South Carolina Lawyers Weekly

Josey v. Wal-Mart Stores East, L.P. (Lawyers Weekly No. 002-168-13, 11 pp.) (Cameron McGowan Currie, Sr.J.) 0:11-cv-02993; D.S.C. Holding: Plaintiff has not pointed to any accommodation that would have allowed him to perform his job as an Inventory Associate after ...

Chauncey v. Life Cycle Engineering, Inc Defendants assert that, while plaintiff was out on medical leave, defendant Walls asked her to send weekly email updates because Walls wanted to reduce the number of emails plaintiff was sending. Regardless of Walls’ intentions, no reasonable jury could find that Walls asking plaintiff to do something she was already doing regularly would interfere with her leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Tucker v. Shinseki Plaintiff alleges that, after he had a disagreement with his supervisor’s paramour, he was subjected to a hostile environment when his supervisor and the paramour began to harass him. Plaintiff also alleges that he was terminated in retaliation for his stated intention to file an EEO complaint about the harassment.

Waugh Chapel South LLC v. United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 27 Plaintiff commercial real estate developers who allege defendants engaged in unfair labor practices by orchestrating 14 separate legal challenges to force the developers to end their relationship with a non-unionized supermarket, win a remand for the trial court to consider whether defendant labor union waged a secondary boycott; but the 4th Circuit affirms the trial court decision that another defendant, a food industry joint labor-management fund, is not a “labor organization” under the National Labor Relations Act.

Dorsey v. Town of Bluffton Although 38 U.S.C. § 4311(b) prohibits an employer from taking “any adverse employment action” in retaliation for a person’s actions under the Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, a number of courts have construed the phrase “any adverse employment” action to mean “any material adverse employment action.” The court did not plainly err when it used the word “material” in the jury instruction on retaliation.

Just v. Spartanburg Community College Even though plaintiff has alleged a claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for retaliatory discharge in violation of the First and Fourteenth Amendments, plaintiff has only alleged these claims against defendants Giles and Jones. Even if defendants Spartanburg Community College and the S.C. Board for Technical and Comprehensive Education would be necessary parties to injunctive relief (i.e., reinstatement), the complaint does not state a constructive discharge claim against them.

Tagged with: Education

NLRB v. Enterprise Leasing Co. Southeast LLC In these two consolidated cases, the 4th Circuit says the appointment of three members to the National Labor Relations Board on Jan. 4, 2012 was unconstitutional because the appointments were not made during the “Recess of the Senate” under the U.S. Constitution, and the court denies enforcement of two bargaining orders issued by the board after appointment of the three members.

Savani v. Washington Safety Management Solutions, LLC Where defendants failed to request remand for administrative review until more than a year after the Fourth Circuit issued its opinion and until after this court issued a ruling adverse to defendants, defendants have waived their administrative exhaustion argument. Moreover, this court found no ambiguity in the terms of the ERISA plan as amended, so remand is not justified on the basis of ambiguity.

Carpenters Pension Fund of Baltimore, Md. v. Maryland Dep’t of Health & Mental Hygiene A pension fund attempting to collect on a $16,141 default judgment against a construction company for unpaid employer pension-plan contributions cannot garnish funds owed to the construction company by a Maryland state agency; the 4th Circuit says the garnishment proceeding violates the 11th Amendment and remands with instructions to quash the writ of garnishment.

Chamber of Commerce of the U.S. v. NLRB : The National Labor Relations Board did not have authority to promulgate a rule requiring employers to post a notice of employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act, and the 4th Circuit upholds summary judgment for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups that challenged the rule.