Employment Law Blog

A successor employer can be subject to withdrawal liability under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act, so long as it takes over the business with notice of the liability.  The most important factor in assessing whether an employer is a successor for purposes of withdrawal liability is whether there was substantial continuity in the business...

District Court properly granted union's petition to compel arbitration under a collective bargaining agreement. It was for the arbitrator to decide whether the parties' collective bargaining agreement had expired when the union sought to invoke the agreement's grievance and arbitration procedure against the employer, or whether, according to an "evergreen clause," the agreement continued in...

Persons who held legal title to the assets of an employee benefit plan with the intent to deal with these assets solely for the benefit of the members of the plan were "trustees" and their relationship with the members of the plan was a "trust" covered by ERISA, even though the documents that formed that...

An employee did not allege facts sufficient to show that her eczema substantially limited her in a major life activity and caused her to have a protected disability, the Court of Appeals explained in affirming the district court's dismissal of her disability discrimination complaint for failure to state a claim.  Fee v. Mgmt. & Training...

District Court improperly granted summary judgment against former employee's retaliation claim, because supervisor's comments "I learned all about you" and "I spoke with another manager" a month before the employer began imposing discipline that lead to termination, and an appeals board's apparent departure from or possibly summary statement of the management's stated basis for the...

District Court properly entered judgment against employee, because he failed to prove that the employer did not provide him reasonable accommodation for his disability.  Katz v. Lew, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 13388 (9th Cir. July 21, 2015). District Court properly granted summary judgment against employee's discrimination claims, because he failed to raise a genuine issue...

A district court properly granted summary judgment requiring an employer to contribute to a trust fund in the month following an employee's termination, transfer to a non-union position or opt-out; assuming that the collective bargaining agreement was ambiguous, based on uncontradicted evidence of industry practice requiring reporting hours that month, coupled with eligibility depending on...

The False Claims Act required dismissal of a qui tam relator's  claims because he was convicted of the conduct giving rise to the fraud, even if he or she only played a minor role.  Schroeder v. CH2M Hill, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 12287 (9th Cir. July 16, 2015). A district court properly dismissed a former...

There are only two requirements in order for a whistleblower to be an "original source" who may recover relief under the False Claims Act: (1) before filing the action, the whistleblower must voluntarily inform the government of the facts which underlie the allegations of the complaint; and (2) the whistleblower must have direct and independent...

A district court properly granted summary judgment against a former employee's claim that the employer violated Section 510 of ERISA by discharging her for the purpose of interfering with her benefits under a plan, because even though she established a prima facie case by showing her discharge occurred 18 months before she would have been...