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Mealey's Employment

October 02, 2025
9th Circuit: No ‘Bona Fide Religious Belief’ Shown To Justify COVID-19 Test Refusal

SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals majority opined that an Oregon medical center administrative employee fired for refusing to submit to weekly antigen testing for COVID-19 as an accommodation of a religious exemption from a company vaccine mandate failed to demonstrate “that she had a bona fide religious belief” that satisfied the prima facie burden required for a claim of religious discrimination pursuant to Title VII and Oregon state law in affirming a federal trial court’s dismissal of a lawsuit challenging her termination.
October 02, 2025
$2M Settlement Of California Federal Wage-And-Hour Class Action Gets Final OK

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal magistrate judge in California granted final approval to a $2 million class action settlement to resolve long-running claims that the owners of facilities that supply forage products violated the California Labor Code and the California unfair competition law (UCL) by, among other things, failing to pay nonexempt employees minimum and overtime wages and failing to comply with rest and meal period requirements.
October 01, 2025
U.S. High Court Defers Trump’s Stay Request In Federal Reserve Seat Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 1 deferred pending oral argument in January an application for stay filed by President Donald J. Trump after Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook was granted a temporary restraining order (TRO) in her case challenging her purported removal in August.
October 01, 2025
Mass. Appeals Panel Reverses Judgment In Fired Surgical Tech’s COVID-19 Shot Suit

BOSTON — A Massachusetts Appeals Court panel opined that a lower court was not correct in granting a summary judgment order to a state health care system that was sued for religious discrimination by a surgical tech who worked at one of its hospitals after she was fired for failing to get a COVID-19 vaccine, finding that the employee’s belief that “her body is a temple of God” and that she determined through prayer that she could not get the vaccine could be considered religious for the purpose of an exemption, that the accommodation would not create an undue hardship and that the health care system and hospital could be classified as joint employers.
October 01, 2025
Amazon Workers Who Sued Over Off-The-Clock Work Fail To Disqualify Counsel

DENVER — Amazon.com Services LLC workers who brought a class complaint in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic alleging that they were wrongly denied pay for off-the-clock work before and after shifts, including long wait times for health screenings due to the pandemic, failed to show that Amazon’s counsel should be disqualified or that Amazon should be sanctioned, a federal judge in Colorado ruled.
September 30, 2025
$49.25M Settlement OK’d In College Baseball Coaches’ Conspiracy To Deny Pay Suit

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — A federal judge in California granted final approval of a $49.25 million settlement for a class of college “volunteer” baseball coaches who accused the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and its member schools of conspiring to ensure they were paid nothing for what they said were full-time jobs.
September 26, 2025
Federal Reserve Governor, Amici, Trump File High Court Briefs Over TRO Stay

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook, who was purportedly removed from her post by President Donald J. Trump in August, filed an opposition in the U.S. Supreme Court to Trump’s application for a stay of a trial court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) pending appeal, arguing that the president failed to show that a stay was appropriate, while Trump filed a reply on Sept. 26 asserting that multiple factors support a stay.
September 25, 2025
$425,000 Religious Bias Award In Vaccine Refusal Case Reduced To $300,000

CHICAGO — Pursuant to federal law governing damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination, an Illinois federal judge reduced to $300,000 a $425,000 jury verdict in favor of a former transit authority employee for his employer’s violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act in refusing him a religious exemption from its mandatory vaccination policy.
September 25, 2025
Labor Secretary Answers High Court Integral Activities Measurement Petition

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) contends in a response filed Sept. 24 to a U.S. Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari that a Third Circuit appellate panel “correctly understood the Fair Labor Standards Act to require compensation for hours actually worked” when ordering a Pennsylvania battery manufacturer to pay its workers for the actual time they spend completing tasks required for their jobs rather than the “time the employer estimates the employees’ work should take.”
September 25, 2025
4th Circuit Issues Overtime Payment Ruling Mandate In Nurse Classification Case

RICHMOND, Va. — A formal mandate was issued Sept. 24 in the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals for a divided panel’s opinion affirming that a Virginia medical staffing company is liable under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) for millions in unpaid overtime compensation and liquidated damages to nurses wrongly classified as independent contractors following denial of a petition for rehearing and rehearing en banc.
September 24, 2025
5th Circuit Affirms Rejection Of Damages Verdict In IT Workers’ Race Bias Case

NEW ORLEANS — The Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals determined that a Texas federal judge’s rejection of a jury verdict that awarded millions of dollars in damages to several IT employees who alleged race discrimination and retaliation claims against their employer was mostly correct, finding that their claims lacked sufficient evidence.
September 24, 2025
Government Seeks Rehearing On Discovery Ruling In Federal Worker RIF Appeal

SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government on Sept. 23 filed a petition for rehearing or rehearing en banc concerning the discovery portion of a split Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals order in which the appellate panel majority, in a ruling addressing two appeals in a case challenging the large scale reduction-in-force (RIF) of federal workers, denied the government’s petition for a writ of mandamus seeking to require the trial court to vacate a discovery order and vacated a preliminary injunction and remanded for further consideration.
September 23, 2025
U.S. High Court Denies MSPB, NLRB Members’ Petitions Challenging Removals

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 22 denied conditional petitions for writs of certiorari before judgment filed by a member of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and a member of the National Labor Relations Board who were each purportedly fired by President Donald J. Trump within the first few weeks of his second term; on the same day, a divided high court granted a request by the federal government to consider statutory removal protections in an appeal over the president’s purported removal of a Federal Trade Commission commissioner.
September 23, 2025
High Court Stays Judgment For FCC Commissioner, Will Revisit Humphrey’s Executor

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A divided U.S. Supreme Court on Sept. 22 stayed a trial court’s summary judgment for Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Federal Trade Commission commissioners purportedly removed in March without cause, and the justices, treating the government’s application as a petition for a writ of certiorari before judgment, agreed to consider overruling Humphrey’s Executor v. United States and “[w]hether a federal court may prevent a person’s removal from public office.”
September 22, 2025
Split 3rd Circuit Reverses Ruling Against Employer In Overtime Contribution Case

PHILADELPHIA — Saying in part that “the phrase ‘hours paid’ does not require increased contributions to multiemployer plans for overtime hours,” a split Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel issued a nonprecedential opinion on Sept. 19 reversing judgment against an employer; the majority did not reach “questions relating to determining pre- and post-judgment interest under” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, but the dissenter opined that, among other things, imposing 18% postjudgment interest on delinquent contributions was an abuse of discretion.
September 22, 2025
Expert Can Opine On Accuracy Of Drug Testing Results In Discrimination Dispute

RALEIGH, N.C. — A man who alleges that a pre-employment drug screening test is discriminatory because it yields inaccurate results from porous or curly hair types common in African Americans lost his bid on Sept. 19 to bar testimony from an expert retained by the employer, which opined that the positive result for cocaine in the man’s test was accurate, when a federal magistrate judge found that the man’s arguments went to the weight of the evidence.
September 22, 2025
Iowa Teacher Fired For Posting ‘1 Nazi Down’ After Kirk Killing Files Federal Suit

DES MOINES, Iowa — An Iowa public high school teacher and coach who was fired after posting the phrase “1 Nazi down” on his personal Facebook page in reference to the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk filed a complaint requesting a jury trial in federal court, alleging that the termination violated his free speech rights pursuant to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
September 19, 2025
Trump Seeks High Court Stay, Federal Reserve Governor Opposes It In Firing Suit

WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald J. Trump filed an application on Sept. 18 in the U.S. Supreme Court seeking an administrative stay and to stay a trial court’s temporary restraining order (TRO) as to the purported removal of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook; Cook filed an opposition to the administrative stay request the same day, arguing that such a request “clashes with the Federal Reserve’s traditional independence” and that “disruption of the status quo could destabilize the U.S. financial system.”
September 19, 2025
New Hampshire High Court: No Crime-Fraud Exception In Doctors’ Discovery Row

CONCORD, N.H. — A New Hampshire Supreme Court panel issued a mixed ruling in a discovery dispute between three anesthesiologists and their former employer, finding that the crime-fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege did not apply and thus did not serve to compel discovery of certain communications between the physicians and their counsel.
September 18, 2025
NLRB Sues New York, State Board Over New Private Labor Dispute Jurisdiction Law

SYRACUSE, N.Y. —The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) sued New York and its Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) in a federal court over a newly enacted amendment that gives the state board jurisdiction over private sector labor disputes that would typically fall within the NLRB’s purview, contending that it did not cede jurisdiction and that the amendment “usurps” the board’s authority and is preempted by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).
September 18, 2025
Briefing Seeks Certiorari Before Judgment In FTC Commissioner Removal Case

WASHINGTON, D.C. — With briefing complete, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider an application by the federal government for a stay pending appeal as well as a request for certiorari before judgment after a trial court issued summary judgment for Rebecca Slaughter, one of two Federal Trade Commission commissioners purportedly removed in March without cause; two other members of independent federal agencies who are challenging their removals by President Donald J. Trump filed letters with the high court stating that they were filing petitions and if certiorari is granted in Slaughter’s case, it should be granted in theirs as well.
September 18, 2025
MSPB, NLRB Members Removed By Trump File Conditional Petitions In High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A member of the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) and a member of the National Labor Relations Board who were each purportedly fired by President Donald J. Trump within the first few weeks of his second term filed conditional petitions for a writ of certiorari in the U.S. Supreme Court after a purportedly fired Federal Trade Commission commissioner concurred with the federal government’s argument that the high court should grant certiorari in that case before judgment to decide the scope of the president’s power.
September 18, 2025
Government Appeals Partial Summary Judgment In En Masse Worker Firing Case

SAN FRANCISCO — The federal government filed a notice of appeal after a federal judge in California ruled that the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) “exceeded its own powers” when it directed various federal agencies to terminate more than 25,000 probationary employees allegedly for performance when there was no “consideration of actual performance or conduct.”
September 17, 2025
6th Circuit Cites Transgender Professor’s ‘Twitter Tirade’ In Affirming Judgment

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed an Ohio federal judge’s order granting summary judgment motions filed by a university and two faculty members regarding a transgender professor’s Title VII, First Amendment and perceived disability claims after a promotion was rescinded following the professor’s “weeks-long, profanity-laden Twitter tirade insulting colleagues and the university.”
September 17, 2025
6th Circuit Says Hospital Waited Too Long To Arbitrate In Religious Bias Case

CINCINNATI — A Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel found that a Michigan hospital’s request for arbitration “came too late” and that it lost its right to arbitrate under the Federal Arbitration Act (FAA) after it placed proceedings in a “default” by first moving to dismiss the case of a former employee who filed federal religious discrimination and related claims after she was fired for refusing to offer “gender transition” drugs or use “biology-obscuring pronouns” when speaking to patients.