Stellantis' Fiat Chrysler Sues UAW Over Strike Threats

By Linda Chiem

Fiat Chrysler has sued the United Auto Workers in California federal court alleging the union has violated the current collective bargaining agreement by threatening to strike over what the union perceives as the company's delays in investing in and reopening certain manufacturing facilities.

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Jury Finds Cognizant Biased Against Non-Indian Workers

By Craig Clough

A California federal jury found Friday that Cognizant Technologies engaged in a "pattern or practice" of intentional discrimination against a class of non-South Asian and non-Indian employees who were terminated, setting the stage for a second phase that will determine damages against the IT giant.

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High Court To Weigh In On Halliburton Worker's Age Bias Suit

By Patrick Hoff

The U.S. Supreme Court agreed Friday to wade into an age discrimination lawsuit from a former Halliburton employee who said his case was wrongly shut down when the Tenth Circuit ruled a trial court lacked the power to reopen it following arbitration.

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Retired Judge Says Unpaid Services Suit's Claims 'Untimely'

By Rose Krebs

Retired U.S. Circuit Judge Richard A. Posner asked an Indiana federal court on Friday to grant him a summary judgment win in litigation alleging he stiffed a man out of a six-figure salary after hiring him to run a now-defunct pro bono legal services organization, saying the suit's claims are "untimely."

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Former X Worker's 2 Sex Bias Suits Will Go To Same Judge

By Bonnie Eslinger

A San Francisco federal judge said Friday that a former X Corp. engineer's lawsuit claiming Elon Musk laid off more women than men after acquiring the company belonged with a similar case the worker filed in San Jose federal court — but chided both sides, saying "nobody's being terribly reasonable."

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Roundup

Employment Authority: Calif. Law Equal Protection Issues

Law360 Employment Authority covers the biggest employment cases and trends. Catch up this week with coverage on how a petition in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that California's worker classification law violates equal protection principles could have a domino effect beyond wage and hour issues, a look at the slew of U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's harassment suits and what are the chances that the National Labor Relations Board could change some of its policies. 

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Justices Take Up Straight Worker's Demotion Bias Suit

By Ryan Harroff

The U.S. Supreme Court said Friday it will review a discrimination lawsuit by a former Ohio Department of Youth Services worker claiming she was denied a promotion and then demoted for being heterosexual while LGBTQ candidates were advanced.

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Prof. Claims Fox Chase, Temple U. Failed To Deter Harassment

By P.J. D'Annunzio

A cancer research professor has filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Temple University Health System's Fox Chase Cancer Center, claiming in Pennsylvania federal court it failed to act on her complaints of being harassed by the eventual director, who she said went on to influence "numerous decisions" that hurt her career.

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Healthcare Co. Inks Deal In DOL Equal Pay Investigation

By Grace Elletson

A healthcare diagnostics company has agreed to pay nearly $60,000 to the U.S. Department of Labor to end an agency probe over concerns that a New Jersey manufacturing facility undercompensated female employees compared to their male colleagues.

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7th Circ. Backs Class Decertification In Unpaid Wages Dispute

By Emmy Freedman

The Seventh Circuit declined to upend an order decertifying a class of satellite technicians who accused their employer of shorting them on overtime wages, agreeing that class treatment is improper because of the myriad differences between workers.

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Fla. Firm Wins Wage Dispute After Paralegal Abandons Suit

By Emmy Freedman

A federal judge threw out a paralegal's lawsuit alleging that a West Palm Beach, Florida, law firm underpaid her and then retaliated against her by cutting her hours when she complained, saying she has refused to continue to participate in the litigation.

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Atlanta Employee Sues City For More Than $100K Of OT Pay

By Tom Lotshaw

A community program analyst in Atlanta's Office of Film, Entertainment & Nightlife hit the city with a Fair Labor Standards Act complaint alleging she's owed more than $100,000 for unpaid overtime work.

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Healthcare Co.'s Workers Get Cert. In OT Pay Row

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut home healthcare logistics company and a former employee suing in federal court over its pay practices have agreed to conditionally certify a collective and dismiss most claims, leaving only a claim for payment of off-the-clock work.

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USDA Updates Regulation Without Labor Compliance Portion

By Beverly Banks

The U.S. Department of Agriculture filed a final rule Friday tweaking an acquisition regulation after nearly 30 years since a previous overhaul, but the rule doesn't include a proposal that would have required federal contractors to certify compliance with federal and state labor laws.

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Paramount Hit With WARN Act Suit Over NYC Layoffs

By Emily Brill

Paramount violated the New York Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act by laying off more than 300 New York City-based employees without the required 90 days' notice, a new proposed class action filed in New York federal court alleges.

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Disneyland Worker Sues Over Personnel Data Breach

By Rachel Scharf

A Disneyland employee hit The Walt Disney Co. with a proposed class action in California state court on Thursday over a cyberattack that allegedly compromised employee personnel information, including work assignments, passport numbers and visa details.

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NJ, Ethics Board Must Hand Over Docs In Retaliation Fight

By Dorothy Atkins

A New Jersey state judge has ordered the state and its ethics commission to hand over to an ex-state health official internal documents in his lawsuit alleging that he was wrongly fired in 2020 for raising concerns about the earmarking of COVID-19 tests for relatives of another state official.

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Greenberg Traurig Adds WeWork Employment Law Head In SF

By James Mills

Greenberg Traurig LLP is boosting its West Coast team, bringing in WeWork's former global head of employment law as a shareholder in its San Francisco office.

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Politics In California Workplaces: What Employers Must Know

As the election looms, it is critical that California employers ensure their compliance with state laws providing robust protections for employees' political activity — including antidiscrimination laws, off-duty conduct laws, employee voting leave laws and more, say Bradford Kelley and Britney Torres at Littler.

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Licensing And Protections For Voice Actors In The Age Of AI

While two recently enacted California laws and other recent state and federal legislation largely focus on protecting actors and musicians from the unauthorized use of their digital likenesses by generative artificial intelligence systems, the lesser-known community of professional voice actors also stands to benefit, says attorney Scott Mortman.

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Conn. Court Split May Lead To Vertical Forum Shopping

As shown by a recent ruling in State v. Exxon Mobil, Connecticut state and federal courts are split on personal jurisdiction, and until the Connecticut Supreme Court steps in, parties may be incentivized to forum shop, causing foreign entities to endure costly litigation and uncertain liability, says Matthew Gibbons at Shipman & Goodwin.

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Mental Health First Aid: A Brief Primer For Attorneys

Amid a growing body of research finding that attorneys face higher rates of mental illness than the general population, firms should consider setting up mental health first aid training programs to help lawyers assess mental health challenges in their colleagues and intervene with compassion, say psychologists Shawn Healy and Tracey Meyers.

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Bonus Spotlight

Texas Boutique Tops Cravath As Compensation Season Starts

By Anna Sanders

Texas healthcare boutique Gjerset & Lorenz LLP is surpassing the prevailing associate salary scale that Cravath Swaine & Moore LLP set last year by as much as $40,000, according to a report.

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Ex-Mayer Brown Chair Helman Recalled As Steadfast Leader

By Andrea Keckley

Former Mayer Brown chair Bob Helman, who stepped up to lead his firm through a fraught juncture in the 1980s during his decades in Chicago's legal community, has died at 90 years old, the firm said Friday.

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Massachusetts' Chief Federal Judge To Take Senior Status

By Courtney Bublé

U.S. District Judge F. Dennis Saylor IV of Massachusetts has notified President Joe Biden he will take senior status on July 31, 2025, the court announced Monday.

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9th Circ. Nixes Judicial Complaint Over Atty 'Disbar' Threat

By James Mills

The Ninth Circuit has rejected a judicial misconduct complaint against a judge who allegedly suggested that he could "disbar" a lawyer.

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6 High Court Cases To Watch For Trial Attorneys

By Cara Salvatore

As the U.S. Supreme Court lifts the curtain on a new term, the justices are slated to consider a variety of cases impacting the work of trial litigators, including a death penalty case over a state-disavowed conviction, the boundaries of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, and corporate veil piercing.

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Analysis

Sparring With Adams, Feds Shadowbox The Supreme Court

By Chris Villani and Phillip Bantz

The corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams may be the next front in an ongoing clash between federal prosecutors' desire to police official misconduct and a line of U.S. Supreme Court cases holding that alleged graft does not always amount to a federal crime.

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Analysis

State Courts Splitting Over Future Of Climate Change Suits

By Keith Goldberg

Recent decisions on whether climate change suits brought by state and local governments against fossil fuel companies can go forward are exposing splits between state courts over whether they can impose liability for pollution that originates beyond their borders, legal experts say.

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New Bill Would Enact 'Commonsense' Litigation Disclosures

By Courtney Bublé

A top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee announced Monday he introduced legislation to require the disclosure of parties receiving payments in civil lawsuits, a phenomenon known as "third-party litigation financing," in order to prevent abuses in the legal system.

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Court Punts Case Over Trump's 'Eating The Dogs' Comments

By Ryan Harroff

An Ohio county prosecutor is better suited than a court to decide if criminal charges are warranted against Donald Trump and vice presidential candidate JD Vance for allegedly fueling harassment, including bomb threats, against Haitian migrants, an Ohio court has ruled.

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