Friday, May 22, 2020
- EEOC: Updated guidance on COVID-19 and non-discrimination laws includes answer to the questions: G.3. What does an employee need to do in order to request reasonable accommodation from her employer because she has one of the medical conditions that CDC says may put her at higher risk for severe illness from COVID-19? G.4. The CDC identifies a number of medical conditions that might place individuals at “higher risk for severe illness” if they get COVID-19. An employer knows that an employee has one of these conditions and is concerned that his health will be jeopardized upon returning to the workplace, but the employee has not requested accommodation. How does the ADA apply to this situation? G.5. What are examples of accommodation that, absent undue hardship, may eliminate (or reduce to an acceptable level) a direct threat to self?
- MHRC: Minutes from the Commission’s May 4th meeting include description that the Commission continues to operate and investigate cases despite COVID-19, with adjustments made to operate mostly electronically/remotely and with many extensions of time and accommodations; staff mostly working at home; someone being in the office part of every day to receive mail and packages and scan them to other staffers for handling; and the Commission holding off on issuing administrative dismissals as much as possible due to concerns about limited court access during the pandemic
- US District Court ME: Mandamus action (and accompanying declaratory judgment action) against district attorney for due process violation dismissed as untimely where 30-day time limit in Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 80B applied because district attorney had twice refused to hold a hearing on plaintiff’s request (making it a “refusal to act” rather than a “failure to act” scenario, the latter of which would have allowed six months to file from the failure to act instead of 30 days)
- US District Court ME: Summary judgment denied on Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act claim where communication channels between recipients of plaintiff’s WPA-protected complaints and decision makers justified inference that decision makers knew of complaints; and close proximity of the last of a long string of complaints and plaintiff’s termination, together with showing of pretext, sufficiently established causal connection between complaints and termination
- US District Court ME: Motion for reconsideration denied where decision to deny defendant’s attorney’s fee application was based on Local Rule 7(a), which does not entitle a fee applicant to a bifurcated fee-shifting procedure that addresses the merits first and the lodestar analysis second; despite Fed. R. Civ. P. 54(d)(2)(C), which provides that a court may “decide issues of liability for fees before receiving submissions on the value of services”
- US District Court ME: Temporary restraining order to prevent former employee from violating his employment agreement by possessing, using, or disclosing former employer’s confidential information denied where, although former employer was likely to succeed on the merits, it did not establish that, absent temporary injunctive relief, it would suffer irreparable harm
- US District Court ME: “While additional steps arguably could have been taken to obtain personal service, the likelihood that [defendant] received actual notice of the summons and complaint as a result of the steps already taken by [plaintiff] justifies service by publication and alternative means in this instance.”
- First Circuit: Summary judgment affirmed for school on disability and age discrimination claims where, in part, requiring school teacher to have a psychiatric exam was justified by its concern that teacher might commit suicide, which would have adversely affected both the young children and school staff
- First Circuit: Summary judgment affirmed for employer on age discrimination claim where, although fired employee satisfied his burden to make out a prima facie case, he could not disprove employer’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its decision to terminate employee and hire another for a new, consolidated post
- First Circuit: Summary judgment for employer affirmed, in part, on claim that plaintiff was not afforded 21 days to consider release agreement under Older Workers Benefit Protection Act, where argument was unsupported that plaintiff was told he would only have a day or two to sign it
