Wednesday, January 26, 2022
- Supreme Court of New Hampshire: “We hold that the trial court erred in determining that the use of therapeutic cannabis prescribed in accordance with [New Hampshire’s therapeutic cannabis program] cannot, as a matter of law, be a reasonable accommodation for an employee’s disability under [New Hampshire’s employment discrimination law]”
- Maine Legislature: Hearing scheduled for February 2, 2022, before the Labor and Housing Committee on LD 1889, which is a Maine Human Rights Commission bill that would repeal Section 837 of the Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act (“WPA”), a section that was interpreted by the Law Court in Nadeau v. Twin Rivers Paper Company, LLC, 2021 ME 16, as barring WPA claims involving employees subject to collective bargaining agreements when read in conjunction with section 301 of the federal Labor Management Relations Act
- First Circuit: Under Title VII fee-shifting statute, attorney’s fees may be awarded to a prevailing plaintiff for time reasonably expended in connection with a separate but related case, provided the time was “devoted to work that is useful and of a type that is ordinarily considered necessary to the matter at hand”; time reasonably expended in settlement negotiations should be included in fee award; a 30% across-the-board discount was warranted for “impermissibly vague entries” such as “[m]eeting with Client,” “Telephone conference with Client,” and “Electronic correspondence [to or from] Client”; and a 25% across-the-board discount was ok to account for time inflated by using quarter-hour billing instead of six-minute increments
- US District Court ME: Employer’s motion for summary judgment on plaintiff’s (the Maine Human Rights Commission for the use of an employee with a disability) disability employment discrimination claim denied because, in part, plaintiff had standing to pursue claim for a forward-looking assurance of a fixed work schedule to accommodate employee’s intellectual disability despite the fact that employer provided a fixed schedule in the past and stated after the court complaint was filed that it did not intend to stop doing so, where employer had previously told employee four times that it would stop giving him the fixed schedule
- US District Court ME: Motion to dismiss as untimely 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Americans with Disabilities Act claims denied where they were subject to Maine’s six-year tort statute of limitations and therefore subject to tolling under 14 M.R.S. § 853 on the basis of disability, and plaintiff’s complaint sufficiently pled an overall inability to function in society that prevented him from protecting his rights that would entitle him to toll the statute of limitations; but the court left for future briefing whether the tolling issue would be decided by a judge or jury and whether it would be scheduled for early resolution
- US District Court ME: Magistrate Judge recommended denial of motion to dismiss Americans with Disabilities Act failure to accommodate claim but recommended dismissal of age discrimination termination claim because plaintiff’s position was eliminated in a workforce reduction and plaintiff failed to allege that his employer did not treat age neutrally or that younger persons were retained in the same position
- US District Court ME: In denying defendant employer’s motion for summary judgment on Age Discrimination in Employment Act and Maine Human Rights Act age discrimination claims, the court found direct evidence of unlawful age discrimination where plaintiff was told by decisionmaker, in part, that he was too old for the job and that decisionmaker was “going to hire a younger person”
- Law Court: Summary judgment affirmed on Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act claim where plaintiff did not file a timely response to emailed motion and defendant’s statement of materials facts were thus admitted, including that plaintiff did not engage in Whistleblower-protected activity when she reported to her co-worker conduct by an employee that occurred during nonwork hours at a private party while the employee was not engaged in work; and denial of motion for enlargement to respond to motion affirmed in light of Maine Rule of Civil Procedure 5(b), which does not forbid service of records in excess of 50 pages via email
- Law Court: Summary judgment for employer on Maine Human Rights Act disability employment discrimination claim as untimely affirmed where court complaint was filed more than two years after plaintiff received unambiguous and authoritative notice of the discriminatory act, namely, a meeting in which he was told that the women who work in the office were afraid of him because of his Asperger’s and that he could not return to work until he received permission to do so
- US District Court ME: Res judicata, which prohibits a party from relitigating claims that were or could have been raised in a prior action, precluded former employee from pursuing fraudulent concealment claim against former employer in a subsequent action where her earlier Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act action against it was dismissed at summary judgment, and she knew then about the alleged fraudulent concealment (that her employer had secretly decided to terminate her employment years before it did so) and could have amended her complaint then to include the claim
- Maine Human Rights Commission: Minutes of January 10th meeting welcome a new Investigator
