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April 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied on April 20 a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a fired employee of a cleaning products manufacturer asking the court to determine whether the negligence standard that applies to claims of Title VII workplace harassment by a co-worker also applies to harassment by a customer.
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April 20, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — In a split vote with two dissents, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition to rehear en banc a case in which a panel majority affirmed the dismissal of a fired Oregon medical center administrative employee’s lawsuit challenging her termination for refusing to submit to weekly antigen testing for COVID-19 as an accommodation of a religious exemption from a company vaccine mandate, despite both parties calling for another look at the case.
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April 17, 2026
CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied petitions for review of decisions issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) finding that a road construction company engaged in unfair labor practices while bargaining with a Michigan-based engineering union and ordering the company to bargain in good faith with the union in two cases stemming from nearly eight years of “battling on the picket lines and in the courts,” to no avail.
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April 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In accordance with an agreement reached by the parties, the U.S. Supreme Court on April 16 dismissed a certiorari petition that it had requested a response to; the 2-1 appeals court panel ruling affirmed vacatur of an award that resulted from pro se arbitration over severance pay and concerned an Employee Retirement Income Security Act discrimination claim that the majority concluded the claimant never raised, and the petitioner had argued that the decision “encourages a cascade of litigation over the enforceability of arbitral awards.”
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April 17, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oil companies’ well drilling activities in Louisiana during World War II sufficiently relate to government contracts involving the production of aviation gasoline and trigger federal jurisdiction under 2011 amendments to the federal officer removal statute, the U.S. Supreme Court said April 17.
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April 17, 2026
CINCINNATI — Denying a request to require maintenance of disability and health insurance benefits via an injunction pending appeal, the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals concluded that the appellant has not shown “any irreparable harm that he will suffer without an injunction.”
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April 16, 2026
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. — Enforcing an arbitrator’s award of long-term disability (LTD) benefits that followed the plan administrator’s denial of the claim, a Pennsylvania federal judge ruled that the dispute fell within the bounds of an arbitration clause in a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the claimant’s employer and a union and that “the arbitrator properly focused his merits analysis to the Agreement’s terms.”
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April 15, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge in California granted a preliminary injunction in a trade secrets misappropriation case involving two companies that provide data labeling and other services to artificial intelligence (AI) companies and enjoined the defendants from using, disclosing or destroying any confidential information and data allegedly obtained from the plaintiff when it interviewed and eventually hired one of its employees.
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April 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) will pay more than $17 million to resolve allegations that it violated the federal False Claims Act (FCA) by failing “to comply with anti-discrimination requirements” in its federal contracts, which “the United States contends discriminated against employees during employment and applicants for employment because of race, color, national origin, or sex and failed to treat employees during employment without regard to race, color, national origin, or sex.”
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April 14, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The state of Washington and immigration detainees separately oppose a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the operator of immigration detention centers across the United States which is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause permits a state to find detainees participating in a voluntary work program as employees who are owed state-mandated minimum wages rather than the $1 per day wage most were making.
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April 13, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — A divided en banc Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 10 vacated a trial court’s April 2025 preliminary injunction — an injunction that was stayed by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2025 — in a suit by a union and two groups representing a combined 7 million Americans who challenged access to Social Security Administration (SSA) records provided to individuals working for U.S. DOGE Service and U.S. DOGE Service Temporary Organization(together, DOGE).
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April 13, 2026
CHICAGO — A United Airlines pilot filed a notice of appeal to the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals over dismissal of a federal suit against the airline and Air Line Pilots Association International (ALPA) alleging failure-to-accommodate and disparate treatment claims that arose from the airline’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
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April 10, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — Adopting a federal magistrate judge’s findings and recommendation, an Oregon federal judge granted an employer’s motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit by a former employee who alleged that the company failed to make a good faith effort to accommodate her religious beliefs when it terminated her for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine pursuant to company policy during the pandemic.
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April 10, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — Because the plaintiff’s attorney in an employment discrimination case promptly corrected an “erroneously submitted” opposition brief and assured the court that her firm has taken action to prevent such filings in the future, a federal magistrate judge in California denied the employer’s motion to sanction the attorney for filing a brief containing what it claimed was a hallucinated case citation generated by artificial intelligence; the magistrate judge did, however, sanction the plaintiff and attorney for the last-minute cancellation of a scheduled deposition.
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April 10, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A New York man filed a class complaint in a federal court in California seeking monetary and equitable relief for a putative class of former contract workers and customers of a San Francisco-based artificial intelligence hiring startup whose data was allegedly stolen due to a supply chain attack.
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April 09, 2026
PHILADELPHIA — A federal judge in Pennsylvania dismissed three Division I schools — Sacred Heart University, University of Notre Dame du Lac and Duke University — from a putative class and collective action lawsuit by former student athletes who allege they are employees who are owed wages by their respective schools and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
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April 09, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel reversed and remanded a California federal judge’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration between a fired medical software salesperson and her employer, holding that a clause within an arbitration agreement that gives an arbitrator the power to resolve the validity of the agreement “clearly and unmistakably reserves” that authority to the arbitrator and “should be respected” even if a severability clause exists.
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April 08, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A jury in a California federal court determined in a verdict issued after a seven-day trial that an African-American driver for a construction products supplier who sued his employer for racial and disability discrimination and the creation of a hostile work environment pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Fair Employment and Housing Act (FEHA) proved his claims and is entitled to $5 million in noneconomic damages.
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April 08, 2026
CHICAGO — Ruling on three consolidated appeals regarding whether an amendment to the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act (BIPA) limiting recovery to a single violation applies retroactively to cases pending when the amendment was enacted, the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed and remanded lower court rulings holding that the amendment applies prospectively only, finding that the amendment applies retroactively to the cases pending at the time it was enacted because it “impacts only the statutory damages available to plaintiffs.”
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April 07, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. DOGE Service (referred to as both DOGE and USDS), the DOGE acting administrator, Elon Musk and others in the federal government filed a petition for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court asking the justices to take up for the second time questions concerning discovery in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) case regarding DOGE’s authority and role in mass firings in the federal government.
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April 07, 2026
NEW YORK — Finding that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) failed in “their burden of demonstrating that continued sealing of the DOGE Agents’ identities is necessary to preserve a higher value,” a New York federal judge granted a motion filed by unions and related parties to unseal the names of 16 DOGE agents in a suit alleging that DOGE violated the Privacy Act and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) by accessing personnel records maintained by the OPM.
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April 07, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other nonprofits filed one of more than three dozen amicus curiae briefs supporting arguments by four law firms made in separate appellee briefs in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that President Donald J. Trump’s March and April 2025 executive orders (EOs) targeting the firms and describing them as “risks” to the country violated the U.S. Constitution.
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April 06, 2026
CINCINNATI — Applying the preemption doctrine outlined in San Diego Building Trades Council v. Garmon to a dispute over multiemployer fund contributions that involves the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), the Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on April 3 affirmed all challenged decisions in favor of the funds — even though one panel member penned a concurring opinion to explain her view that Garmon preemption is on “shaky footing.”
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April 06, 2026
CHICAGO — An Illinois federal granted summary judgment for United Airlines and the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA), ruling that a United pilot failed to present sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find in his favor on failure-to-accommodate and disparate treatment claims that arose from the airline’s COVID-19 vaccination policy.
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April 06, 2026
SEATTLE — A federal judge in Washington on April 3 refused to reconsider his ruling last month that granted an employment practices liability insurer’s motion to dismiss a breach of contract lawsuit brought by the owner and operator of several Potbelly Sandwich Shop restaurants, holding that the Washington Supreme Court’s recent ruling in Branson v. Washington Fine Wine & Spirits, LLC “does not materially affect” his finding that there is no coverage owed for an underlying putative class alleging the insured violated the Washington Equal Pay and Opportunities Act.