Labor & Employment

More Companies Suing Job Hoppers for Luring Away Co-Workers

Even without a noncompete agreement, workplace experts are advising job-hoppers to be careful about urging subordinates to join them. The Wall Street Journal reports that a growing number of companies are suing their former employees for luring staff away. The cause of action? Breach of fiduciary duty. Plus, the threat…

Nov 26, 2007 9:56 PM CST

Court Considers Right to Sue for Mishandled 401(k)

Three justices from the U.S. Supreme Court’s liberal wing appeared sympathetic today to arguments on behalf of a man who lost $150,000 in his 401(k) plan. James LaRue claims he lost the money because administrators of his 401(k) retirement plan twice failed to follow his direction to move the money…

Nov 26, 2007 6:59 PM CST

Grinch Live on Broadway: N.Y. Judge Grants Injunction

Saying that one Grinch in New York right now is enough, a state court judge has granted an injunction that provides for a Broadway show based on the Dr. Suess book How the Grinch Stole Christmas to go on. The play had been shuttered by an ongoing stagehands strike that…

Nov 21, 2007 9:05 PM CST

Deal Would Give Plaintiffs About $3M in DA Race Bias Case

Dozens of employees who won a suit against New Orleans District Attorney Eddie Jordan for firing them because they were white would receive about $3 million under a deal financed by the city and the state of Louisiana. The troubled DA’s office was facing threats from lawyers for the fired…

Nov 21, 2007 2:30 PM CST

Supreme Court Accepts Challenge to Union Law

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge to a California law that bars some employers from commenting on labor organizing efforts. The law prohibits employers that accept state money from using the funds to “assist, promote, or deter union organizing,” according to the petition for certiorari (PDF…

Nov 20, 2007 6:56 PM CST

Health Plans More Aggressive in Seeking Legal Recoveries, Thanks to High Court

Some people who are injured and receive a settlement or verdict are getting a big surprise: More litigation from the health plan that paid their benefits and now wants the money back. Employee health plans are getting more aggressive about enforcing subrogation clauses that permit recovery of the money, buoyed…

Nov 20, 2007 11:55 AM CST

Fired Principal Sues Over Ban on Reapplication

A controversial New York City school principal who was fired last year over a T-shirt slogan has sued because she wasn’t allowed to reapply for her job along with 25 other applicants. Debbie Almontaser, who founded the first Arabic-language school in New York City, filed suit today in federal court…

Nov 19, 2007 11:16 PM CST

Cozen O’Connor Says Sex Bias Plaintiff Fired for ‘Poor Judgment’

Cozen O’Connor claims in its answer to a sex discrimination suit that a junior female partner was fired because of “poor judgment and poor decision-making” rather than a double standard for male and female lawyers. Plaintiff Patricia Biswanger claimed in her lawsuit that the law firm fired her for using…

Nov 19, 2007 12:15 PM CST

Lawyer Sues for Unpaid Bonuses After Big Wal-Mart Verdict

A lawyer who once worked for a San Francisco law firm that won a $172 million award against Wal-Mart claims in a lawsuit that she was never paid promised bonuses. Carolyn Burton claims in her suit against her former boss, Fred Furth, that she accepted a below-market salary with the…

Nov 15, 2007 12:15 PM CST

Judge Adds $49M in Atty Fees to Wal-Mart OT Bill; Total Nears $200M

A judge in Pennsylvania has awarded $49 million in attorney fees to plaintiffs counsel in a successful class action against the world’s biggest retailer over unpaid overtime, bringing the total judgment in the state court case to nearly $200 million. Including $10 million in interest that has accrued since an…

Nov 14, 2007 10:28 PM CST

Lawyer-Turned-Secretary Takes McGuireWoods Suit to Trial

A lawyer-turned-legal secretary who is suing McGuireWoods claims in a Maryland trial now under way that she was illegally fired for taking time off to care for her ailing mother. Nancy Adair said in her 2006 lawsuit that at the time of her firing she was working for Joseph Tirone…

Nov 14, 2007 3:45 PM CST

Fired Book Publisher Sues, Claims ‘Deliberate Smear Campaign’

Former book publisher Judith Regan, fired after her decision to publish a book by O.J. Simpson called If I Did It, claims in a lawsuit filed yesterday that she lost her job based on a trumped-up charge. The $100 million suit (PDF posted by the New York Times) also claims…

Nov 14, 2007 2:41 PM CST

Court Declines Civil Rights Case Against NCAA

The U.S. Supreme Court has declined to hear an appeal in a lawsuit that claims the NCAA colluded with a state university to defame a basketball coach. The coach’s lawsuit seeks to hold the private organization liable for civil rights violations because of its involvement with a state agency, SCOTUSblog…

Nov 13, 2007 5:08 PM CST

Lawyer’s Poems Nix Discrimination Case

An in-house intellectual property lawyer in the Worcester, Mass., office of a Pennsylvania company apparently wrote his way out of a job by sending four anonymous “sexually tinged” poems to a co-worker. Although David Bennett denied that he did so, company officials hired a private investigator to look into the…

Nov 12, 2007 5:17 PM CST

Ex-Partner Drops Freshfields Age Bias Claim

A former partner with London-based Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has dropped her age bias case following a ruling for the law firm on similar claim. Lois Moore had alleged that changes to the firm’s pension plan discriminated against older partners. Now she is unconditionally dropping all of her claims, Legal Week…

Nov 9, 2007 1:09 PM CST