Tuesday, March 16, 2021
- US Supreme Court: “This case asks whether an award of nominal damages by itself can redress a past injury. We hold that it can.”
- First Circuit: Summary judgment for employer reversed on racial employment discrimination claim where district court erred in excluding documents creating a trialworthy issue on grounds that plaintiff had not authenticated them (the parties agreed that summary judgment materials must admissible at trial, but the court left that issue open), noting that “[w]hen a party in response to discovery requests points to a document that appears on its face to be a business record of the producing party, the other parties should be able to treat the document as authentic unless someone offers some reason to think otherwise, before it is too late to do something about it”
- First Circuit: In analyzing Fourth Amendment excessive force claim involving officers pushing plaintiff onto a sofa-recliner (the “push”), which toppled over, then one of the officers kneeling on his back (the “kneel”), the court found that there was clearly a change in circumstances between the push and the kneel that was relevant to the reasonableness inquiry, and it made sense for the district court to segment its qualified immunity analysis of the push and the kneel; the push was not a clearly established violation of plaintiff’s right to be free of unreasonable seizures (and therefore qualified immunity shielded the officers from liability); and there was just enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could have found it was more likely than not that the kneel caused plaintiff some injury additional to that caused by the push
- First Circuit: Summary judgment for employer affirmed on disability discrimination claim because plaintiff stated on his application for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits that he “became unable to work because of [his] disabling condition” on a date prior to his termination and that he was “still disabled” on a date after his termination; he had not given the explanation to the Social Security Administration that he later gave in court that he had fully recovered from his initial disability at the time of his termination but that his mental health and physical condition deteriorated after his termination; and he was therefore judicially estopped from proving that he was a “qualified individual” for purposes of his disability discrimination claim
- First Circuit: $4.25 million age discrimination and retaliation jury verdict for plaintiff vacated, in part, because (on age discrimination claim) younger employees who were not demoted were not similarly situated to plaintiff because they occupied lower positions, performed different duties, and reported to different supervisors; and (on retaliation claim) plaintiff voluntarily forfeited her eligibility for promotion by refusing to participate in a component of the application process
- Maine Legislature: Public hearing scheduled for March 24th before the Labor and Housing Committee on LD 553, An Act To End At-will Employment
- MHRC: 2020 Annual Report includes that within the 775 newly-filed complaints in FY 2020, disability discrimination was filed in 48.5%, Maine Human Rights Act retaliation in 39.4%, whistleblower retaliation in 31.2%, and sex discrimination in 19.1% (they add up to more than 100% because multiple bases are often alleged in a single complaint); and Investigators wrote reports after completed investigations in 34% of cases processed
