Justia Government & Administrative Law Opinion Summaries

Kent Duty filed suit against BNSF Railway Company (“BNSF”), after he applied to work there as a locomotive electrician. Duty had an impairment that limits his grip strength in his right hand. Fearing that Duty would fall from ladders, BNSF revoked his offer for employment. Duty and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (the “Commission”) sued BNSF for employment discrimination under the Americans with Disabilities Act (the “ADA”). The ADA limits its protection by recognizing that not all impairments are disabilities. Applying the ADA’s definition of “disability,” the district court found that Kent Duty was not disabled and granted summary judgment to BNSF. On appeal, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "EEOC v. BNSF Railway Co." on Justia Law

Ochoa worked in a physically demanding job for McLane, which requires new employees in such positions and those returning from medical leave to take a physical evaluation. When Ochoa returned from three months of maternity leave, she failed the evaluation three times and was fired. She filed a sex discrimination charge under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The Equal Employment Opportunity (EEOC) began an investigation, but McLane declined its request for names, Social Security numbers, addresses, and telephone numbers of employees asked to take the evaluation. After the EEOC expanded the investigation’s scope, it issued subpoenas under 42 U.S.C. 2000e–9, requesting information relating to its new investigation. The district judge declined to enforce the subpoenas. The Ninth Circuit reversed, holding that the lower court erred in finding the information irrelevant. The Supreme Court vacated. A district court’s decision whether to enforce or quash an EEOC subpoena should be reviewed for abuse of discretion, not de novo. The Court noted “the longstanding practice of the courts of appeals," to review a district court’s decision to enforce or quash an administrative subpoena for abuse of discretion. In most cases, the enforcement decision will turn either on whether the evidence sought is relevant to the specific charge or whether the subpoena is unduly burdensome under the circumstances. Both tasks are well suited to a district judge’s expertise. Deferential review “streamline[s] the litigation process by freeing appellate courts from the duty of reweighing evidence and reconsidering facts already weighed and considered by the district court,” something particularly important in a proceeding designed only to facilitate the EEOC’s investigation. Not every decision touching on the Fourth Amendment is subject to searching review. View "McLane Co. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission" on Justia Law

Pumpernickel Express, Inc. carried automotive parts from warehouses in Mansfield, Massachusetts to Toyota dealerships in the region. Pumpernickel’s drivers were represented by a Union. Lily Transportation Corporation later obtained the portion of Pumpernickel’s business that involved distributing parts for Toyota. Lily hired many of Pumpernickel’s former employees, including drivers. The Union demanded that Lily recognize it as the drivers’ bargaining representative. Lily refused. Thereafter, the Union filed an unfair labor practice charge, alleging that Lily’s refusal to bargain violated the National Labor Relations Act. The administrative law judge found that, in distributing for Toyota, Lily was a “successor employer” to Pumpernickel, and therefore, Lily was required to recognize and bargain with the Union. The National Labor Relations Board affirmed and ordered Lily to recognize and bargain with the Union. The Board then asked the First Circuit to enforce its order over Lily’s objection. The First Circuit granted the Board’s application for enforcement of its bargaining order, holding that the Board did not err in relying on UGL-UNICCO Service Co.’s successor bar doctrine. View "NLRB v. Lily Transportation Corp" on Justia Law

Defendants were members of the Birmingham Board of Education and the superintendent of the Birmingham City School System. Defendants appealed the circuit court’s judgment in favor of twenty-four "classified employees" of the Birmingham Board of Education ("the plaintiffs"). The trial court held that the plaintiffs' salaries had been miscalculated and awarded them monetary relief. The defendants argued, among other things, that they were entitled to immunity from the plaintiffs' claims. The Supreme Court agreed that the defendants were entitled to immunity. For that reason, the trial court lacked subject-matter jurisdiction, and its judgment was void. Accordingly, the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. View "Woodfin v. Bender" on Justia Law

Employers are signatories to collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) with the Operating Engineers Union, providing that “the Employer shall employ Operating Engineers for the erection, operation, assembly and disassembly, and maintenance and repair of . . . Forklifts, Skidsteers.” The provision includes a penalty for violation. Employers’ CBA with the Laborers Union provides that “operation of forklifts . . . [and] skid-steer loaders . . . shall be the work of the laborer.” Employers assigned the disputed work to Laborers. Operators filed pay-in-lieu grievances and threatened to strike. The NLRB noted that Employers had assigned forklift and skidsteer work to Laborers for 15-26 years, and found no merit in Operators’ work-preservation claims, characterizing them as attempts at work acquisition. The NLRB found that Operators’ ongoing filing of grievances and threats to strike constituted unfair labor practices under NLRA section 8(b)(4) and that Laborers were entitled to perform the work. Meanwhile, Operators filed a complaint under Employee Retirement Income Security Act section 5153 seeking payment of contributions defendant allegedly owed under the CBAs, access to audit records, interest, costs, and injunctive relief. The NLRB intervened. The district court concluded and the Sixth Circuit agreed that the jurisdictional award was dispositive of, and precluded, Operators’ CBA claims. View "Orrand v. Hunt Construction Group, Inc." on Justia Law

The issue in this workers’ compensation case was whether claimant was entitled to benefits for his “combined condition” claim. Claimant filed- and his employer’s insurer, SAIF Corporation, initially accepted-a claim for a lumbar strain combined with preexisting lumbar disc disease and related conditions. SAIF later denied the combined condition claim on the ground that the lumbar strain had ceased to be the major contributing cause of the combined condition. Claimant objected. He did not contest that his lumbar strain had ceased to be the major contributing cause of his combined condition. Instead, he argued that the otherwise compensable injury was not limited to the lumbar strain that SAIF had accepted as part of his combined condition claim. In claimant’s view, an “otherwise compensable injury” within the meaning of ORS 656.005(7)(a)(B) referred not just to the condition that SAIF accepted, but also includes any other conditions not accepted that might have resulted from the same work-related accident that caused the lumbar strain, and that larger group of work-related conditions continued to be the major contributing cause of his combined condition. As a result, claimant contended that an employer could not close a combined condition claim if any of those non accepted conditions remained the major cause of the combined condition claim. The Workers’ Compensation Board rejected claimant’s argument and upheld SAIF’s denial of claimant’s combined condition claim, concluding that existing precedent defined the “otherwise compensable injury” component of combined conditions to consist of the condition or conditions that the employer has accepted as compensable. The Court of Appeals reversed, acknowledging that its holding was “potentially at odds” with existing precedents from both that court and the Oregon Supreme Court. It nevertheless concluded that those precedents were either distinguishable or should be reconsidered. The Supreme Court concluded that the Court of Appeals erred and that the Workers’ Compensation Board was correct. View "Brown v. SAIF Corp." on Justia Law

In this writ proceeding, Daniel Ramirez sought review of his independent medical review (pursuant to his workers' compensation claim) on the ground the underlying utilization review was based on an incorrect standard. In effect, he sought review of his utilization review with this the Court of Appeal. The Court concluded this was not a proper ground for appeal of a utilization review determination because "it goes to the heart of the determination of medical necessity. The independent medical reviewer is in the best position to determine whether the proper standard was used to evaluate the medical necessity of the requested treatment, and the statutory scheme requires the independent medical reviewer to use the proper standard in determining medical necessity." Ramirez made no claim that the independent medical reviewer did not use the proper statutory standard, nor did he state a proper ground for review of his independent medical review, which was appealable only for the nonsubstantive reasons. Ramirez also challenged the constitutionality of the independent medical review process, claiming it violated the state Constitution’s separation of powers clause, and state and federal principles of procedural due process. The Court concluded that the Legislature’s plenary power over the workers’ compensation system precluded any separation of powers violation, and the process afforded workers under the system afforded sufficient opportunity to present evidence and be heard. View "Ramirez v. WCAB" on Justia Law

Romo was a volunteer firefighter for Marinwood from 1989-1991 and for the San Antonio Volunteer Fire District, 2002-2006. Beginning in 2006, he was employed full time as a paid Mill Valley firefighter. While working for Mill Valley, Romo was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board (WCAB) held that Romo was entitled to the benefit of the rebuttable presumption under Labor Code section 3212.11 that his cancer arose out of his employment. While Mill Valley and San Antonio stipulated that the statutory presumption that cancer suffered while employed as a firefighter arises out of the employment would apply to them if the elements set forth in section 3212.1 were proven, Marinwood appealed. The court of appeal affirmed. “While neither of the statutes at issue is a model of clarity, the WCAB’s interpretations of both are reasonable.” The court noted that Marinwood’s fire captain and training officer considers the volunteer firefighters to be employees and that Romo was within 120 months of the “last date actually worked in the specified capacity.” View "Marin Community Services v. Workers' Compensation Appeals Board" on Justia Law

The right of firefighters and police officers to collectively bargain for purposes of wages, hours, and working conditions was secured through the Police and Firemen Collective Bargaining Act, commonly known as Act 111. Appellant, the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 302 (“IAFF”), was the exclusive bargaining representative for the firefighters of Appellee, the City of Allentown (the “City”), for purposes of collective bargaining with the City. The City and the IAFF were parties to a seven-year collective bargaining agreement which ran from January 1, 2005 through December 31, 2011. In this appeal by allowance, the issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was, in the context of an interest arbitration award, whether a provision requiring a certain minimum number of firefighters on duty per shift is a mandatory subject of bargaining or a non-bargainable managerial prerogative. The Court concluded that the number of required firefighters per shift was a mandatory subject of bargaining, and implicated managerial responsibilities, but did not unduly infringe upon those managerial rights, and, thus, could properly serve as a component of an interest arbitration award. The Court reversed the Commonwealth Court, which held to the contrary. View "City of Allentown v. Int'l Assoc. of Firefighters" on Justia Law

This case arose from the unemployment compensation claim filed by appellee Gary Powell. The Unemployment Compensation Service Center determined appellee was ineligible to receive benefits pursuant to Section 402(b) of the Unemployment Compensation Law (the UC Law) because he voluntarily quit his job with Joe Krentzman & Sons (employer), without “cause of a necessitous and compelling nature.” The Supreme Court granted discretionary review to consider whether an attorney who has been suspended from the practice of law by the Supreme Court could represent a claimant in unemployment compensation proceedings. A divided three-judge panel of the Commonwealth Court determined the claimant was entitled to his choice of representative, even if that representative was a suspended attorney, and remanded for a new hearing. The Supreme Court affirmed the decision to remand, but reversed the Commonwealth Court’s holding that a suspended attorney may represent claimants in unemployment compensation proceedings. View "Powell v. UCBR" on Justia Law