The decision today by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in Harrell v. Donahue re-affirms the difficulty which employees have in proving that their employers failed to accommodate their religious beliefs. In particular, employers are not required to take any action that would violate the terms of an applicable Collective Bargaining Agreement, nor anything that [...]
Congratulations to UST Law Professor Rob Vischer
Kudos to Rob Vischer, Professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law, for being named as one of 23 law professors in the country to “take before you die” by The National Jurist. The article cites Rob for his “engaging manner” and his ability to create a “dynamic law school experience by challenging [...]
Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics
An unpublished decision issued yesterday by the Minnesota Court of Appeals in Farmers Insurance Exchange v. Tomczik raises a couple of interesting and uncommon issues that are worth noting. Tomczik worked as an insurance agent for Farmers for 31 years. In 2006, Farmers noticed a drop in the number of automobile policies that he [...]
Liquid lunch and DWI court: not a good mix!
From the Times Herald-Record of Middletown, NY: A man facing a felony driving-while -intoxicated charge showed up at Court with a bag full of beer — and was thrown in jail without bail. Keith Gruber, 49, had a scheduled 10:30 a.m. pretrial hearing. Gruber came to court about an hour and a half late [...]
Classification of exempt employee upheld under FLSA
As any employment lawyer will tell you, wage-and-hour litigation has been a hot area for the last several years. A recent opinion by U.S. District Judge Michael Davis provides a useful overview of the elements of one type of such a claim – the claimed misclassification of a non-exempt employee. John Berscheid worked as [...]
Non-competes and preliminary injunctions
The medical device industry is well-known for the competition between companies for good sales talent. Judge Susan Richards Nelson has penned a textbook example of how to analyze a motion for a preliminary injunction in a non-competition case in her decision earlier this month in Boston Scientific Corp. v. Kean and St. Jude Medical [...]
EEOC issues regulations for ADA
The EEOC has just issued the final regulations implementing the 2008 amendments to the Americans with Disabilities Act. They are 202 pages long: have fun!
Harassment by a customer is actionable.
While it is a non-binding decision from another jurisdiction, the decision in EEOC v. Cromer Food Services is worth noting because it addresses two uncommon yet problematic fact situations: same-sex harassment, and harassment by a customer. An employee of CFS claimed to suffer a daily barrage of lewd comments and gestures by employees of [...]
Kudos to Kaster for Kasten
Kudos to Jim Kaster at Minneapolis’ Nichols Kaster for his big win at the U.S. Supreme Court today in Kasten v. St. Gobain Performance Plastics. The Court ruled that the Fair Labor Standard Act’s anti-retaliation provision protects an employee who allegedly lost his job because he made verbal complaints to his employer. Section 215(a)(3) [...]
Retaliation and Whistleblower Claims against University dismissed
Judge Donovan Frank of the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis recently granted summary judgment in favor of the University of Minnesota in a case brought by Terry Teachout that raises some interesting employment law issues. Teachout worked in the University’s Risk Management office from 1993 to 2008. When his position was eliminated as part of [...]
