Labor & Employment

Judge nixes jury conviction of ex-Goldman Sachs programmer, calls law a bad fit in source-code case

A former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. programmer committed a crime by taking computer code for a high-speed trading program with him when he left the investment bank for a new job, prosecutors insist. But they didn’t prove their case against Sergey Aleynikov, 45, because the facts of the case don’t…

Jul 6, 2015 1:45 PM CDT

2nd Circuit says 2 judges used wrong test in deciding high-profile cases over unpaid internships

Do unpaid internships primarily benefit the employer? Or the interns? That is the question two federal judges should have asked, but didn’t, in ruling on lawsuits claiming that internships at two major media and entertainment companies violated the Fair Labor Standards Act, a federal appeals court said Thursday. In a…

Jul 2, 2015 4:30 PM CDT

Appeals court rules for Womble Carlyle in disability suit by former employee

A former employee who claimed disability discrimination by Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice won’t be able to pursue her case, according to a federal appeals court. The Richmond, Virginia-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday affirmed dismissal of the suit by Charlesetta Jennings, a service center worker in…

Jul 1, 2015 6:45 AM CDT

Ex-worker wins $18M in suit against CEO over blog posts; law prof’s case is still pending

A lawyer for Benjamin Wey, the chief executive officer of a New York City investment firm, says Wey never had sex with former employee Hanna Bouveng, and claims Bouveng sued in retaliation for being fired for poor work performance. However, a federal jury in Manhattan found Bouveng’s story of sexual…

Jun 30, 2015 11:25 AM CDT

SCOTUS to consider First Amendment rights of public workers forced to pay for collective bargaining

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear a challenge by California school teachers who contend that a law forcing public employees to pay union fees for collective bargaining violates their First Amendment rights. The court granted cert on Tuesday in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. The case “could be…

Jun 30, 2015 9:41 AM CDT

Obama announces new overtime rules in op-ed; 5 million people are expected to benefit

President Obama announced new rules on Monday that will allow salaried workers making up to $50,440 to be eligible for time-and-a-half overtime pay. Obama announced the new rules, set to take effect in 2016 after a comment period, in a Huffington Post op-ed. The change raises the salary floor from…

Jun 30, 2015 7:38 AM CDT

Suit by former in-house lawyer claims Broadcom executives ‘degrade and objectify women’

A laid-off in-house lawyer at Broadcom claims in a gender bias lawsuit (PDF) that Broadcom has a “pervasive male-preferential paradigm” that has led to barriers to advancement and a male-dominated workforce. The suit by Jennifer Davies, filed earlier this month in California federal court, says she was denied a promotion…

Jun 30, 2015 5:45 AM CDT

Worker who claimed law firm released her private video of sex harassment loses appeal

A woman who secretly made a video of alleged sex harassment at work can’t sue a law firm accused of releasing it to the media, an appeals court ruled last week. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the privacy and emotional distress suit by the Jane…

Jun 29, 2015 6:15 AM CDT

Too busy to take time off? The workcation may be for you

For those who can’t or won’t take time for a real vacation and turn off their electronic devices, some employers are agreeing to another option. The so-called workcation allows employees to travel to an exotic location and work from there, without having time docked from their allowed vacation days, reports…

Jun 23, 2015 3:10 PM CDT

Jury awards $2.2M to 2 workers who sued over DNA tests to ID ‘devious defecator’

A federal jury in Georgia has awarded $2.225,000 million to two men required to take DNA tests. They were peformed in an effort to identify a “devious defecator” who left piles of feces on a food-storage warehouse floor at the grocery distributor where the pair worked. Plaintiffs Jack Lowe and…

Jun 23, 2015 11:40 AM CDT

Judge says Ellen Pao owes $276K to venture capital firm in sex-discrimination case

Former BigLaw associate Ellen Pao not only lost her sex-discrimination trial against a storied venture capital firm but refused a $1 million pretrial settlement offer. So she owes Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers reimbursement for the firm’s costs and, potentially, attorney fees as well. However, a San Francisco Superior Court…

Jun 19, 2015 12:42 PM CDT

Uber driver is employee, not independent contractor, California Labor Commission says

Those who operate the Uber ride-sharing service say the company simply acts as a middleman, connecting passengers and private drivers through a smartphone application. But in a ruling earlier this year that that could be persuasive to other tribunals, the California Labor Commission disagreed, determining that oversight by Uber on…

Jun 17, 2015 12:40 PM CDT

Complaints about crotch-touching lawyer led to staffer’s firing, suit says

A former operations manager for an Oregon law firm claims in a lawsuit that she was fired because of her complaints about a partner’s crotch touching. Former employee Ashley Buxton seeks $250,000 in her suit against the law firm Shapiro & Sutherland, the Oregonian reports. The suit says Shapiro &…

Jun 17, 2015 7:04 AM CDT

Judge OKs consolidated suit over theft of Sony ex-workers’ personal info

A federal judge in Los Angeles nixed a contract-based claim against Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc. over a massive third-party hack attack that gained access to former employees’ personal information. But the Monday ruling by U.S. District Judge R. Gary Klausner gave a green light to negligence-based litigation by the ex-workers…

Jun 16, 2015 3:25 PM CDT

FedEx will pay $227M to settle suits alleging it misclassified its delivery drivers

FedEx has agreed to settle multiple lawsuits alleging that it misclassified its delivery drivers in California as independent contractors. The settlement amount is $227 million. More than 2,000 FedEx workers are likely to be on the receiving end, reports Courthouse News. Because of the classification of drivers as independent contractors,…

Jun 16, 2015 11:00 AM CDT