The Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling last week affirming Wal-Mart’s right to fire an African-American manager for a seemingly minor violation of its “Working Off The Clock” policy. The decision reminds us of the difference between unfairness and illegality. Plaintiff Chestine Clay was manager of the Vision Center at Wal-Mart’s store in [...]
Lawyers Behaving Badly
It seems a lawyer in New York sat by while his client lied about whether she was working at a deposition. When the court found out, it showed its displeasure by sanctioning the lawyer $15,000. Have a great Memorial Day holiday.
Salary discrimination, experts and more
Judge Michael Davis of the U.S. District Court in Minneapolis recently spent 35 pages sorting through various issues in a race, national origin and age discrimination case brought by a Nigerian-born professor against St. Cloud State University in Onyiah v. St. Cloud State University. Ultimately, Judge Davis granted summary judgment on plaintiff’s claims. Without providing [...]
Is this really the best use of EEOC resources?
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has sued Starbucks Coffee Company for allegedly denying a reasonable accommodation to a barista with dwarfism at its El Paso café and then firing her because of her disability. According to the EEOC’s suit, Elsa Sallard has a physical impairment, dwarfism. She was hired by Starbucks to work in a [...]
Pitfalls for the unwary in drafting arbitration agreements
A decision last week by Judge Ann Montgomery in RSM McGladrey v. Epp should be required reading for all attorneys who draft employment agreements, especially those with non-competition and arbitration provisions. The defendants were managing directors of RSM, working out of its New York office, specializing in RSM’s health care practice. As a condition of [...]
Beware of those retaliation claims!
As any defense lawyer can tell you, retaliation cases are some of the most problematic to deal with. Further evidence of that arrived this week with news that a jury awarded $361,000 to a former employee of G&K Services for workers’ compensation retaliation. Dubiel was injured on the job in a car accident. He [...]
Are religious accommodation cases not appropriate for summary judgment?
I have written about religious accommodation issues before here and here. Usually, these are tough cases for employees/plaintiffs to make. In a decision earlier this week, however, federal judge Richard Kyle has denied a motion for summary judgment on a religious accommodation case in a decision that suggests that obtaining summary judgment in these types [...]
Are your employees poachable?
From Mike Greco and Chris Stief at Fisher & Phillips: Seven signs your employees are poachable.
Sometimes it pays to be a whistleblower
A St. Paul pharmacist will receive a $2.6 million settlement payment from CVS Pharmacy after she blew the whistle on Medicaid co-pay overpayments. The retail pharmacy division of CVS Caremark Corp. agreed last week to pay $17.5 million to settle allegations that it routinely overbilled the government’s Medicaid prescription programs in 10 states, including [...]
More lawyer incivility: No breaks for expectant dad.
Thanks to the Lowering the Bar blog, we have more evidence to support Judge Quam’s observations about lawyers behaving badly and hurting their own cause. A case was scheduled to go to trial when the defense requested a postponement because the wife of one of its lawyer’s was due to have a baby about [...]
