a motion by the federal government for an indicative ruling and partial stay following the issuance of a preliminary injunction in a case challenging President Donald J. Trump’s Jan. 20 and 21 executive orders (EOs) declaring programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) “‘illegal and immoral discrimination.’”

  • November 03, 2025

    Parties In Workers’ Duty-Free Shops Data Breach Case Stipulate To Dismissal

    CENTRAL ISLIP, N.Y. — A federal judge in New York on Oct. 31 dismissed a putative class action by two former employees against the operators of airport duty-free shops after the parties stipulated to dismissal of the individual and class claims without prejudice; the stipulation of dismissal was filed two months after the case was stayed pending mediation.

  • October 31, 2025

    Preliminary Injunction Enjoins More Government Shutdown-Related Layoffs

    SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction “enjoin[ing] further shutdown-related layoffs” and “paus[ing] the clock on those RIF [reduction-in-force] notices that have issued during the shutdown until this lawsuit can be resolved,” explaining that the record in the case brought by several unions challenging the RIF of thousands of federal workers “paints a chaotic picture, with employees wondering what is happening and no one at the agencies able to guide them.”

  • October 31, 2025

    Franchisee: No ‘Compelling Reasons’ To Grant Fired Employee’s High Court Petition

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — A Hardee’s franchisee accused by a former manager of disability bias and Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) violations says the U.S. Supreme Court should not grant the employee’s petition for a writ of certiorari asking for consideration of two questions concerning McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, pretext and motives at the summary judgment stage because there is no circuit split to address, the employee cites nonapplicable cases and the employee does not present “outcome determinative” questions, among other arguments.