Justia Civil Rights Opinion Summaries

Kinney worked as the hospital's director of imaging services. Her employer approved her 2018 request for intermittent medical leave due to anxiety. Kinney began working remotely in March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic. When safety protocols were developed, her coworkers returned to work in person. Kinney kept working remotely without asking permission. She asserts that she could not wear a mask in compliance with the hospital’s COVID-19 protocol because face coverings exacerbate her anxiety. When her absences led to complaints, hospital management told Kinney that she had to work on-site several days each week. Management denied her request for accommodations.Kinney resigned and sued the under the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. 12101, and Title VI, 42 U.S.C. 2000e (alleging a hostile workplace, discrimination based on her sex in failing to select her for promotions, and constructive discharge), and the Family and Medical Leave Act, 29 U.S.C. 2601 (retaliation). The Seventh Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the hospital. No reasonable juror could find that Kinney could perform certain essential functions of her job without being present in the department that she oversaw; Kinney was not a qualified individual for the job under the ADA and her accommodation request was not reasonable. Her resignation was not a constructive discharge. Kinney did not raise a genuine factual issue as to whether she was similarly or better qualified for the position than the chosen male candidate. View "Kinney v. St. Mary's Health, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed the district court’s judgment dismissing her claims of age, race, and gender discrimination and retaliation under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 621 et seq., Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. Section 2000e et seq., and the Civil Rights Act of 1866, 42 U.S.C. Section 1981. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court applied an incorrect legal standard to her retaliation claim and that it erroneously concluded that she had failed to demonstrate that Defendants’ race-neutral explanations for not selecting her for two internal promotions were pretextual.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court held that Plaintiff has not demonstrated that Defendants’ explanations for her non-promotions were pretextual. Second, the court held that although the district court applied an incorrect standard to her retaliatory hostile work environment claim, Plaintiff has nevertheless failed to make out a prima facie case of retaliation and did not demonstrate that her employer’s non-retaliatory explanations were pretextual. The court explained that Defendant’s evidence supporting summary judgment established that Plaintiff received negative performance evaluations because she was not adequately or timely completing her duties and had become increasingly challenging to work with. The court wrote that Plaintiff has not rebutted this showing with evidence demonstrating that the reasons the NYCTA provided for the poor performance reviews were pretextual. Instead, she argues that the performance reviews must have been retaliatory due to their temporal proximity to her complaints. But she offers nothing more to establish causation. View "Carr v. New York City Transit Authority" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged that he was terminated from his position as Fire Chief for the City of Stockton based on his religion and, specifically, his attendance at a religious leadership event.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment in favor of Defendants in Plaintiff’s employment discrimination action under Title VII and California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act. The panel held that, in analyzing employment discrimination claims under Title VII and the California FEHA, the court may use the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, under which plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination. The burden then shifts to the defendant to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged actions. Finally, the burden returns to Plaintiff to show that the proffered nondiscriminatory reason is pretextual. Alternatively, Plaintiff may prevail on summary judgment by showing direct or circumstantial evidence of discrimination.   The court explained that Plaintiff was required to show that his religion was “a motivating factor” in Defendants’ decision to fire him with respect to his federal claims and that his religion was “a substantial motivating factor” with respect to his FEHA claims. The panel concluded that Plaintiff failed to present sufficient direct evidence of discriminatory animus in Defendants’ statements and the City’s notice of intent to remove him from City service. And Plaintiff also failed to present sufficient specific and substantial circumstantial evidence of religious animus by Defendants. View "RONALD HITTLE V. CITY OF STOCKTON, ET AL" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are twenty-six former employees of International Business Machines Corporation (“IBM”) who signed separation agreements requiring them to arbitrate any claims arising from their termination by IBM. The agreements set a deadline for initiating arbitration and included a confidentiality requirement. Plaintiffs missed the deadline but nonetheless tried to arbitrate claims under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (“ADEA”). Their arbitrations were dismissed as untimely. They then sued IBM in district court, seeking a declaration that the deadline is unenforceable because it does not incorporate the “piggybacking rule,” a judge-made exception to the ADEA’s administrative exhaustion requirements. Shortly after filing suit, Plaintiffs moved for summary judgment and attached various documents obtained by Plaintiffs’ counsel in other confidential arbitration proceedings. IBM moved to seal the confidential documents. The district court granted IBM’s motions to dismiss and seal the documents. On appeal, Plaintiffs argued that (1) the filing deadline in their separation agreements is unenforceable and (2) the district court abused its discretion by granting IBM’s motion to seal.   The Second Circuit affirmed. The court first wrote that the piggybacking rule does not apply to arbitration and, in any event, it is not a substantive right under the ADEA. Second, the court held that the presumption of public access to judicial documents is outweighed here by the Federal Arbitration Act’s (“FAA”) strong policy in favor of enforcing arbitral confidentiality provisions and the impropriety of counsel’s attempt to evade the agreement by attaching confidential documents to a premature motion for summary judgment. View "In re IBM Arb. Agreement Litig." on Justia Law

Four employee benefit funds and their Boards of Trustees, as well as two labor unions (collectively, “Boards”), sued B.F.W. Contracting, LLC and B.F.W. Contractors, LLC (collectively, “Contractors”) to compel an audit and recover money damages pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) signed onto by Contractors. The district court granted summary judgment for the Boards and found damages in the amount of $48,568.76.   The Eighth Circuit reversed. The court explained that the Boards argued that the Contractors forfeited the argument about supplemental dues because they failed to raise it before the district court. The court concluded that the Boards are incorrect. The Contractors made this argument in their Response to the Statement of Material Facts by Plaintiff, as well as in their Supplemental Reply Memorandum. The court found that this was enough to avoid forfeiture and allowed the court to consider the issue on appeal.   Additionally, the Boards argue that failure to pay the supplemental dues resulted in a breach of the CBA provision, which authorized the dues under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 186(c)(2). However, as the plain language of the CBA makes clear, there is no violation of that provision if the Contractors never received the employee authorization cards as required by both the CBA and 29 -6- U.S.C. Section 186(c)(4). Without a breach of this subsection of the CBA, these statutory provisions are inapplicable. View "Greater St. Louis Const. Laborers Welfare Fund v. B.F.W. Contracting, LLC" on Justia Law

Bureau Chief Korza received a complaint regarding Snowden’s handling of a claim. Korza found discrepancies in Snowden’s records. Korza and a division administrator met with Snowden and her union representative and gave Snowden copies of the records. Korza continued his review and found many additional problems. Korza consulted with the Department’s Labor Relations office. Korza lacked the authority to discharge anyone and was advised that discharge was an appropriate penalty for the falsification of records. Korza summarized his findings for the director of the Division and recommended termination. At a later pre-disciplinary meeting, Snowden and her union representative were given a statement of charges. Korza stated that the discipline was undetermined because Snowden had not had an opportunity to respond, but that the charged violations were subject to discipline including discharge. Snowden’s written rebuttal did not contest the factual basis for the charges but noted arguable shortcomings in the investigation. At a final meeting, Korza advised Snowden that she was being placed on suspension pending discharge. Director Hoffman later signed a form terminating Snowden. Snowden pursued a grievance, which resulted in Snowden being allowed to resign without reinstatement rights.Snowden filed suit, asserting due process violations, claiming that Korza had decided to discharge her before the pre-disciplinary meeting and was not the impartial decision-maker. The Third Circuit affirmed the summary judgment rejection of the suit. Korza was not the decision-maker. Snowden was given notice and the opportunity to respond before that decision was made, plus a post-discharge grievance process. View "Snowden v. Illinois Department of Human Services" on Justia Law

A former BNSF Railway Company employee died from lung cancer in 2018. Plaintiff, on behalf of her late husband’s estate, brought this wrongful death action against BNSF under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), alleging that her husband’s cancer was caused by his exposure to toxins at work. The district court excluded Plaintiff’s expert witness testimony and granted summary judgment to BNSF.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that there is no direct evidence that Plaintiff’s husband was exposed to asbestos or diesel combustion fumes. Even if a jury could infer that Plaintiff’s husband had been exposed, there is no evidence of the level of exposure. The court explained that while a quantifiable amount of exposure is not required to find causation between toxic exposure and injury, there must be, at a minimum, “evidence from which the factfinder can conclude that the plaintiff was exposed to levels of that agent that are known to cause the kind of harm that the plaintiff claims to have suffered,” There is no such evidence here. Moreover, the court explained that the district court did not abuse its considerable discretion by determining that the expert’s opinion lacked a sufficient foundation and that, in turn, his methodology for proving causation was unreliable. View "Rebecca Lancaster v. BNSF Railway Company" on Justia Law

In an effort to employ an Australian citizen and E-3 visa-holder, Persian Broadcast filed and received approval for a Labor Condition Application (LCA) through the U.S. Department of Labor (“Department”), first in 2011 and again in 2013. An LCA binds an employer to pay the required wages for the period of authorized employment, and only two exemptions can eliminate an employer’s legal obligations: when an employee is nonproductive for personal reasons or there has been a bona fide termination of the employment relationship. In February 2015, the employee filed an administrative complaint with the Department, arguing that Persian Broadcast failed to pay him the full amount of his wages as specified in the two LCAs.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s summary judgment upholding an Administrative Review Board (“ARB”) order awarding backpay plus pre-and post-judgment interest to the employee. First, the panel held that the employee’s February 2015 complaint was not time-barred. The ARB reasonably relied on the LCAs rather than the employee’s visa to determine the period of authorized employment and Persian Broadcast’s wage obligations. By failing to pay the employee the reported wage under the second LCA period, Persian Broadcast continued to violate the wage requirement until the LCA period ended on September 12, 2015. Second, the panel held that the employee’s circumstances did not meet either of the statutory exemptions to the LCA wage requirement because, by continuing his reporting work, the employee remained in productive status, and there was never a bona fide termination. View "PERSIAN BROADCAST SERVICE GLOB V. MARTIN WALSH, ET AL" on Justia Law

Lake Elmo Bank fired Plaintiff after receiving a report that she sexually harassed another employee. Plaintiff sued the Bank, claiming her termination was based on sex in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Minn. Stat. Sections 363A.08, subd. 2(2) and (3). She also sued the Bank and the reporting employee for defamation. On both claims, the district court granted summary judgment to Defendants. Plaintiff appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. First, the court explained that even assuming the complainant was not credible about some details, the Bank had sufficient information to reasonably believe that Plaintiff violated the harassment policy. The details at issue here are not significant enough to convince a jury that the Bank’s explanation was an attempt to cover up a discriminatory motive for Plaintiff’s termination.   Further, the court explained that here, unlike the employee in Bahr, the complainant’s complaint focused on only the conduct related to the harassment. There is also no evidence that the complainant, unlike the employee in Bahr, made any knowingly false statements or expressed an improper motive for making the complaint. In her interview, the complainant said that as a remedy, she sought to be moved off the teller line, away from Plaintiff, or switched to a different location. There is no evidence to show that the complainant made her statements causelessly and wantonly to injure Plaintiff’s employment. View "Heidi Nelson v. Lake Elmo Bank" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a lawsuit in Virginia state court asserting federal claims against his former employer, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (“Virginia Tech”). Massey took a voluntary nonsuit of that action, as was his right under Virginia law, and refiled the action in federal district court about ten days later. The district court granted Virginia Tech’s motion to dismiss the case on statute of limitation grounds. Plaintiff appealed, arguing that under Virginia law, a voluntary nonsuit tolls the limitations period as long as the action is refiled within six months after the nonsuit was granted.   The Fourth Circuit agreed with Plaintiff and vacated the district court’s order and remanded for further proceedings on Plaintiff’s complaint. The court concluded that the Virginia court where Plaintiff originally filed his complaint had statutorily granted subject-matter jurisdiction over the class of claims asserted in Plaintiff’s complaint. The order granting Plaintiff’s motion for voluntary nonsuit was therefore valid under Morrison and triggered the tolling provisions of Va. Code Section 8.01-229(E)(3). Because Plaintiff refiled his case in federal court within six months of the date of the nonsuit order, this action was timely filed under Section 8.01- 229(E)(3), and the district court therefore erred by dismissing Plaintiff’s complaint. View "John Massey, Jr. v. Virginia Polytechnic Institute" on Justia Law