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May 05, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — An employee who was fired for refusing to take the COVID-19 vaccine pursuant to company policy during the pandemic filed a notice of appeal to the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on May 4 seeking review of a summary judgment ruling in favor of her former employer in an Oregon federal court, which adopted a magistrate judge’s findings that the employee’s objections to the COVID-19 vaccine derived not from religious principle but rather from a subjective evaluation of secular considerations and that accommodating her objection would have placed an undue burden on her employer.
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May 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — With a goal to clarify responsibilities and improve enforcement efforts, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) proposed a new rule to provide a nationwide standard for determining when multiple entities are joint employers under federal labor laws and apply it consistently in the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA).
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May 04, 2026
CHICAGO — A company that develops and sells workplace biometric timeclocks and its insurers will pay $1,685,000 to end class claims by an Illinois woman that the company collected and stored her biometric data and the biometric data of others in violation of the Illinois Biometric Privacy Act (BIPA), according to an order dismissing the case with prejudice filed by a federal judge in that state.
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May 01, 2026
NEW YORK — A New York federal judge denied a motion for partial reconsideration filed by the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), refusing to revisit her April 1 order unsealing the identities of six DOGE agents after finding that the agencies failed to meet their burden of demonstrating that continued sealing of the agents’ identities is necessary to preserve their privacy and safety in a Privacy Act and Administrative Procedure Act (APA) suit challenging DOGE’s access to personnel records maintained by OPM.
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May 01, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Personnel actions and recommended personnel actions will be designated confidential, but the names, work email addresses and work telephone numbers of lower-level Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) workers will not, a federal judge in California ordered, ruling on a motion for a protective order filed by federal government parties in a lawsuit by unions, groups and local governments challenging an executive order (EO) and memorandum implementing the EO that resulted in widespread layoffs of federal workers.
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April 30, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In an ongoing fight in a yearslong labor dispute, the exiting publisher of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette asks the U.S. Supreme Court whether the National Labor Relations Board can infer bad faith bargaining from proposals alone under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), receive judicial deference and award consequential damages in a certiorari petition seeking review of the NLRB’s finding that the newspaper acted in bad faith, unlawfully declared an impasse and unlawfully surveilled union activities.
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April 29, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — Workday Inc. and thousands of hiring-discrimination plaintiffs have wrapped up briefing before a federal judge in California over the need for interlocutory review of the viability of a disparate-impact claim under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 while a motion to dismiss an amended complaint remains pending.
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April 27, 2026
MINNEAPOLIS — A county employee who sued her employer for constructive discharge based on its COVID-19 vaccination-or-test policy reached a settlement with the county after a panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals reversed the dismissal of the lawsuit by a Minnesota federal court, having found that the employee’s refusal to comply with the policy was based on sincerely held religious beliefs.
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April 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court granted a petition for a writ of certiorari on April 27 filed by the Department of Labor (DOL) seeking review of Article III issues related to the adjudication of cases involving alleged violations of H-2A migrant worker visa rules. The court limited the case to two questions regarding whether Article III precludes the DOL from adjudicating such cases and whether the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes the department to do so.
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April 23, 2026
PORTLAND, Ore. — In an amended opinion filed in a years-long wage-and-hour suit, a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel revived both individual and class claims brought by Jack in the Box workers alleging that they are entitled to pay for shortened meal breaks, reversing and remanding an earlier ruling in favor of their employer.
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April 23, 2026
RICHMOND, Va. — As urged by the appellees and a handful of amici curiae, the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals agreed that an incentive compensation program “qualifies as a ‘bonus plan exempt from’” the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, affirming summary judgment against a former financial adviser who filed the putative class action; one panel member wrote a concurring opinion to emphasize “that any other conclusion would generate an avalanche of deleterious consequences.”
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April 22, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — In light of the confirmation of two new National Labor Relations Board members that could lead to reanalysis of a decision holding that Macy’s Inc. violated the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when it locked workers out without providing the conditions necessary to avoid a lockout and ordered payment of broad “consequential damages,” the federal government is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to grant a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Macy’s, vacate the split appellate court decision that led to the petition and remand the case for further consideration.
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April 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied on April 20 a petition for writ of certiorari filed by the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU) asking the court to review a Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel’s decision denying the union’s motion for intervention in a trio of cases involving the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
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April 21, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 20 denied two petitions for a writ of certiorari, one filed by a group of fired airline pilots against their union seeking review of union duties pursuant to the Railway Labor Act (RLA) and another filed by a terminated surgical technician who sought review of due process guarantees under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
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April 20, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Denying a petition for a writ of certiorari on April 20 that was filed by a disabled veteran disputing the denial of the renewal of his employment contract with Aviation Training Consulting LLC (ATC), the U.S. Supreme Court will not review whether independent review or shared decision-making protects an employer from “‘cat’s paw’ liability” pursuant to Staub v. Proctor Hospital, when the action was caused by a “biased subordinate’s act.”
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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.