In the News
Wal-Mart Wins Request in Bias Case
Wal-Mart Stores won its request for a review of a court ruling that allowed as many as 2 million current and former female workers to proceed with the biggest sex-discrimination case in the nation's history. A federal appeals court in San Francisco yesterday granted Wal-Mart's request to rehear the case. In December 2007, a three-judge panel upheld a lower-court ruling granting class-action, or group, status to the women. Wal-Mart sought a rehearing before a larger panel of judges. Read the full story.
Tyco Pensioners Granted Class Action
People employed by Tyco International Ltd. when it was run by corrupt executives have won class action status for their lawsuit charging deception by the conglomerate's retirement savings plan. The employees claim Tyco hid the true value of the company when offering its stock as an investment option in the plan and knew the stock was a bad investment. Read the full story.
Labor department sues mortgage broker over back pay
The U.S. Department of Labor has filed a lawsuit against a mortgage broker with [Florida] operations, alleging the company owes at least 200 loan officers more than $239,000 in back pay. Ohio-based Alliance Mortgage Group Inc. and Credit Financial Services did not pay its overtime-eligible loan officers properly, providing only a monthly commission and in some cases wages that were lower than the federal minimum wage, the department's Wage and Hour division said in a statement. Read the full story.
Costco Ignored Sex Bias Warnings, Employees Say
Costco Wholesale Corp. ignored internal warnings that female workers couldn't get promoted, and Chief Executive Jim Sinegal opposed recommendations to post notices for all management positions, employees suing the company claim. Read the full story.
Court Rules Target Must Make Website Accessible to the Blind
A federal district court judge ruled that a retailer may be sued if its website is inaccessible to the blind. The ruling was issued in a case brought by the National Federation of the Blind against Target Corp. The Court denied Target's motion to dismiss and held that the federal and state civil rights laws do apply to a website such as target.com. Read the full story.
Company Settles Katrina Workers' Suit
A construction company specializing in disaster recovery settled a lawsuit with migrant workers who were denied overtime even though they often worked long hours cleaning up wreckage left by Hurricane Katrina. Under the settlement entered in U.S. District Court, roughly 2,000 workers are eligible to apply for missed overtime payments, said Jennifer Rosenbaum, an attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center. Read the full story.
Justice Department Lawyers Lose Appeal on Overtime Pay
There's no dispute that Justice Department lawyers worked overtime and on holidays, and there's evidence the lawyers were "expected and induced" to work extra hours. But that's not enough to win back pay, a federal court ruled yesterday. Read the full story.
Rite Aid's Job Surveys Defeat Its Anti-Class Arguments
When Senior U.S. District Judge Thelton Henderson handed down a key ruling in an employment suit against Rite Aid last week, his decision to certify a class of more than 1,000 store managers wasn't necessarily the most troubling part for the defense bar. There also was the fact that much of the evidence to support his decision came paid for and delivered by Rite Aid itself. Read the full story.
End Open-Ended Litigation
The Patagonian toothfish sold much better once a marketing association renamed it Chilean sea bass, though most such fish are neither Chilean nor bass. The Association of Trial Lawyers of America, which acquired a bad reputation over the years, is apparently seeking a similar rebirth by renaming itself the American Association for Justice. Read the full story.
FedEx Drivers’ Privacy Shielded in Class-action Suit
Delivering a small victory to FedEx workers in a sprawling class-action lawsuit, a court has struck down the company's request that the plaintiffs turn over their tax records in order to pursue their claims of labor-law violations. Read the full story.
Man Sues Labor Ready Over Fees to Collect Pay
An Elmira man is suing Labor Ready Inc. accusing the Washington state-based manual labor temporary employment service with illegally charging its clients a nominal fee for opting to receive their earnings in cash at the end of each workday. If the lawsuit is successful and is granted class-action status, Labor Ready may be required to pay millions of dollars to the temporary workers from New York state who are covered by the lawsuit. Read the full story.
Sex-Bias Suit Settled For $15M
Settlement Agreement & Consent Decree
Former and current female employees of C.H. Robinson Worldwide will share in a $15 million settlement ordered by a federal judge Tuesday, ending a 4-year-old case alleging gender discrimination in pay and promotion. Read the full story.
Class Actions Allow Stronger Collective Voice, Attorney Says
When David Robinson's father died in August, the Robinson family thought the pain of losing a parent and a husband would be the only challenge they would face in the coming weeks. But, as it turned out, the problems were only beginning. Read the full story.
More sue for unpaid time
Thousands of workers...around the country are challenging workplace policies they say force them to work unpaid overtime, use their own money for company purposes or fudge work time reports. In the past five years alone, the number of private lawsuits involving multiple employees and their employers has grown by 77 percent, according to data generated for the National Employment Lawyers Association. Read the full story.
Suing dealers welcome at jobs
Wynn Las Vegas' president said Friday that the dealers who filed a lawsuit seeking to end the casino's 3-week-old tip pooling program are welcome at their jobs. Wynn Las Vegas dealers Daniel Baldonado and Joseph Cesarz are seeking class action status for the lawsuit, in which the dealers say the casino's policy, which calls for tokes earned by dealers to be split with casino supervisors, violates Nevada state law covering tip pooling. Read the full story.
Lowe's settles class action suit over employee pay
Lowe's Home Centers has agreed to settle a long-running class action lawsuit claiming the company underpaid employees. In court documents filed this week in U.S. District Court in Kansas, the Mooresville, N.C.-based company and plaintiffs in the case said they had reached a settlement. But before filing the agreement, they wanted a judge to allow them to keep the details secret for now. Read the full story.
Federal judge OKs class-action tobacco suit
It's a lawsuit a federal judge calls "vexing" and compares to a pointillist painting: tens of millions of light cigarette smokers seeking up to $200 billion in damages from tobacco companies. But in a blow to Big Tobacco, U.S. District Judge Jack Weinstein ruled yesterday that despite its complexities, the case should go to trial next year as a class-action suit. Read the full story.
A New York Federal Judge Certifies a Nationwide RICO Class Action Against Big Tobacco: An Aggressive Decision that Pushed Legal Limits
On Monday, September 25, Big Tobacco got a rude reminder that its legal woes are not over yet. In Schwab v. Philip Morris, Federal Judge Jack Weinstein of the Eastern District of New York certified a nationwide class action against the tobacco industry, involving the sale of "light" or low tar cigarettes. The decision, to put it mildly, has made it clear that the plaintiffs' bar still poses a threat to the industry. Read the full story.
Does the Americans with Disabilities Act Require that Commercial Websites Be Accessible to the Blind?
Just last month, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel of the Northern District of California ruled that the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) applies to some commercial websites. The holding was the first of its kind. Unless Judge Patel's ruling is reversed on appeal, its upshot will likely be that many retail websites - in particular, those intrinsically linked to companies' brick-and-mortar operations - will have to start complying with the ADA. Read the full story.
Denny's Accused of Discrimination
The federal government sued Denny's restaurants Thursday, alleging that a manager who had a leg amputated was wrongly fired because her superiors believed she posed a safety risk. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the class-action lawsuit accusing Denny's of discriminating against Paula Hart and other unnamed employees. Read the full story.
Judge Sides with Halliburton over Iraq Overtime Claim
Reuters reported Thursday that U.S. employees working in Iraq won't be getting paid millions of dollars in overtime wages from Halliburton Co., after a judge ruled in favor of the oilfield services firm. U.S. District Court Judge Melinda Harmon agreed with Houston-based Halliburton's contention that, although the Pentagon contract called for overtime wages to be paid in Iraq, U.S. laws governing military contracts allow only workers employed inside the United States to receive the overtime pay. Read the full story.
Tyson Settles Discrimination Dispute
Springdale-based Tyson Foods Inc. has agreed to pay $1.5 million to approximately 2,500 women and minorities who were not hired between 2002 and 2004 at six of its facilities. The company entered into three consent decrees to settle the findings of hiring discrimination reported by the U.S. Labor Department’s Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs, the government said. Read the full story.
Woodward to pay $5M in bias suit
Aerospace and industrial controls manufacturer Woodward Governor agreed to pay eligible employees from its Rockton and Loves Park [Illinois] operations $5 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for discrimination against minority and female employees. Jennifer Soule of the Chicago firm Soule, Bradtke & Lambert, which represented the Woodward minority workers, said the agreement will equal the playing field in terms of advancement, compensation and training for Woodward employees. Read the full story.
Wells Fargo will pay $12.8 million to settle overtime suit
Wells Fargo & Co., the fifth-largest U.S. bank, agreed to pay $12.8 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed some workers were improperly exempted from overtime pay. The suit claimed Wells Fargo unlawfully characterized business-systems employees who performed routine tasks as "analysts" or "consultants," making them ineligible for overtime. As many as 4,500 people are covered by the settlement. Read the full story.
Longtime Chief of National Plaintiffs Shop to Launch Aviation Boutique
After more than 30 years as a name partner at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein, Robert Lieff is stepping down and starting a new aviation firm: Lieff Global, which is slated to take off with about five lawyers Jan. 1. But Lieff won't be going far: He will remain of counsel at the firm he helped found. Read the full story.
Rudy Exelrod Settles Malpractice Suit
It's a nightmare scenario for class action plaintiffs lawyers: win a big judgment, then get sued because some clients thought you should have won more. For Steven Zieff and his partners at San Francisco's Rudy, Exelrod & Zieff, the nightmare is finally over -- but it cost a hefty payout to make it go away. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart Hit With $78.5M Verdict in Pa. Break-Time Class Action
By and large agreeing with the plaintiffs' suggestions on damages, a Philadelphia jury has awarded nearly $78.5 million to a class of some 186,000 current and former employees of Pennsylvania Wal-Marts who may not have been properly paid for missed rest breaks and off-the-clock work. The award roughly reflects the total amount asked for by lead class counsel Michael Donovan of Donovan Searles in Philadelphia during his damages-related closing argument Friday morning. Read the full story.
Workers Sue Santa Barbara Paper Over OT
A former reporter for the embattled Santa Barbara News-Press sued the paper Wednesday, claiming it failed to keep accurate time records and stiffed employees out of overtime pay. The lawsuit, filed on behalf of former reporter Hildy Medina, seeks class-action status for as many as 200 past and present employees. It is common for employers to unintentionally violate California's strict employment laws, said plaintiffs' attorney Bruce Anticouni, who filed the lawsuit in Santa Barbara Superior Court. Read the full story.
Tyson Workers Gain Class-Action Status for Lawsuit Against Company
A federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit that contends Tyson Foods Inc., the world's largest meat producer, depressed wages by hiring illegal immigrants at eight plants in Tennessee, Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Texas and Virginia. Howard W. Foster of Chicago, an attorney for Tyson employees, described the ruling as a "very big step." It allows him to seek damages for thousands of workers at the eight plants instead of just the four original plaintiffs. Read the full story.
9th Circuit: UPS Can't Refuse to Consider Hearing-Impaired Drivers
A 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled Tuesday that United Parcel Service violated the Americans with Disabilities Act by refusing to consider hearing-impaired workers for driving positions. At issue was UPS' policy mandating that its drivers pass a government hearing test, even though the test isn't required to operate many of the company's vehicles. Read the full story.
They pay but deny any guilt
What is the primary function of a class-action lawsuit? If it's to punish a company monetarily for an alleged misdeed, then the system seems to be working fairly well, considering the hundreds of millions of dollars handed out in settlements each year. But if the primary purpose of class-action suits is to hold companies accountable for their actions -- and hopefully to learn from their mistakes -- then the system is failing miserably in light of a key aspect of virtually all settlements: No one takes any blame. Read the full story.
Spurned Chrysler worker takes case to cyberspace
A Janesville, Wis., woman has started a Web site hoping to drum up interest in filing a class-action lawsuit against DaimlerChrysler for hiring workers under what she feels were false pretenses. Kim Franke, a 37-year-old single mother of two teenage daughters, said she quit a solid job in Janesville to work at Chrysler's assembly plant in Belvidere this summer for what she thought was a full-time permanent position. Franke said that she didn't learn it was a temporary position until employee orientation -- a charge Chrysler officials deny -- and that by then it was too late to get her old job back. Read the full story.
Study: Companies nationwide are fit for suits
Sometimes it's good to be an attorney. Now, apparently, is one of those times. According to a recent survey of companies' in-house counsel commissioned by the international law firm Fulbright & Jaworski, people and companies are suing each other more than ever. Read the full story.
Judge Says Jury Must Hear Age Bias Case Against Allstate
A federal district judge in St. Louis ruled yesterday that a jury must hear evidence on whether the Allstate Insurance Company discriminated against older insurance agents when it adopted a plan seven years ago to cut costs and streamline the company's operations. In the decision, Federal District Judge E. Richard Webber said that lawyers for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission had presented strong enough evidence of discrimination that "a reasonable jury could find" that Allstate violated anti-discrimination laws. Read the full story.
Banking Industry Faces High Stakes in BofA's Appeal of Class Action
The money that's riding on the appeal in a class action against Bank of America is almost unfathomable. Consider the stakes: A San Francisco judge awarded $284 million in compensatory damages and restitution to the class represented by The Sturdevant Law Firm and the Brandi Law Firm -- plus statutory damages likely to surpass $1 billion. Read the full story.
9th Circuit Rejects Overtime for Adjusters in Farmer's Insurance Class Action
A 9th Circuit ruling on an overtime case was a deep disappointment -- and a bit of a surprise -- to employment plaintiffs lawyers last week. The class action against Farmer's Insurance Exchange sought overtime pay for claims adjusters allegedly misclassified as exempt, and was modeled on suits that have brought about plaintiff verdicts and high-dollar settlements in state court. But the 9th Circuit left no doubt that it found every member of the class to be exempt. Read the full story.
State AGs Eschew Class Action Fairness Act Review
Twenty months after the Class Action Fairness Act took effect, state attorneys general have not exactly raced to exercise the power the act grants them to review class action settlements. In addition to greatly extending federal jurisdiction over class actions, CAFA requires defendants to notify state attorneys general and federal regulators of proposed settlement agreements. The purpose of the notification is to prevent attorneys from crafting abusive settlements favoring lawyers over consumers. But few attorneys general have taken up the cudgel. Read the full story.
Ex-collectors may file class-action suit vs. NFL
For 15 years, Tom Taylor says, collecting urine specimens from NFL players was a nice retirement gig. Taylor was one of the league's original drug program agents from the program's beginnings in 1988 through the 1991 Super Bowl, until he retired three years ago. But Taylor is one of a handful of former DPAs who want the NFL to make good on a debt. After two DPAs asked the IRS for a ruling on their employment status this year, the agency agreed that they are employees, not independent contractors as the NFL has claimed, and thus should be entitled to all the benefits an employee is due. Read the full story.
Sixteen plaintiffs join Merrill racial bias lawsuit
Sixteen current and former black employees of Merrill Lynch & Co. are seeking to join a lawsuit accusing the largest U.S. retail brokerage of racial discrimination. The year-old lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, accuses Merrill of systematic and pervasive discrimination against African-American brokers and trainees nationwide in hiring, promotion and compensation. Read the full story.
Lilly spokeswoman: Race discrimination suit without merit
A spokeswoman for Eli Lilly and Co. says a race discrimination lawsuit filed against the company in April over employment practices is without merit. The lawsuit seeks class-action status on behalf of more than 1,000 black employees nationwide who attorneys said might have faced the same kinds of discrimination over the past three years. Read the full story.
Merrill Discrimination Suit Moves Forward After Failed Settlement Talks
She Lost Her Job Because Grade on Her Exam Was Wrong
After an eight-year career marketing mutual funds, Linda Cutler says, she felt like a failure when [told she had failed] the Series 7 broker qualifying exam on Feb. 7, 2005. In January 2006, NASD announced that it had mistakenly flunked 1,882 of the 60,500 Series 7 test takers from October 2004 to December 2005. Cutler was among the wrongly failed. Cutler and other plaintiffs are seeking an as yet undetermined amount of money and attorneys fees in the lawsuit, which seeks class-action, or group, status. Read the full story.
Balestriere PLLC Files Class Action Complaint Against NASD
Fee Fight Ensues After Approval of $125M Class Action Settlement
A $125 million New Jersey class action settlement between a tool company and its franchisees was just being minted when a wrench fell into the works: a dispute over how to divide $13 million in legal fees. The question is whether the two plaintiffs firms should split 50-50 or 60-40 the excess of the fees after each firm's lodestar and expenses are paid. And it may come down to which firm can show its efforts were more integral to success. Read the full story.
On Wall Street, a Question of Bias
Will Tort Reform Fade as New Priorities Emerge for Congress?
The day after the Nov. 7 election, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce announced a poll showing that Americans want the new Congress to continue to reform the lawsuit system. And the Association of Trial Lawyers of America announced that candidates who supported the civil justice system won, and the "vast majority" of those who attacked the system and trial lawyers lost. Of the two organizations, guess which one will have to knock harder on the doors of a Democratic-controlled Congress? Read the full story.
Merck Drops Some Objections to Vioxx Plaintiffs Lawyers' Fee Request
Merck & Co. agreed to drop some of its objections to plaintiffs lawyers' request for fees in a Vioxx case, but only if it doesn't have to disclose its own legal fees to a judge. Plaintiffs lawyer Ellen Relkin said Merck dropped some of its objections because it fears a New Jersey judge may publicly disclose what it spent on a trial that ended earlier this year. Read the full story.
Attorneys gathering witnesses in American Indian farmers' discrimination lawsuit
Attorneys for American Indian farmers and ranchers are gathering information and witnesses for a discrimination case against the federal government. Attorneys planned to meet Thursday in North Dakota to collect data for the lawsuit, which was filed in 1999. The lawsuit alleges the U.S. Department of Agriculture discriminated against native Americans in the granting of loans beginning in 1981. "This is an information-gathering trip - we want to reach out to people in South Dakota about the case," said Joe Sellers, lead attorney for the American Indians. Read the full story.
Judge in Costco Discrimination Case Highly Skeptical of Gender Theory
For future reference, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel does not like the argument that women don't get certain jobs because they simply don't want them. That was a key theme at a Tuesday hearing over class certification in the Costco gender discrimination case. The plaintiffs, women middle managers, argue that the warehouse retail chain illegally denies them opportunities to become higher-paid top managers. Read the full story.
Fair labor standards trip up corporations
Keith Pyburn Jr., managing partner of the Fisher & Phillips New Orleans law firm office, said litigation over the Fair Labor Standards Act was rare from 1980 to 2000. Not any more. “For the last five years, I have seen more cases concerning this act,” Pyburn said. “It’s like people literally went to sleep on this law and now the creature has awakened.” Read the full story.
Judge rebukes tree firm of Leslie
An Arkansas-based treeplanting service was reprimanded this week by a federal judge in New Orleans, according to documents filed Monday in U. S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. Express Forestry Inc. of Leslie and its officers — Rick Thomas and Sandy Thomas — all defendants in a class-action lawsuit, had appealed an August magistrate’s order that imposed sanctions for “flouting” the orders of the court. Read the full story.
Court OKs ex-Boeing workers' class action
A class action lawsuit by former Boeing Wichita workers against Boeing Co., Spirit AeroSystems and Onex Corp. has received conditional class certification. The move allows the suit to proceed as a class action. The workers allege that they were terminated from Boeing or refused employment with Spirit because of their age. Read the full story.
Boston Market settles class action claims by 7,000 workers
The Boston Market Corp. agreed to pay up to $14 million in cash and benefits to settle a pair of class action lawsuits brought by nearly 7,000 current and former employees. Attorneys said the settlement, announced Tuesday, guarantees $3.75 million in cash payments to workers and changes in future pay scales worth an estimated $10.3 million. The Golden, Colo.-based restaurant chain also agreed to reclassify some workers, change how hours are kept and offer training in Spanish, said L. Tracee Lorens, a lawyer representing the employees. Read the full story.
EEOC and Chase Reach $2.2 Million Settlement in Disability Discrimination Claim
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and JPMorgan Chase & Co. (Chase) announced the $2.2 million settlement of a claim brought under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) against Bank One Corporation. The EEOC issued an administrative determination on March 11, 2004, finding that there was reasonable cause to believe that Bank One violated the ADA by failing to properly accommodate a group of employees who were medically released to return to work after leaves of absence exceeding six months. Read the full story.
IBM settles overtime lawsuit for $65 million
International Business Machines Corp. has settled a federal class-action lawsuit, agreeing to pay a total of $65 million to 32,000 technology workers who claimed the company illegally withheld overtime pay. The suit was filed in January in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on behalf of three employees who said they were forced to work more than 40 hours per week and on weekends without additional compensation. Read the full story.
Siebel to pay $27.5 million in OT lawsuit
In what may be one of the largest settlements of a wage-and-hour lawsuit brought by computer professionals, Siebel Systems Inc. likely will pay up to $27.5 million to settle an overtime class action complaint on behalf of its software engineers. The agreement with Siebel, which was acquired by Oracle Corp. on Jan. 31, covers approximately 800 California employees with the job title "software engineer" or "senior software engineer" who worked for the company between Jan. 16, 2000, and Oct. 7, 2005. Class members are expected to recover, on average, approximately $27,000. Read the full story.
Pillowtex offers settlement
Some 1,220 former nonunion workers at now-defunct Pillowtex have received a proposed settlement averaging $2,100 for employment-related claims. But because of taxes and legal fees from their class-action suit against the one-time textile giant, they will net an average of $727. Read the full story.
Lieff Cabraser Heavyweight Bolts for Altshuler
Employment and securities heavyweight James Finberg is leaving Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein in January for a much smaller San Francisco litigation firm. On Jan. 1, he and employment partner Eve Cervantez will join Altshuler, Berzon, Nussbaum, Rubin & Demain. Read the full story.
Davis v. Kraft Foods Memorandum & Order
Lawsuit on tip pooling at Wynn thrown out
A District Court judge on Wednesday tossed out a lawsuit brought by two dealers from Wynn Las Vegas who sought to end the Strip casino's recently implemented and much debated tip pooling policy. In his decision, Judge Douglas Herndon said there was no contract of employment between the dealers and Wynn, which meant that Nevada law allows an employer to change any tip pooling policies. Read the full story.
Federal Judge Won't Recognize Employers' 'Self-Critical Analysis Privilege'
Employers cannot invoke the so-called "self-critical analysis privilege" in refusing to turn over internal documents in an employment discrimination case, a federal judge has ruled. In the proposed class action suit, lead plaintiff Debra Davis claims that Kraft Foods has discriminated against African-American employees in its Philadelphia bakery -- a former Nabisco bakery acquired by Kraft in 2000 -- on issues of job discipline and classification. Read the full story.
Judge encourages Coke to keep new diversity
A federal judge Friday encouraged The Coca-Cola Co. to maintain its commitment to diversity in the workplace after receiving the final report from a task force born from a $200 million discrimination settlement by the world's largest beverage maker. "I challenge you to keep it as a critical part of the manifesto," U.S. District Judge Richard Story told Coca-Cola executives. Read the full story.
Suit alleges scheme to stiff nurses
Six metro Detroit hospital systems colluded to suppress registered nurse wages, contributing to nursing shortages and holding back nurses from pay hikes, a lawsuit filed last week alleges. The lawsuit, filed Friday in Detroit's U.S. District Court, seeks an estimated $340 million for 16,800 registered nurses working full-time since 2002 at the six hospitals, according to Daniel Small, a partner with Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll, a Washington, D.C., law firm that filed the lawsuit with James & Hoffman, also of Washington, D.C. It hopes to establish the group as a class action. Read the full story.
Telecommuters Are Reaching Out to Sue Their Employers
A new class action brought by telecommuters of Cigna Healthcare of California Inc. who say they were denied overtime and severance pay highlights the growth of a new type of legal dispute facing companies across the nation. The Cigna case, which alleges that the company denied former home-based medical claims processors overtime and mileage compensation for traveling to and from mandatory meetings during the workday, follows a flood of cases filed by auto insurance claims adjusters in the past several years. Read the full story.
Featherlite faces class action lawsuit
The Iowa Court of Appeals filed a document recently saying it is upholding the Iowa District Court's decision to accept a class action lawsuit against Featherlite Manufacturing, Inc., Cresco, affecting the vacation time of approximately 700 production employees. Read the full story.
A Federal Court of Appeals Revives a Class Action Seeking Compensation for Slavery in America
Efforts to hold corporate America accountable for slavery got an unexpected boost last week, when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit revived a massive class action litigation that had been dismissed by a federal district court in Chicago. The decision, which was authored by Judge Richard Posner, is a bit of a paradox: It offers the standard conservative analysis of the slavery claims, while also introducing an extremely liberal interpretation of state consumer fraud laws. Read the full story.
Galeno v. Blockbuster, Inc.
Denial of motion to remand a class action -- involving disgruntled customers of Blockbuster alleging that the "no late fee" program is a decptive forced sale scheme -- to state court is vacated as the district court made no findings and offered no explanation as to how it calculated the amount in controversy here to be more than $5 million, the jurisdictional amount. [Sign in required.] Read the full story.
2nd Circuit: Burden Rests on Defendant to Keep Class Action in Federal Court
A class action defendant has the burden of proof in attempting to remove a case to federal court, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in interpreting a 2005 law designed to expand federal jurisdiction over class actions. Read the full story.
Hitting the High Points of the New EDD Rules
The last time the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure were amended to deal with electronic evidence, eight-track tapes were the hot technology, the Internet and cell phones were the stuff of science fiction and computers were room-sized behemoths owned by corporations, universities and governments. Times have changed, and the rules have again changed with the times. These amendments took effect on Dec. 1, 2006. Read the full story.
McAfee Employees' Suit Reveals New Options Dynamic
A new breach-of-contract lawsuit against McAfee may be the first in a wave of similar actions against companies that are barring current and former employees from exercising stock options during ongoing stock option backdating investigations. Seven former McAfee employees, represented by Burlingame, Calif.'s Cotchett, Pitre Simon & McCarthy, say they were cheated out of about $2 million total because the company did not permit them to exercise stock options that then expired during the software company's self-imposed "blackout" period. Read the full story.
OC judge may toss suit blaming Wal-Mart for 3rd World sweatshops
An Orange County judge is expected to toss a class-action lawsuit blaming Wal-Mart for alleged sweatshop conditions in five Third World counties that supply the retail giant. The suit, filed on behalf of garment factory workers in China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland and Nicaragua, alleged Wal-Mart broke a promise to enforce its "Standards for Suppliers" demanding foreign companies obey local labor laws and treat workers fairly. Read the full story.
Sales reps sue drug companies for overtime
Susan Schaefer LaRose quit her sales job in May after 18 years with pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co., frustrated by long work weeks that frequently encroached on weekends and vacations. And then she sued. Her lawsuit, part of a series of class action claims filed last month against nine major drug companies, seeks tens of millions of dollars in back pay for the thousands of drug company salespeople across the country. Read the full story.
What In-House Counsel Should Know About Recent Calif. Employment Class Actions
During the past decade California employers have been besieged by class action lawsuits alleging violations of the California Labor Code, Wage Orders and dozens of other employment laws. Many of the initial lawsuits attacked the exempt classification of retail store managers, often including claims that the employer failed to comply with requirements to provide meal periods or breaks. Faced with the many expensive and disruptive procedural hurdles placed squarely in the path of class action defendants who contested liability, retailers paid millions in settlements, frequently choosing to reclassify as non-exempt even those managers who met exempt criteria in order to avoid repeated lawsuits. Read the full story.
Immigrant workers sue bus firm
The parent company of Minnesota City Bus Co., which runs school busses for Winona Area Public Schools, is being sued by a group of immigrant workers for harassment. Nine current and former employees of MV Transportation Inc. filed a lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court. The workers said they were harassed and abused because of their immigrant status and Muslim beliefs. Read the full story.
'Apprentice' Reject Sues Donald Trump
Richard J. Hewett never heard "You're fired!" — but he's suing Donald Trump anyway. The rejected applicant for NBC's "The Apprentice" is suing the real estate mogul, claiming he was turned away because of age discrimination. Hewett was 49 when he was rejected in July 2005, and claims in his lawsuit filed last week in U.S. District Court that only two of the finalists covering six seasons have been over 40. He alleges Trump and the show's producers are in violation of the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Read the full story.
Costco Bias Suit Is Given Class-Action Status
A federal judge granted class-action status yesterday to a lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 700 female workers at Costco Wholesale claiming that the retailer had systematically discriminated against women seeking jobs as managers. In the lawsuit, the lead plaintiff — a former assistant store manager who was upset about not being made a store manager — asserts that Costco discriminated against women in promotions because 13 percent of the company’s store managers were women, while nearly half of its employees were women. Read the full story.
Order Granting Class Certification
Do Your Employees Qualify For Overtime?
She's well compensated. He's a manager. They're all on salary. These are some of the common reasons employers give to explain why they do not pay their employees overtime. But in many cases these reasons are not legally valid. That's something business owners have been learning the hard way. Indeed, the number of overtime lawsuits has exploded over the past couple of years. In 2005, class-action suits involving wages surpassed discrimination cases as the most widespread work force class action, according to a recent study by Chicago law firm Seyfarth Shaw. Read the full story.
Goodyear settles suit alleging sex bias
The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. will pay $925,000 to about 800 women who were denied tire-building jobs at the Akron company's Danville, Va., plant in the late 1990s. The U.S. Department of Labor announced the settlement Tuesday. The department had said in June it was suing Goodyear over what it called discriminatory hiring practices at the Virginia plant. Read the full story.
Supreme Court refuses to hear IBM pension, workplace retaliation cases
The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to consider an appeal brought by a group of IBM Corp. employees who accused the company of age discrimination when it altered its pension plan. The lawsuit could have cost the company $1.4 billion. The court also declined to rule on a separate dispute between IBM and a former employee who accused the company of retaliating against him after he complained about how company managers handled overtime. In the pension case, a former IBM employee named Kathi Cooper served as the lead plaintiff in a class-action suit brought on behalf of 250,000 current and former IBM workers. Read the full story.
Recent Class Action Rulings Offer Good News for Employers
Reports of multimillion-dollar settlements of class (or "collective") actions under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 have been so rampant that the casual observer could be excused for believing that, for employers on the class action front, the news is dismal. Surely, the evidence is hard to ignore. But the news is not all grim. A number of recent developments in the class action world suggest a turning of the tide, at least with respect to employment discrimination cases. Read the full story.
E-Loan settles class action suit
E-Loan Inc. has agreed to pay $13.6 million to 506 mortgage loan consultants in California to settle a class action lawsuit filed against the provider of online financial services. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted preliminary approval of the settlement on Jan. 11. The suit claimed that the Pleasanton company did not pay the workers overtime or provide them with meal and rest breaks. Lawyers at Oakland-based Goldstein, Demchak, Baller, Borgen & Dardarian said they expect class members to yield an average $20,000 from the settlement. Read the full story.
Judge denies Microsoft attempt to link plaintiffs with attorney
A judge has rejected Microsoft attorneys' request to question named plaintiffs about their friendship with a Des Moines lawyer who is arguing the case. Judge Scott Rosenberg ruled Friday that Microsoft attorneys could not ask the named plaintiffs about their relationship with attorney Roxanne Conlin. The company's lawyers wanted to question the plaintiffs, arguing that Conlin had referred to them during jury selection as "just regular people who bought software" and who volunteered to step forward to sue Microsoft. Read the full story.
Target settles race-bias suit
Minneapolis-based Target Corp. agreed Friday to pay $775,000 to a group of black store workers in Pennsylvania to settle a race-discrimination and retaliation case. The EEOC filed the lawsuit in September 2005 on behalf of former employee Michael Hill and 13 other black employees of a Springfield, Pa., store. Read the full story.
AmericanWest seeks to deflect class-action suit
Spokane-based AmericanWest Bank is seeking to decertify the class-action status granted to a lawsuit filed by a former loan officer who claims the bank breached an employment agreement when it discontinued an incentive-based compensation plan. The class members are former and current loan officers at AmericanWest who worked under a two-year compensation plan that ended after six months, at the end of 2004. Read the full story.
Digest compiles class-action law data
Want to know how much the attorneys who sued Boston Chicken charged their clients for legal fees? Or how many hours they logged on the case? Those scouring the nation's judicial systems for attorney fee information in class-action lawsuits now have a single source of reference: the Class Action Attorney Fee Digest, a monthly periodical devoted to compiling attorney fee statistics. Read the full story.
Former Lead Plaintiff's Guilty Plea May Spell Trouble for Lawyer Lerach
Superstar plaintiffs lawyer William Lerach has remained outside the reach of investigators looking at a kickback scheme at his former firm, Milberg Weiss, but a guilty plea might change that. Steven Cooperman admitted to taking payments for serving as lead plaintiff in class actions filed by Milberg Weiss over 12 years. Court documents filed Wednesday also appear to put "Partner B," long believed to be Lerach, at the heart of the lucrative kickback scheme. Read the full story.
Brokers' $45 Million Overtime Class Action Deal Nears Approval
Not long ago, Kevin McInerney thought his overtime class action against UBS Financial Services was "optimistically" worth $180 million. Entering settlement talks, the Reno, Nev. lawyer downgraded that assessment to about $100 million. But by the time the case wound up before a federal judge, McInerney was hoping his stockbroker clients would come out with a $45 million settlement. Read the full story.
Class-action suits get access to files
Lawyers who file class-action lawsuits over defective products are entitled to the names of customers who have complained about those products, unless a customer objects to disclosure, the state Supreme Court ruled recently. The unanimous decision was a victory for attorneys and their clients in consumer suits as well as employment and civil rights cases, in which lawyers want to contact possible victims and witnesses at an early stage to strengthen and expand their claims. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart faces historic sex bias case
The biggest sexual discrimination case in U.S. history advanced against Wal-Mart Stores Inc. on Tuesday when a top court ruled that more than a million women could join a suit charging bias in pay and promotions. The plaintiffs estimate they could win billions of dollars in lost pay and damages and that as many as two million women who have worked for Wal-Mart in its U.S. stores since 1998 could join a class-action lawsuit. "It is time for Wal-Mart to face the music," Brad Seligman, a lawyer for The Impact Fund, a nonprofit group in Berkeley, California representing the female plaintiffs, told reporters. Read the full story.
Ex-Nextel workers claim bias settlement was rigged
A group of former Nextel employees from New Jersey alleges that their former lawyers struck a sweetheart deal with the wireless communications giant to cap a settlement of their discrimination claims. The five plaintiffs -- all former employees at Nextel's Rutherford office -- are suing both the law firm and the company individually and as representatives of a larger class of at least 500 people. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart sex discrimination suit advances
A sex discrimination suit against Wal-Mart on behalf of 2 million female employees, the nation's largest-ever civil rights suit, moved a step closer to trial Tuesday when a federal appeals court upheld its class-action status, a ruling that allows a jury to review the company's nationwide practices in pay and promotions. Statistics and expert analyses offered by the women's lawyers, and declarations from 120 past and present employees, contain "significant proof of a corporate policy of discrimination and support plaintiffs' contention that female employees nationwide were subjected to a common pattern and practice of discrimination,'' said the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in a 2-1 ruling. Read the full story.
Court says Wal-Mart must face bias trial
A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world's largest private employer, must face a class-action lawsuit alleging as many as 1.5 million former and current female employees were discriminated against in pay and promotions. Read the full story.
The Federal Appellate Decision for the Plaintiffs in the Sex Discrimination Class Action Against Wal-Mart: What Will Wal-Mart Do Next?
In August 2004, a federal district court certified the largest class action in the history of the nation: a suit brought on behalf of 1.5 - 2.0 million women who have worked at Wal-Mart since 1998. Last week, the Ninth Circuit issued its decision in the appeal -- and Wal-Mart lost. In this column, I will discuss where Wal-Mart goes from here. Read the full story.
Seligman, Fights Wal-Mart in Bias Case, Rarely Loses
Brad Seligman, the California attorney who this week won a ruling on behalf of female workers claiming discrimination by Wal-Mart Stores Inc., developed his distrust of large companies as a teenager. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart Seeks Rehearing in Class-Action Decision
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. of Bentonville will seek a rehearing of Tuesday's decision to proceed with the Betty Dukes class-action lawsuit. A panel of three judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit decided 2-1 to allow the nation's largest sexual discrimination lawsuit. But Wal-Mart wants a larger panel of judges to make a decision. Read the full story.
Supreme Court to Hear Companion Worker Overtime Pay Lawsuit
Particularly in the case of around-the-clock help or "live-in" companions, [home health care] agencies can make quality homecare affordable to seniors and still derive a modest profit in part because, under current law, "companion" workers are exempt from payment of overtime and minimum wage law under the Federal Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, however, is litigation that, depending on the outcome, may result in the extinction of the companionship exemption for third-party employers such as homecare agencies. Read the full story.
Company to Pay $5M to Settle Bias Suits
A federal judge has given final approval to a $5 million settlement resolving two consolidated class action lawsuits against Woodward Governor, settling allegations that the company engaged in illegal discrimination against African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asians at its Rockford and Rockton, Illinois, facilities with respect to pay, promotions, and training. Read the full story.
Dental hygienist's lawsuit says she was denied overtime
A dental hygienist who worked for one month in the Stockton office of a dental chain with clinics statewide has filed a class-action lawsuit claiming she was cheated out of rest breaks and overtime pay. Tami Ware, 43, of Discovery Bay claims SmileCare overscheduled patients, forcing her to work nonstop for more than eight hours a day. Read the full story.
Nonprofit Litigates Largest Employment Discrimination Class Action Ever to Go to Trial
Attorney Brad Seligman was on a hunt to find out whatever he could about Wal-Mart Stores Inc. after hearing about a potential claim of alleged sex discrimination against the retailer in 1999. "I called up my friend, another attorney, and he immediately said, 'evil empire,' " said Seligman, executive director and founder of a nonprofit group called The Impact Fund, located in Berkeley, Calif. "Then I called another friend, who is an economist, and he also indicated the same." Read the full story.
Judge: Plaintiffs in Wal-Mart Discrimination Class Action Can Depose Former Executive
The last time Northern District of California Judge Martin Jenkins heard arguments in a major gender discrimination suit against Wal-Mart, he certified a class of what is now an estimated 2 million of the company's female employees. Three years later, he gave the plaintiffs some more good news. Read the full story.
California’s Wage And Hour Class Action Epidemic: Updates And Solutions
Wage and hour class actions have moved to the forefront of employment litigation in California, due primarily to multimillion dollar settlements. Aside from the lucrative rewards, these class actions have spread in scope and popularity as they are easier to marshal than traditional employment related claims. With a singular focus on a particular job classification, a systematic process can be established. Even after resolving class action cases, Companies find on-going liability with "copy-cat" suits brought by different groups of workers alleging similar violations. Read the full story.
NAACP heightens focus on Eli Lilly
Hundreds of current and former African-American employees’ descriptions of pervasive, unfair termination rates, pay discrimination and hostile working environments at Eli Lilly led to a major class action lawsuit against the global pharmaceutical company. The NAACP, though its Greater Indianapolis Branch, has now joined the suit with the support of other national and community-based organizations. Read the full story.
Diversity, for Better or Worse
One of the most interesting (and, from my perspective, unexpected) developments in the legal profession recently has been the enormous focus on diversity. Within the past few years, established and emerging businesses have rapidly implemented diversity programs. Clients and potential clients now seek diversity statistics as part of business development pitches and publicly state their intentions to consider other aspects of law firm business to determine who's actually walking the diversity walk and not just talking the talk. Read the full story.
Federal Court Sharply Limits Employer's Attempt to Probe Job Bias Victims' Medical, Arrest and Litigation Histories
Magistrate Judge P. Michael Mahoney of the Federal District Court in Rockford, Ill., issued an order this week largely denying an employer's motion to compel discovery regarding medical and psychological records, arrest records and litigation history of claimants in a discrimination lawsuit filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the federal agency announced. Read the full story.
GM agrees to pay $37.5 million to settle lawsuit over employee 401 (k) plans
General Motors Corp. agreed late Tuesday to pay $37.5 million to settle a lawsuit brought by its employees and retirees who lost hundreds of millions of dollars in 401(k) plans when the company's stock price plummeted by more than 75 percent. Read the full story.
9th Circuit Limits Wal-Mart Class
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is grinding forward in the huge national class action involving sex discrimination at Wal-Mart. A three-judge panel issued a new 2-1 ruling Tuesday in favor of certifying the plaintiff class, similar to an opinion issued in February. Read the full story.
Ford, UAW settle lawsuit
Ford Motor Co., two related companies and the United Auto Workers will pay $1.6 million and provide other relief to settle a race discrimination lawsuit, a federal agency said Thursday. In a class-action suit, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission charged that a written test used by Ford, Visteon Corp. and Automotive Components Holdings discriminated against blacks. Read the full story.
Class-Action Bias Suit Against Wal-Mart Reaffirmed
Wal-Mart Stores suffered a legal setback on Tuesday in its attempt to head off the biggest sexual discrimination case in United States history when an appeals court allowed the case to remain a class-action lawsuit. The plaintiffs estimated they could win billions of dollars in lost pay and damages and that as many as two million women who have worked for Wal-Mart in its American stores since 1998 could join the suit. Read the full story.
Court again upholds class-action sex-bias lawsuit
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's biggest private employer, lost a bid to have an appeals court reconsider its decision to allow 2 million current and former female workers to sue as a group with sex-bias claims. A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court again rejected the company's request to throw out a 2004 lower-court ruling granting class-action status to the lawsuit, the biggest sexual-discrimination case in U.S. history. Read the full story.
FedEx Employees Misclassified, Says IRS
The Internal Revenue Service has told FedEx that it has been misclassifying its delivery drivers as independent contractors and is ordering the shipping company to pay back taxes and penalties. Read the full story.
Supreme Court Case Could Expose Employers to More Age Bias Trials
The central issue in the case for employers is whether the Supreme Court will affirm an appeals court decision and ‘blur’ the distinction between ADEA and the Title 7 federal discrimination statute. Read the full story.
Boeing discrimination case back in court
Almost 10 years after a group of African-American employees at The Boeing Co. filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the company had discriminated against them because of their race, the case was back in court Friday. At issue was whether a U.S. District Court judge had erred in throwing out, without a trial, claims that Boeing had compensated African-American and white employees differently for similar work. Read the full story.
Fourth Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report From Seyfarth Shaw Notes Significant Growth in High Stakes Litigation at State Court Levels
The fourth Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report by national law firm Seyfarth Shaw LLP analyzes the leading class action and collective action decisions of 2007 involving claims against employers. The class action rulings stem from high-stakes lawsuits filed in federal courts under Title VII of the Civil Rights of 1964, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, and in state courts under a host of other laws applicable to workplace issues. Read the full story.
Gender-Bias Class Action Against GE by Former Counsel Advances
A high-ranking attorney for General Electric Co. can go ahead with her class-action lawsuit against what she calls the "very male-dominated culture'' in the international conglomerate, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Peter Dorsey last week rejected a motion filed by GE to prevent Lorene Schaefer's lawsuit from achieving class-action status. Read the full story.
Henredon Furniture Industries to Pay $465,000 for Racial Harassment, Hangman's Nooses
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) announced the settlement of a racial harassment lawsuit for $465,000 and significant remedial relief against Henredon Furniture Industries, Inc. on behalf of African American employees who were subjected to a persistent racially hostile work environment at a furniture plant. Read the full story.
IBM's response to overtime lawsuit has some employees fretting and fuming over base-pay cut
Even as IBM Corp. reports record profits, thousands of its U.S. employees are staring at pay cuts. It's the result of IBM's response to a lawsuit in which the company was accused of illegally withholding overtime pay from some technical employees. Read the full story.
Mixed Ruling for Smith & Wollensky in Class Action
While the Smith & Wollensky restaurant group won a court victory yesterday when a Manhattan judge stopped a class action on behalf of its nonwhite employees, the federal magistrate judge, James Francis, did allow a fired part-time waiter to bring suit on behalf of nonwhite employees at one of the group's restaurants: the Park Avenue Café. Read the full story.
Saying they've been exploited, eight Latinos sue drywall company
Eight unidentified Latinos filed a class-action lawsuit in a federal court today, alleging exploitation and labor violations by a Twin Cities drywall company that has worked on the Mall of America and several Minneapolis condominium projects. Identified only as "John Does," the plaintiffs claim they were among a class of Latino workers paid below minimum wage, required to work overtime at a substandard rate, denied economic and health benefits, and denied work breaks. Read the full story.
The charming bureaucrat: Remembering Joan Ehrlich, civil rights hero
Joan Ehrlich was a career bureaucrat. She was a distinguished one — district director of the EEOC in Houston for 24 years, then in San Francisco for four — but still, a bureaucrat. As such, she was an unlikely recipient for the kind of praise routinely thrown her way. Colleagues and loved ones (they often overlapped) speak of a tireless fighter for justice, but also a sparkling presence that lit up a room or a government agency upon entering it. She was a dedicated public servant and also a glamorous personality, a passionate civil rights advocate and a regular at Saks. When she was diagnosed with leukemia, she responded with her typical determination and optimism. She was 72 when it finally took her life last month here in San Francisco. Read the full story.
Morgan Stanley $16 Million Race Bias Settlement Gets Prelim OK
Morgan Stanley's (MS) $16 million proposed settlement for a racial-bias lawsuit filed on behalf of 1,200 African-American and Latino brokers and broker trainees has been granted preliminary approval by a federal court. A final settlement could derail the class-action aspirations of another bias suit filed in Chicago. Read the full story.
Workers charge Minnesota contractor with exploitation
Eight Latino immigrant workers have filed what they hope will become a class action lawsuit to halt "strikingly exploitive" practices by a major Minnesota drywall contractor. The workers filed suit Monday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis "on behalf of all Latino immigrants who allegedly have been forced to work under strikingly exploitive conditions in the drywall industry by a large construction company, Mulcahy, Inc., and its affiliates." Read the full story.
FedEx Ground's appeal of class certification of delivery drivers is denied
FedEx Ground will not have an opportunity to challenge a 2007 district court ruling that certified two classes of delivery drivers in ongoing lawsuits related to their status as independent contractors. On January 22, the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals declined to hear the request of FedEx Ground for interlocutory review of the class certification decision in a Kansas case pending before a US District Court in Indiana. The ruling paves the way for a the court to rule on remaining class certification decisions. Read the full story.
Latinos sue construction firm
Eight unnamed Latino immigrants filed a civil rights and wage lawsuit in federal court in Minneapolis Monday against Mulcahy Inc., a Mahtomedi-based construction company vying for work on the new Twins stadium in Minneapolis and a new campus football stadium at the University of Minnesota. The workers, who filed under "John Doe" and "Jane Doe" pseudonyms, claim they have been forced to work under exploitative conditions in the drywall industry. They say Mulcahy employed a two-tiered pay system, paying the Latino workers in cash at a lower rate than non-Latino co-workers. They also claim they were forced to work much longer hours but received no overtime or benefits. Read the full story.
Fowl Lawsuit
Conservatives have long opposed the liberal abuse of class action lawsuits to punish business and redistribute income. But that hasn't stopped some on the anti-immigration right from resorting to the same abuse, and recently they were appropriately thrown out of court. A federal judge in Chattanooga, Tenn., finally dismissed a class action lawsuit against Tyson Foods that was first filed in 2002. Read the full story.
Three ex-Station employees claim payroll abuses
Station Casinos, a company known for its high employee-satisfaction ratings, is facing a potential class action lawsuit over allegedly not paying its workers overtime and compensating them for all hours worked. The case may also spur similar litigation against other casino companies, observers said. Read the full story.
NYC pays $21 mln to settle class action race suit
New York City has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a class action lawsuit that claimed the city's parks department discriminated against black and Hispanic employees seeking better pay and promotion, officials said. Read the full story.
City Agrees to Settlement in Parks Dept. Bias Case
Moving to close the books on a long and ugly chapter in New York’s employment history, the city has agreed to pay more than $20 million to settle a federal class-action lawsuit charging that the Department of Parks and Recreation systematically discriminated against black and Hispanic employees in awarding jobs and setting salaries, lawyers for the plaintiffs said Tuesday. Read the full story.
Labor and Delivery
A protracted lawsuit involving discrimination and illegal labor practices at Assi Super, Inc., one of Koreatown’s (Los Angeles') largest businesses, came to a close in December as the supermarket’s owner paid a total of $1.475 million in damages to 171 former workers. Read the full story.
Call Center Workers Sue American
When the American Airlines targeted its downtown Cincinnati call center for closure this summer, little did it imagine that this action would be challenged in court on the grounds of gender discrimination. The employees who sued the airlines included thirty employees, mostly women over 40. Read the full story.
Hotel chain, time-share operator face $50 million class action lawsuit
Allegations of physical abuse, groping and demands for sex are outlined in a 72-page complaint filed in U.S. District Court in February against Fairfield Resorts and Wyndham Vacation Resorts. Six women, the initial plaintiffs in the class action, say they suffered a discriminatory work environment while employed at Wyndham Grand Desert Resort in Las Vegas, and faced retribution if they spoke out against their male co-workers. Read the full story.
Indian workers sue employer
Thursday, March 6, nearly 100 Indian H2B guest workers celebrated with song and dance after breaking an 18-month chain of human trafficking that stretched from Mumbai to Pascagoula, Mississippi. Read the full story.
Continuing Noose Incidents at Eli Lilly Warrant Full FBI Investigation
Another hangman’s noose has been found on the corporate campus of Eli Lilly, one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies. On the morning of Feb. 9, a contract security guard patrolling one of the company’s parking structures at its headquarters in Indianapolis, discovered the noose hanging from a tree, leaving her terrorized by the experience. This recent incident is the third hangman’s noose reported at Eli Lilly offices. Read the full story.
Starbucks may owe millions
When exactly the tip jar became a staple of the decor in coffeehouses, restaurants, bars, or dry cleaners isn't really known. Not even Wikipedia has an entry for the term. But the humble tip jar is at the center of a potentially multimillion-dollar case in San Diego Superior Court involving coffee giant Starbucks and an estimated 120,000 of its baristas, the workers who grind the beans and froth the milk for lattes and cappuccinos. Read the full story.
Class Action Waiver Doesn't Hold Up
Although the California Supreme Court in its recent decision had left open the possibility that class action waivers could stand up against a legal challenge under certain circumstances, this new case shows that state courts will nevertheless lean strongly toward invalidating such waivers in wage and hour actions. Read the full story.
Jewelry Giant Target of Class-Action, Sex-Discrimination Lawsuit
The parent company of some of the nation's most well known jewelry stores are facing a lawsuit, claiming the company discriminates against female workers. The plaintiffs, 15 current and former workers, say Sterling Jewelers systematically underpays female employees and passes them over for promotions. Read the full story.
The Wage and Hour Class-Action Epidemic
A surge of wage and hour class-action lawsuits has plagued employers across the country. Aside from the lucrative rewards for plaintiffs, these class-action cases have spread in scope and popularity because they are easier to marshal than traditional employment claims of discrimination and wrongful termination. Read the full story.
Judge OKs settlement in Walgreen discrimination case
About 10,000 current and former African-American workers at Walgreen Co. stores will share in a $24 million race discrimination settlement approved Tuesday by a federal judge. The lawsuit, filed against the national drugstore chain by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in March 2007, alleged that African-Americans were unfairly denied promotions or assigned to lower-performing stores. Read the full story.
Taking a New Look at Discrimination in New York
Earlier this month, Senator Barack Obama called for open and honest action to address inequality, and in that spirit it is time for New York City's government to examine its own approach to practices. Instead of officials clamming up and insisting categorically that the city does not discriminate, what if policymakers, advocates and residents addressed the problem head on and agreed that policies that further racial and gender disparities -- intentionally or not -- are unacceptable? Read the full story.
2nd bias suit filed vs. Albertsons
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed a second lawsuit against the Albertsons LLC grocery chain for racial bias at its Aurora, CO distribution center. In a suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Colorado, the EEOC claims Albertsons intentionally retaliated against employees who opposed discriminatory practices. Read the full story.
$33 million bias suit payout
Citigroup Inc. will pay $33 million to settle a lawsuit filed by three female brokers in Santa Rosa who charged its Smith Barney unit denied equal opportunities for women. As many as 2,500 current and former Smith Barney female brokers can share in the class-action settlement, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Read the full story.
Lawsuit says HSBC violated labor laws
A former California branch employee of HSBC Bank USA is suing the British-owned bank for violating federal and California labor laws by failing to properly pay overtime to sales staff and not compensating workers in that state for missing lunch breaks. Read the full story.
American Airline pilots win leave time lawsuit
American Airlines has agreed to settle a class action lawsuit brought by more than 350 pilots who said they were unfairly penalized by being barred from accruing vacation time and sick days while on military leave, the Justice Department announced Thursday. Read the full story.
McCormick & Schmick's faces discrimination suit in Baltimore
The federal government accused McCormick & Schmick's Seafood Restaurants in court Monday of discriminating for a decade against African American workers and applicants in its Baltimore restaurants. Earlier this month, the Portland-based chain agreed to pay $1.1 million to settle a similar case in San Francisco. Read the full story.
Class action alleges Valero shorted workers on overtime pay
Beaumont's Reaud, Morgan & Quinn law firm launched a new class action against Valero Energy, alleging the oil giant circumvented paying its contractors overtime by classifying workers' wages as "per diem." Read the full story.
More women charge Bloomberg LP with discrimination
Financial news and data firm Bloomberg LP, founded by New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is facing a lawsuit involving 58 women who say they had their pay cut, were demoted or denied opportunities because they had become pregnant. Read the full story.
SJC weighing future of Wal-Mart wage suit
A case that could greatly restrict the ability of hourly employees to bring class-action suits against employers for alleged wage violations was aired before the Supreme Judicial Court on May 7. The court will decide whether a Superior Court judge properly decertified a class of more than 65,000 Wal-Mart employees in Massachusetts who were allegedly deprived of earned wages and rest and meal breaks by the Arkansas-based retail giant. Read the full story.
Employers must be aware of wage laws
With more than 2,400 wage-and-hour lawsuits filed in the Middle and Southern United States district courts in 2007, Florida leads the nation. That number is only expected to climb as wage-and-hour collective (class) action suits become increasingly common. Yet, despite the increase in legal action, countless employers across the state fail to take proactive steps to prevent and defend themselves in these suits. Read the full story.
FedEx Refusing to Turn Over IRS Audit on Contractor Status to Drivers' Lawyers
The International Brotherhood of Teamsters on Tuesday blasted FedEx Corporation subsidiary FedEx Ground for refusing to produce an Internal Revenue Service audit of FedEx Ground's "contractor" drivers to lawyers representing drivers in a federal class action lawsuit challenging various unfair and unlawful employment practices. Read the full story.
Fired workers sue Latrobe Specialty Steel
Latrobe Specialty Steel Co. is accused in a federal lawsuit of permitting an "entire culture" where pornographic e-mails were sent and received by many workers and management, including company President Hans J. Sack. Read the full story.
Judge: SunTrust can't make workers drop suit
A federal judge has told SunTrust Banks Inc. that it cannot force workers it plans to lay off next month to drop a pending wage-and-hours suit against the bank in exchange for their severance pay. The bank's attempt to condition its severance packages on laid-off workers' agreements to drop their suits is discriminatory under the Fair Labor Standards Act, according to U.S. District Judge Richard W. Story of the Northern District of Georgia. Read the full story.
$1 Million Settlement Proposed in ABRA Class Action Employment Suit
The plaintiffs in a class-action suit against ABRA Auto Body and Glass have proposed a total settlement of $1 million. The suit, filed last summer by two former ABRA employees, alleges that the company required customer service managers (CSMs) and customer service representatives (CSRs) to work overtime without pay and that it did so by misclassifying them as "managerial," which exempted them from overtime pay. Read the full story.
Tacoma-based trucking company sued for overtime
A Tacoma-based long-haul trucking company failed to pay its drivers legally required overtime wages when they drove more than 40 hours a week, a suit filed in Pierce County Superior Court claims. The suit, filed by former driver Larry Westberry, claims Interstate Distributor should have paid its drivers 11/2 times their normal per-mile rate when they drove more than 40 hours a week. Read the full story.
Class-action EEO rulings could be binding on agencies
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's administrative judges would have more power to settle class-action complaints under a regulation now in the works. Federal agencies now are allowed to either accept, reject or modify judges' findings in class-action complaints, but a regulation being crafted by the EEOC would require agencies to follow judges' conclusions. Read the full story.
Register barred from reporting testimony in case involving paper carriers
Superior Court Judge David C. Velasquez has ordered The Orange County Register not to publish any articles about witness testimony in a $100 million class-action lawsuit brought by newspaper delivery workers. The action involves some 6,000 current and former carriers. Velasquez also imposed a fine Tuesday of $23,792.50 on the Register's parent company - Freedom Communications Inc. - and its law firm for "intentionally and willfully destroy(ing) evidence." Read the full story.
Wal-Mart En Banc Session Packs House
A feisty 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals peppered lawyers for Wal-Mart and a gigantic class suing over gender discrimination, with neither side emerging Tuesday as the clear victor. Read the full story.
Citigroup gender bias case wins final approval
A federal judge on Wednesday granted final approval to Citigroup Inc's $33 million settlement to resolve a gender bias lawsuit brought by female brokers at its Smith Barney unit, court records show. Judge Phyllis Hamilton of the U.S. District Court in San Francisco signed off on the settlement at a hearing Wednesday morning, after granting preliminary approval in April. Read the full story.
Scattered To The Wind
One year after a federal immigration raid at Del Monte Fresh Produce, three ex-workers at the North Portland food-processing plant are trying to lead a class-action lawsuit against the fruit company and the staffing agency that hired them. The lawsuit by the three women alleges wage and overtime violations by Del Monte Fresh and American Staffing Resources, the plant’s employment agency in 2007. Read the full story.
Stores settle wage and hour class action for 15 million
Almost 200,000 former California employees of Albertson's, Lucky Stores and Sav-on Drug Stores (all now owned by SuperValu, Inc) will share $15 million to settle a class action alleging that the companies failed to pay the employees their final wages on their last day of work in violation of the California Labor Code, according to a court notice mailed to employees on May 14, 2008 (Ward v Albertson's, Inc, CalSupCt, No BC 237646, notice May 14, 2008). Read the full story.
Union Launches PwC Overtime Lawsuit Site
The labor union Unite Here has started a Web site to provide information about the progress of a class-action lawsuit against PricewaterhouseCoopers over the firm's overtime policies. The site, www.OverworkedAtPwC.info, monitors the lawsuit, which recently gained class-action status in California. Read the full story.
Court Withholds Final Nod To Morgan Stanley Race Bias Accord
Final approval of Morgan Stanley’s proposed $16 million race-discrimination settlement with African-American and Latino brokers was withheld by a federal court in California, following allegations that the settlement was reached without adequate consultation with the plaintiffs. Judge Thelton Henderson of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California raised uncertainty over adequate plaintiff representation in settlement negotiations. Read the full story.
Class Action Lawsuit Filed On Behalf of Deja Vu Exotic Dancers
On June 25, 2008, a class action was filed on behalf of exotic dancers who have worked at nine Deja Vu nightclubs over the past three years, claiming back wages, liquidated damages, penalties and injunctive relief alleged to be owed. The dancers assert that the companies named as Defendants in the action, Deja Vu Consulting Inc. and Cin-Lan Inc. misclassified all dancers at the nightclubs as independent contractors, as opposed to employees, and as a result, the dancers were not paid the minimum wages required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the Michigan Minimum Wage Law (MWL). Read the full story.
Wal-Mart loses Round 1 in Minnesota labor suit
Is $6.5 million just the beginning? While a Minnesota judge ordered Wal-Mart Stores to pay that amount for shorting its workers on rest breaks and meal breaks and for allowing them to work off the clock, the next phase of a class-action wage trial has the potential to be much more punishing for the world's largest retailer. Read the full story.
Attorney Catherine Hagen Pepe Appointed Morgan Stanley Diversity Monitor
Attorney Catherine Hagen Pepe has been appointed to serve as an independent Diversity Monitor for Morgan Stanley's Global Wealth Management Group. As Diversity Monitor, Pepe is responsible for monitoring the Company's efforts to carry out the terms of a five-year, $46 million class action gender discrimination settlement with women Financial Advisors and Registered Financial Advisor Trainees, which the Company entered into last year. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart hammered by judge
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. broke Minnesota labor law more than 2 million times over six years, routinely forcing some employees to work off the clock through lunch and rest breaks, a Dakota County judge has ruled. Read the full story.
Court Granted Certification of an Employment Class Action Case Against Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation
Judge Susan Illston of the Northern District of California granted class certification to a California-wide employment lawsuit against Polo Ralph Lauren Corporation. The certified class consists of more than 5,300 former Polo employees who worked as sales associates or cashiers in one of Polo's California stores at any time since May 2002, who either contend Polo misclassified them as exempt from premium overtime wage requirements, or those whose commission wages Polo debited when they did not meet sales targets. Read the full story.
Ex-editor challenges TripAdvisor labor policies
A former Web content editor for TripAdvisor LLC has filed a complaint in Norfolk Superior Court on behalf of herself and other content providers for the popular travel website, alleging the Newton company, owned by Expedia Inc., violates Massachusetts law by classifying them as independent contractors rather than employees. Read the full story.
Cheesecake Factory sued by workers
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has filed suit against Cheesecake Factory Inc., saying male-on-male sexual harassment occurred at one of the chain's restaurants and that supervisors ignored complaints. Read the full story.
Workers Can't Catch a Break From Calif. Court
In a major victory for the business community, a California appeal court ruled that employers are only required to provide meal and rest breaks for their workers, not ensure they're taken. The 53-page ruling by San Diego's 4th District Court of Appeal also said employers can't be held liable for working employees off the clock unless they knew they were doing so. Read the full story.
Cops claim bias in suit against Denver Police Department
Sixteen current or former officers, all of them Latino, are filing a class-action lawsuit alleging longtime discrimination patterns against the Denver Police Department. The lawsuit claims minorities have not been promoted like whites, have been pushed out of the training academy and have been forced into a hostile work environment. Read the full story.
Caribou Coffee ground down employee tips, lawsuit claims
Most waiters and baristas consider tips, whether added to a check or tucked into a jar near the cash register, to be an important part of their compensation. So important, in fact, that at least three Minnesota businesses are facing class action lawsuits over forcing workers to pool tips and give managers a cut. Read the full story.
Dell lawsuit raised to class action
Telephone sales representatives who worked at Dell computer call centers in five states are eligible to join in a lawsuit filed by two of the company’s former Roseburg employees, according to a ruling by a U.S. District Court judge in Eugene. Read the full story.
California Employer Sues State Over Wage Claims for Illegal Workers
The owner of a downtown Los Angeles sushi restaurant facing wage payment claims by two alleged undocumented workers has launched a novel counterattack by filing a class-action lawsuit against the California labor commissioner for defying federal immigration law. Read the full story.
Apple sued for indentured servitude
A lawsuit filed Monday in California seeks class action status alleging that Apple denied technical staffers required overtime pay and meal compensation in violation of state law. Filed in the US District Court for Southern California, the complaint claims that many Apple employees are routinely subjected to working conditions resembling indentured servitude. Read the full story.
Dallas telemarketer accused of bias
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued Paramount Multiservices Inc. and Paramount Teleservices LLC Tuesday, alleging sex discrimination. The EEOC's suit alleges that former employee Amy Tucker and other women were discriminated against and worked in a hostile environment. Read the full story.
Judge grants class-action status to U-46 bias suit
A federal judge has granted class-action status to a racial bias lawsuit filed 3 years ago against Illinois' second largest school district. In a Friday filing, Federal Judge Robert W. Gettleman ruled that two groups of Elgin Area School District U-46 students could receive future remedies if they prevail in the lawsuit. Read the full story.
Fair Labor Standards Act: What IT Workers Need to Know
The class-action lawsuit that a former Apple network engineer filed last Monday has put tech workers' relationship with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) into the spotlight. Many IT pros are watching the case with interest since it boils down to a pocketbook issue: compensation for overtime. At issue: are networking professionals-network engineers, network administrators and network support staff-covered by the FLSA? Read the full story.
California Court Clarifies Duty of Citizens to Bear Witness in TV Writers Litigation
The California Court of Appeal cleared the way last week for plaintiffs to begin prosecution in earnest after an eight-year logjam in the television writers' age discrimination class action litigation. The ruling clarified the law concerning the rights of citizens to refuse to bear witness and, in these cases, to refuse to be counted for statistical purposes, according to attorneys for the plaintiffs at Sprenger + Lang. Read the full story.
FedEx Loses Investors as Courts Upend Founder's Model
FedEx Corp. tells its ground-service drivers when to work, what to charge customers and what kind of socks and shoes to wear, the workers say. Drivers who sued the company argue that makes them employees. Founder and Chief Executive Officer Fred Smith, who has served as co-chair of U.S. Republican presidential candidate John McCain's campaign, opposes changing their status from independent contractors to employees. The trouble is the FedEx CEO isn't getting much support from shareholders. Read the full story.
Your matchmaker for class action lawsuits: SueEasy
SueEasy.com is a matchmaking app that connects people who have major and minor grievances in life with attorneys eager to file class action lawsuits for them. Like any good Web app, SueEasy is free, simple, and perhaps even effective. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart Shareholders Benefit From Judge's Pay Ruling
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., facing as much as $2 billion in damages in a Minnesota employee-pay trial, may be shielded from similar cases in the future thanks to a 2005 federal law. The statute requires federal courts to handle class-action lawsuits of $5 million or more when plaintiffs and defendants are from different states. Read the full story.
Bonneville Hot Springs to Pay $470,000 for Class Sexual Harassment and Retaliation
North Bonneville, Wash., resort destination Bonneville Hot Springs will pay $470,000 to a class of sexual harassment and retaliation victims to settle a lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), the EEOC announced today. Read the full story.
Fastenal to pay $10 million settlement
Winona-based industrial supplies seller Fastenal Co. announced Friday it will pay a $10 million class-action settlement to former employees who sued the company last year for unpaid overtime wages and work-break pay. It was unclear how many people would be paid as a result of the settlement, but more than 2,000 current and former employees may have been entitled to back-pay from as far back as 2003, according to estimates made in October by an attorney for the plaintiffs. Read the full story.
A Legal Smackdown
Like a flying elbow delivered from the top rope, a federal lawsuit is taking a vicious swipe at World Wrestling Entertainment, claiming that the Stamford company has long misclassified its performers as independent contractors and denied them benefits. Meanwhile, the WWE plans to counter the suit filed by three former wrestlers with a motion to dismiss to be filed later this month in federal court in New Haven. Read the full story.
Minn. company to allow Somalis prayer breaks
Gold'n Plump Poultry Inc. has agreed to allow Somali workers to take short prayer breaks and to refuse handling pork at the St. Cloud-based company's poultry processing facilities, under a federally mediated settlement. The agreement is among the first in the nation that requires employers to accommodate the Islamic prayer schedule and the belief, held by many strict Muslims, that the Quran prohibits the touching and eating of pork products. Read the full story.
11th Circuit Court of Appeals Affirms Skycap Ruling
In a case that promises to impact the aviation industry, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that aviation services provider, Business Representation International, Inc. (BRI), in a high-profile wage-and-hour class action brought by 53 skycaps, was not liable for back wages. In Pellon v. BRI, the skycaps unsuccessfully argued that BRI violated minimum wage requirements of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and sought back wages as compensation, claiming that BRI failed to apportion the skycaps' job duties between tipped and non-tipped tasks. Read the full story.
MIA skycaps' tip lawsuit may affect other cases
Jason Pellon, a skycap at Miami International Airport, survives on tips. While most airport service workers are paid at least $10 an hour, Pellon receives just $3.60 an hour from the contractor he works for, a legal wage for tipped employees. But when airlines began charging passengers $2 cash per bag for curbside check-in in 2005, Pellon saw his tips plummet. Hoping to recover lost tips, Pellon and 52 other skycaps sued their employer, Business Representation International, a Miami company that services the airport, in late 2006. In December a Miami court ruled against the skycaps, stating that they were not entitled to damages and that BRI did not violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. The skycaps appealed, but last week the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals made what is effectively a final ruling in favor of BRI. Read the full story.
Judge Rules That Gristede’s Broke Law on Overtime Pay
A federal judge has ruled that Gristede’s violated federal and state laws by failing to pay overtime to hundreds of lower-level managers at its supermarkets. As a result of the decision by Judge Paul A. Crotty of Federal District Court in Manhattan on Thursday, lawyers for more than 400 current and former Gristede’s managers predicted that the company would be forced to pay the plaintiffs $25 million. Read the full story.
Age charges left standing in EPA case
Just weeks after the regional office of the Environmental Protection Agency informed employees of an administrative class action against the agency, a judge has dismissed a parallel court proceeding. U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia ruled last week that the named plaintiffs had failed to exhaust their remedies because they never filed formal complaints. Read the full story.
Sterling Jewelers Sued for Sex Discrimination
Sterling Jewelers Inc., the largest specialty retail jeweler in the country, violated federal law by discriminating against a large class of female employees at stores nationwide, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) charges in a systemic lawsuit filed yesterday under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. Read the full story.
Dealers stiffed in fight for tips
Two Wynn Las Vegas dealers who filed a class action lawsuit in 2006 to end a tip-pooling program implemented at the Strip casino lost their case Thursday before the Nevada Supreme Court. The court said in a unanimous decision written by Justice Michael Douglas that the Nevada labor commissioner was the appropriate person to consider complaints under the state's labor laws. Read the full story.
Heller faces class action suit by laid-off staff
Three laid-off Heller Ehrman employees have filed a class action complaint against the dissolving firm, asking for a jury trial over money they feel they should still be paid, reports The Recorder. The complaint, filed on Monday (20 September), proposes various classes, to potentially cover "hundreds" of staff and associates who have been or will be laid off since shortly after the firm's vote to dissolve. Read the full story.
Class Action Fairness Act Achieves Goal, but With a Catch
Although the federal Class Action Fairness Act is achieving its goal of shifting the typical multistate class action from state court to federal court, a "paradoxical" result is a surge in single-state class actions designed to avoid the federal law's removal provisions, according to a recent study. Read the full story.
WARNing Employees
New York is the latest state to adopt its own version of the WARN Act, which requires notification of plant closings and mass layoffs. Each state's law may be slightly different, so HR leaders need to ensure compliance -- and lawsuits alleging violations of such laws seem to be on the rise. Read the full story.
Layoffs Herald a Heyday for Employee Lawsuits
First layoffs, then lawsuits. More workers are being let go as corporate layoffs that began in earnest last year have accelerated in recent weeks. And more often, people are looking around and complaining that they have been unfairly or improperly dismissed. Read the full story.
Class action status granted in discrimination suit
A New Jersey judge has granted class-action status to an age discrimination lawsuit against Florham Park-based BASF Corporation. G. Martin Meyers, the plaintiffs' lawyer, said Wednesday that a judge ruled Jan. 31 that the case can proceed on behalf of all former BASF Corporation employees laid off between January 2002 and June 2007, who were age 40 or over at the time. Read the full story.
Law firm alleges age discrimination in Livermore lab layoffs
An Oakland law firm on Tuesday announced its intention to file age discrimination complaints with a state agency on behalf of 100 workers laid off in May by Lawrence Livermore National Security. The corporation, formed by a partnership between the University of California and several companies led by Bechtel Corp., operates Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Read the full story.
Aid headed to free legal service
With an increase in clientele combined with scarce funding, the Legal Aid Society of Cleveland has experienced difficulties just like many other charitable organizations in these tough economic times. Today, Legal Aid will receive money from Dworken & Bernstein Co., L.P.A. in an attempt to help the organization service some of its clients. The donation is part of Dworken & Bernstein's Ohio Lawyers Give Back, which was founded by the Painesville law firm in April 2007. Ohio Lawyers Give Back promotes the use of cy pres in class action settlements. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart Settles South Carolina Wage, Hour Suit
South Carolina Walmart workers who claim they were not paid for time worked will get $49 million to settle a class action lawsuit. The settlement will conclude more than six years of litigation concerning Wal-Mart's employment practices in South Carolina. Wal-Mart in the settlement agreed to maintain electronic systems, surveys and notices to protect workers' rights. Read the full story.
Spotlight Put on Federal, State WARN Acts in Tough Economy
Klehr Harrison Harvey Branzburg & Ellers partner Charles Ercole got a call in early February just days after 1,000 workers were laid off from the Virginia plant of electronic memory manufacturer Qimonda. A group of the employees didn't feel they were given proper notice of the layoffs under the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, or WARN Act....Ercole, who has both defended and prosecuted WARN Act violation claims, has since signed on at least 165 employees to a class action suit, Blair v. Qimonda North America, which he filed against the company Feb. 9 in federal court in Virginia. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart workers in Missouri to share at least $55 million in settlement
Wal-Mart workers in Missouri will get $55.53 million or more under a settlement approved last week as part of a nationwide resolution of overtime claims against the company. The settlement, which received preliminary approval from Jackson County Circuit Judge Sandra Midkiff on Feb. 11, resolves a long-running lawsuit alleging the retail giant forced workers to work through rest and meal breaks. Read the full story.
Laid-off Workers Want Their Severance
Desperate to save money and often struggling to keep their companies solvent, many employers are giving in to the temptation to skimp on severance when downsizing. A surprisingly large number aren't giving employees the 60 days' notice or severance pay that's required under the WARN Act. Read the full story.
Ruling opens PPG to class-action suit
PPG erred by forcing fired workers to sign waivers barring them from suing the company for age discrimination, a federal judge has ruled. U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab signed an order late Thursday adopting the recommendations of a special master handling a 2007 civil lawsuit in which five former employees accused PPG of firing them for being too old and costly. Schwab's decision paves the way for him to certify the lawsuit as a class action that could be joined by other fired PPG employees and allow the case to go to trial. Read the full story.
Dave & Buster's Wins California Tip Pool Case
In a case closely watched by the restaurant and hospitality industry, Dallas-based Dave & Buster's has won a California appellate court ruling affirming the restaurant's policy requiring waitstaff to contribute a portion of their tips to a pool to be shared with bartenders. Read the full story.
9th Circuit Deals a Blow to Plaintiffs Lawyers in 'Principal Place of Business' Test
In a blow to plaintiffs class action lawyers, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has made it tougher to hold that a national company is a "citizen" of California merely based on the disproportionate size of the state's population. Read the full story.
Construction workers win $8.5-million settlement
Thousands of mostly Latino workers will share in an $8.5-million settlement with a national construction firm they had accused in a class-action lawsuit of violating California's wage and hour laws, attorneys in the case said Tuesday. Read the full story.
Obama Administration Sides With Wal-Mart Workers
The Obama administration sided with women suing Wal-Mart Stores Inc. for discrimination, urging a federal appeals court to let the current and former workers sue as a group and proceed with the biggest sex-bias case in U.S. history. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, weighing in on the lawsuit for the first time since it was filed in 2001, rejected Wal-Mart’s argument that as many as 2 million workers shouldn’t be allowed to seek back pay and punitive damages as a group because that would violate the company’s right to defend itself against each worker’s claims before a jury. Read the full story.
Pay Equity: Will Lilly Help Betty?
Two women willing to insist — for more than eight years running — on their right to equal pay for equal work have generated considerable publicity. Their persistence may help explain a 14 percent increase in sex-discrimination charges filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 2008 — a noticeable jump from preceding years. Read the full story.
American Idol producer hit with lawsuit
Former employees have filed a class-action lawsuit against "American Idol" producer FremantleMedia North America. The suit alleges that the company systematically overworked employees without paying the required overtime, falsified time cards and denied staffers meals and rest periods. Read the full story.
EEOC Reverses Stance on Wal-Mart Class in Gender Bias Case
The federal government got off the sidelines Thursday to throw a few blocks for plaintiffs in a huge gender class action against Wal-Mart. The move is a reversal by the U.S. Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission, which had previously decided to sit the case out. Read the full story.
3rd Circuit Rejects Certification in UPS Discrimination Case
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court's certification of a nationwide class of employees alleging unlawful discrimination by United Parcel Service. Read the full story.
Dell settles Austin discrimination case for $9.1 million
Dell Inc. agreed Thursday to pay $9.1 million to settle a class-action lawsuit that claimed the company had discriminated against female employees. In October, two former employees, Jill Hubley and Laura Guenther, sued Dell in federal court in Austin, alleging a "practice of gender discrimination with respect to compensating and promoting female employees" within the company. Read the full story.
Largest Garment Manufacturers in Saipan to Pay $1.7 Million in Landmark DIiscrimination Settlement with EEOC
L&T Group of Companies, Ltd., the largest employer and conglomerate of garment manufacturers in Saipan, has agreed to pay $1.7 million and to provide far reaching and significant injunctive relief to settle a series of lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that charged the company with retaliation and discrimination based on national origin, pregnancy and age, all in violation of federal law. Read the full story.
Workplace Discriminations: Bloomberg Questioned
Bloomberg LP, the financial data analysis and media organisation, was founded by Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York. The company is facing class action suits on account of alleged discrimination against the fairer sex. Read the full story.
Kodak Agrees to Settle Race Discrimination Lawsuit
Eastman Kodak Co. has agreed to pay $21.4 million to settle legal action brought by black workers who claim the photography products maker paid and promoted them less than their white co-workers. Read the full story.
Doctor Can take Beth Israel to Court
The state’s highest court yesterday ruled that a doctor fired as head of anesthesiology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center can proceed with a sex discrimination lawsuit in court, rebuffing the Boston hospital’s contention the case should be heard by an arbitrator. Read the full story.
3rd Circuit Rejects Certification in UPS Discrimination Case
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a district court's certification of a nationwide class of employees alleging unlawful discrimination by United Parcel Service. Read the full story.
Navajo File Class Action Lawsuit Against BIA
Thousands of Navajo citizens currently or formerly employed by the Bureau of Indian Affairs or Bureau of Indian Education have joined together for a large-scale class action lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court. Read the full story.
Campbell Soup Company Charged with Discrimination Against African American Employees in Nationwide Class Action Suit
A nationwide class action lawsuit has been filed against Campbell Soup Company, charging that African American employees are denied professional development opportunities. The lawsuit has been filed in Camden, New Jersey, home of Campbell's headquarters. Filing on behalf of the Plaintiff Chester Hicks and the proposed Class are the Houston, Texas based firm, Nelkin, Nelkin & Krock, P.C., and Sidney L. Gold & Associates, based in Philadelphia. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart in Final Settlement of $17.5M Bias Suit
A federal judge has given final approval to a $17.5 million settlement reached after black truck drivers sued retail giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. U.S. District Judge Bill Wilson Jr. on Wednesday signed an order approving the settlement in the class-action case. Read the full story.
Justices Rule for White Firemen In Bias Lawsuit
The Supreme Court yesterday restricted how far employers may go in considering race in hiring and promotion decisions, a ruling that puts workplaces across the nation on notice that efforts to combat potential discrimination against one group can amount to actual discrimination against another. Read the full story.
Settlement, Legal Fees OK'd in GE Retirement Class Action
A federal judge has approved a settlement worth just over $40 million between General Electric and retirees over the company's decision to put up GE stock as an investment and matching contribution in its retirement program. Retirees contended the investment of company stock was not economically prudent and that their retirement benefits suffered as a result, Northern District of New York Judge Gary L. Sharpe noted. Read the full story.
Settlement, Legal Fees OK'd in GE Retirement Class Action
A federal judge has approved a settlement worth just over $40 million between General Electric and retirees over the company's decision to put up GE stock as an investment and matching contribution in its retirement program. Retirees contended the investment of company stock was not economically prudent and that their retirement benefits suffered as a result, Northern District of New York Judge Gary L. Sharpe noted. Read the full story.
Former TBW employees file class-action lawsuit
Less than a week after Taylor, Bean & Whitaker notified nearly 1,000 employees at its Ocala headquarters — and an unknown number of employees elsewhere in the country — that it was eliminating their jobs, the wholesale mortgage lender faces a lawsuit brought on behalf of those workers. Read the full story.
Employment class actions by the government are coming back
The Obama Administration is gearing up to investigate and file discrimination and employment compensation class actions far beyond what we’ve seen in the last eight years. Read the full story.
Nucor-Yamato Prevails in Local Lawsuit
Nucor-Yamato Steel Company prevails in a lawsuit that was finally heard by a jury in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The case filed seven years ago claimed a nationwide class action on a variety of employment claims. When the nationwide class action was dismissed, the Alabama plaintiffs' lawyers sought a plant-wide class. This too was dismissed leaving a handful of individual plaintiffs who proceeded to a jury verdict. Read the full story.
Sides spar as Deere benefits trial opens
As the class-action lawsuit filed by Deere retirees against the Moline manufacturer got under way in U.S. District Court, Davenport, the plaintiffs - who represent about 5,000 salaried retirees in the class - laid out a case of "broken promises" stemming from Deere's new health plan for the group of flex retirees. Meanwhile, Deere's attorneys began to produce evidence of how the company repeatedly communicated that it reserved the right to change, amend or eliminate its health-care plan. Read the full story.
Walmart to Finally Pay Some Workers
Today Walmart announced it will pay $85 million dollars to hundreds of thousands of current and former Walmart workers for not compensating them for the work they performed. This lawsuit settlement is the latest in a string of multi-million dollar payouts by Walmart as it attempts to distance itself from a track record of poor employment practices and violations of workplace laws. Nebraska employees of any Wal-Mart store or supercenter, Neighborhood Market, Sam’s Club or distribution center may be eligible for a portion of the settlement. In Nebraska, individuals had to work for the company between Dec. 8, 2000, and Feb. 27, 2009 to file a claim. Read the full story.
Station Casinos wants 'breathing room' from employee wage suit
Station Casinos Inc. of Las Vegas wants a lawsuit over employee wages to be put on hold, saying it's entitled to some "breathing room" from such litigation during its bankruptcy proceedings. Read the full story.
Nashville Faces Potential Employment Discrimination Class Action
Nashville Electric Service and the Nashville municipal government are facing a potential class action employment lawsuit over allegations that they engaged in racial discrimination against African Americans related to job promotion and hiring, and forced them to work in a racially hostile environment. Read the full story.
Pensions for Miami Firefighters and Police Officers did not Create the Mess We're in Today
The Miami administration has contended that employee pensions have caused the financial turmoil. If you believe that, I know of a bridge in Brooklyn you might want to buy. The city’s pension dilemma was a long time in the making -- from way back when the city had control of the various pension boards. From the days when it was common practice for administrators to allow their banking and investment buddies to dump their underperforming stocks in the fire and police pension funds. From a time when the city was illegally pulling out pension profits to pay Workers Compensation claims. The unionized firefighters finally had enough of this foolishness. When the problems couldn’t be corrected through the negotiation process, they filed a class-action law suit (the so-called Gates Suit) against the city. The firefighters prevailed in their endeavor, and part of the settlement was to have more firefighters and police officers than city administrators on the pension board. Read the full story.
Former KEYT Employees File Lawsuit
In a lawsuit filed last week in Santa Barbara County Superior Court, two former KEYT Channel 3 employees alleged the company committed a string of labor code violations, including failure to pay overtime. Read the full story.
Deere retirees' lawsuit goes to judge
After a two-year battle over a new health plan led a group of Deere & Co. retirees to take their former employer to court, the class-action lawsuit officially went to the judge Tuesday. More than 50 Deere retirees - who are considered part of the class - packed the Davenport courtroom as attorneys for both sides gave their closing arguments before Judge Charles Wolle. The lawsuit stems from a new health plan Deere rolled in 2007 for a group of 5,000 flex retirees, most of whom were salaried workers. Read the full story.
Judge sides with Deere in retirees' suit
A federal judge has ruled in favor of Deere & Co. in a class-action lawsuit stemming from a change in health care benefits that pitted a group of retirees against their former employer. In a 44-page ruling filed Friday, Judge Charles Wolle found in favor of the Moline equipment maker on all four counts of the federal suit. While eight individual retirees were named as plaintiffs, the class represents nearly 5,000 retirees - mostly salaried workers - who are covered by the new health plan introduced by Deere in 2007. Read the full story.
LA Clippers Owner Pays Millions in Discrimination Suit
Los Angeles Clippers owner and real estate mogul Donald Sterling has agreed to pay a record $2.725 million to settle allegations by the government that he refused to rent apartments to Hispanics, blacks and to families with children, the Justice Department announced Tuesday. Read the full story.
Topless Club Hit with Lawsuit over Dancer Wages
A topless nightclub in Las Vegas was hit with a class-action lawsuit Monday claiming its dancers aren't really independent contractors -- and instead are employees entitled to regular wages and overtime. Read the full story.
Wal-Mart Wins Final Approval of Workers’ Wage Suit Settlement
Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the world’s largest retailer, won final approval of a settlement paying as much as $85 million to hourly workers who sued over allegations of unpaid wages. U.S. District Judge Philip M. Pro in Las Vegas approved the settlement yesterday and awarded one-third of the recovery in fees to the workers’ lawyers, up to about $28 million depending on the claims made. Walmart is to pay at least $65 million and as much as $85 million. Read the full story.
Blytheville Nucor Plant Had Racially Hostile Work Environment, Jury Rules
A federal court jury in Jonesboro has ruled in favor of six black employees of Nucor-Yamato Steel Co. in a race discrimination case that included evidence of lynching re-enactments and portrayals of black employees as monkeys. On Thursday, 11 white and one black juror unanimously found the Charlotte, N.C., company liable for supervisor racial hostility and co-worker racial hostility at its Blytheville steel plant based, in part, on the acts of Dan DiMicco, who is now the CEO of Nucor. The six plaintiffs were each granted $100,000 in compensatory damages and $100,000 in punitive damages, for a total of $1.2 million. Read the full story.
Sacramento employee files class action discrimination suit against Jos. A. Bank
A Sacramento attorney has filed a class action against one of the nation’s leading retailers of upscale men’s clothing, alleging racial discrimination against thousands of black employees in more than 140 stores throughout the western United States. Anthony Perez filed the complaint against Jos. A. Bank Clothiers Inc. on Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Read the full story.
Court affirms class-action lawsuit for former N.O. public school employees
Eleven months after New Orleans Civil District Court Judge Ethel Simms-Julien certified a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of more than 8,500 former employees of Orleans Parish Public Schools who were terminated after the State of Louisiana seized control of more than 100 public schools in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the Louisiana Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal has affirmed the decision of the trial court. Read the full story.
