Employment Law Blog

A union breached its duty of fair representation by favoring one group of pilots who wished to merge seniority lists for pilots of two merging airlines by using their length of service rather than the strength of their respective airlines, after taking the place of prior pilots' union that had obtained an arbitration award blending...

A district court erroneously granted summary judgment against an employee's federal claim that a supervisor sexually harassed her under the Faragher/Ellerth affirmative defense, because a reasonable jury could find that the employer did not exercise reasonable care to prevent and correct any sexually harassing behavior (including questions whether the employer properly addressed the supervisor's harassment...

A district court properly granted summary judgment against a postdoctoral fellow's discrimination claim, because the fellow did not provide sufficient evidence showing that the reasons for not considering her for a full time position (lack of compliance with safety guidelines and dissatisfaction with her ability to publicly present her work) were pretextual. The district court...

An employer violated Title VII, because it refused to hire an applicant at least partly because she was wearing a headscarf for what it suspected were religious reasons. EEOC v. Abercrombie & Fitch Stores, Inc., 135 S. Ct. 2028 (June 1, 2015). A pension based on a service related disability is taxable to the extent...

Because last day of plan's 180 day appeal period ran on a Sunday, a claimant had until the following day to file his appeal. Legras v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 8824 (9th Cir. May 28, 2015). ERISA plans may require employees to execute releases of claims to qualify for and ultimately...

A fiduciary has a continuing duty of prudence to monitor and remove imprudent investments from the plan, not only the duty to select them prudently from the outset. Tibble v. Edison Int'l, 135 S. Ct. 1823 (May 18, 2015). A bankruptcy debtor who converts from Chapter 13 bankruptcy to Chapter 7 is entitled to return...

A district court properly granted summary judgment against former plan participants, because their alleged injury could not be traced to any alleged misconduct by the plan or the sponsoring employer and it could not be redressed without excessive speculation. Any breaches of fiduciary duty did not cause material harm to the plan participants that entitled...

A district court properly granted an employer summary judgment against a discrimination claim by a former employee who it laid off and did not rehire, because he was not qualified for the position he sought, the employer was in financial trouble, his lead position was not necessary when the program he was assigned to only...

Before suing an employer, the EEOC must inform the employer about the specific discrimination allegations; describe what the employer has done and which employees (or class of employees) have suffered and try to engage the employer in a discussion in order to give the employer a chance to remedy the allegedly discriminatory practice.  Mach Mining...

A District Court erroneously granted summary judgment against an employee's long term disability benefit claim by reviewing an administrator's denial of claim under abuse of discretion rather than a de novo standard, because although the summary plan description for the plan gave the plan administrator discretionary authority to determine eligibility for benefits, the insurance certificate...