McCorkle v. Bank of America Corp. The 4th Circuit affirms dismissal of a class-action suit by bank employees who claim defendant Bank of America employed a “normal retirement age” that violated ERISA in calculating lump sum distributions, and violated ERISA in the calculation of benefit accrual.

Tagged with: Civil Practice Class Action ERISA Labor & Employment

Piedi v. T-Mobile USA, Inc. A white co-worker, Hooks, who was on vacation and who was worried about making his sales quotas, asked the Hispanic plaintiff to submit an unsigned service order for a potential client. Believing the order would simply be returned as incomplete, and after receiving approval from his white supervisor, Leckie, plaintiff submitted the order. Plaintiff and Leckie were fired, but Hooks was not.

Tagged with: Labor & Employment Race Discrimination Claim

Stephens v. Neal’s Pallet Co. Even though plaintiff’s supervisor made two or three racist remarks about his employees, none of these remarks shared a nexus with plaintiff’s dismissal. Such evidence is insufficient to show that plaintiff was fired for discriminatory reasons.

Tagged with: Civil Rights Labor & Employment Termination

Church v. Home Fashions International, LLC Pursuant to a written contract, plaintiff agreed to work for defendant for 18 months for a salary plus commission. Although defendant contends that, after 12 months, the parties entered into a new contract pursuant to which plaintiff would work for commissions only, defendant has proffered no evidence of this new contract.

Tagged with: Employee Labor & Employment

WEC Carolina Energy Solutions LLC v. Miller If an employee is authorized to access information on his employer’s computer, that employee’s misuse of the information is not a violation of the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Tagged with: Labor & Employment Tort/Negligence

EEOC v. RandstadThe EEOC can obtain five years’ worth of job assignment records from a temporary staffing agency that allegedly discriminated by refusing to reassign a temporary worker who could not read and write English; the 4th Circuit says the district court should defer to the EEOC’s assessment of relevance.

Tagged with: Administrative Labor & Employment

James v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Board of Education Even though petitioner basically skipped the hearing before the defendant-Board of Education (his counsel stayed only long enough to protest the timing of the hearing), petitioner nevertheless exhausted his administrative remedies by requesting the hearing and appealing the board’s subsequent decision to the superior court in accordance with G.S. § 115C-325(n).

Tagged with: Administrative Labor & Employment Public Employees Termination

Brooks v. Arthur Two Virginia correctional officers cannot sue for alleged unlawful firing for exercise of their First Amendment free-speech rights; the 4th Circuit says complaints about an employee’s own duties pursued through an internal grievance procedure do not relate to a matter of public concern.

Tagged with: Constitutional Free Speech Labor & Employment Public Employees

Walters v. McMahen A group of hourly-wage employees at Perdue poultry processing plants have not stated a civil conspiracy claim under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against the company with allegations that company personnel conspired to hire illegal aliens in order to depress wages paid to all hourly employees; the 4th Circuit says plaintiffs did not allege two RICO predicate acts to support their claim.

Tagged with: Labor & Employment

McCravy v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co. A bank employee who paid for life insurance for her daughter through her employee benefit plan, but who was denied insurance benefits when her 25-year-old daughter died, has her claim for “equitable relief” for the insurance carrier’s breach of fiduciary duty reconsidered by the 4th Circuit, in light of CIGNA Corp. v. Amara, 131 S. Ct. 1866 (2011).

Tagged with: Breach of Fiduciary Duty ERISA Insurance Labor & Employment Life