Friday, November 7, 2025
- Maine Human Rights Commission (“MHRC”): Fiscal Year 2025 Annual Report states that a large portion of the MHRC’s funding is at risk as a result of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) conditioning renewal of its work-sharing agreement on a concession from the MHRC that it will not receive processing payment for employment cases alleging gender identity discrimination, even where other federally-protected bases are alleged, and HUD’s Fair Housing Enforcement Office likely facing significant reduction if not elimination; where seven of the MHRC’s sixteen job positions are funded in whole or in part by the EEOC or HUD
- MHRC: Commission Counsel Memo provides the “good cause” standard under which the Executive Director may issue a right-to-sue letter when a complaint has been pending for less than 180 days
- Maine Law Court: Rules promulgated by the Maine Department of Labor in administering the Paid Family and Medical Leave program (“PFML”) under the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave Act–which rules at issue require employers who opt out of the PFML with approved private plans to nevertheless submit non-refundable premiums to the state-run PFML fund while waiting for the Maine DOL to approve their private plans–do not conflict with the Act and do not constitute a taking of private property for public use under either the Maine or United States constitutions
- Maine Law Court: Maine Human Rights Act (“MHRA”) disability hostile work environment claim was untimely despite the fact that plaintiff resigned within the limitations period because the resignation was too disconnected from the other circumstances she alleged were a hostile work environment
- Maine Law Court: The Court held that a prior version of Maine’s Wrongful Death Act “authorized recovery for pecuniary injury only when the death deprived one or more of the people identified in the statute of prospective financial gain and that damages for such a loss therefore were not available when the loss was asserted only by the estate”
- Maine Law Court: Medical malpractice jury verdict for defendant affirmed where trial court did not err by admitting Maine Health Security Act screening panel finding in defendant’s favor or granting defendant’s motion for judgment as a matter of law on punitive damages
- US Supreme Court: Affirming dismissal of Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”) employment discrimination claim by retiree against former employer for offering shorter duration post-employment health insurance coverage to disability retirees than others, the Court held that to prevail under the applicable ADA provision “a plaintiff must plead and prove that she held or desired a job, and could perform its essential functions with or without reasonable accommodation, at the time of an employer’s alleged act of disability-based discrimination,” and that retiree here who did not hold or seek a job at the time of the alleged discrimination was therefore not a “qualified individual” protected by the ADA
- US Supreme Court: Tennessee law banning gender-affirming care for transgender youth does not violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
- US Supreme Court: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) majority-group plaintiffs do not need to satisfy a heightened evidentiary standard to carry their burden under the first step of the McDonnell Douglas framework
- US Supreme Court: Claims brought under Title II of the ADA and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (“Rehab Act”) based on educational services are subject to the same standards that apply in other disability discrimination contexts, not a distinct, more demanding analysis
- First Circuit: Maine Department of Health and Human Services decision to provide less aid to plaintiffs (two brothers with developmental disabilities) when they lived together than if they had lived apart violated the Fourteenth Amendment because doing so was not rationally related to the legitimate state interest of cost-saving
- First Circuit: In vacating summary judgment for employer on former employee’s Puerto Rico Whistle-Blower Act claim, the court held (relying Title VII case law) that “temporal proximity” between protected conduct and an adverse action is not always necessary and “at the summary judgment stage, changing, adding, or contradicting the reasons for discharging an employee supports a showing of pretext and causation”
- First Circuit: In granting summary judgment for defendant on federal postal employee’s Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) claim, the court held that plaintiff waived her right to the lower standard that federal employees and applicants need not show that their age was the “but for” cause of their mistreatment but instead only that it was “tainted by discrimination,” but the court denied summary judgment on part of plaintiff’s Title VII sex discrimination claim because the decision-maker’s comment that the desired post office “had never had a female postmaster, and she wondered how that would work” reflected doubt about whether a woman could do the job
- First Circuit: Dismissal of Title VII sex discrimination claim by former US Naval employee affirmed where plaintiff’s “complaint is devoid of any assertions of facts that plausibly indicate a causal nexus between his sex and termination”
- First Circuit: Affirming decertification and dismissal as untimely of representative action under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the court posed the question “[w]hen, if ever, does a district court’s ‘significant delay’ in ruling on the named plaintiff’s motion to issue notice of the action to potentially ‘similarly situated’ employees require that the statute of limitations for their claims be tolled for the period of that delay,” and answered “that, even assuming that in some cases such a delay may warrant such tolling, there was no requirement to toll the claims here”
- First Circuit: Summary judgment affirmed for defendant employer based on plaintiff former employee’s failure to exhaust administrative remedies because “we do not entertain arguments made by implication; rather, we demand that they be spelled out squarely and distinctly”
- US District Court ME: Town’s motion to dismiss various housing discrimination and constitutional claims denied where hotel evicted plaintiffs (two Black men) among other recipients of public housing assistance in an effort to have the the Town renew its hotel license following town meetings in which community members expressed safety concerns about the hotel along with statements about its tenants reflecting racial and low-income stereotypes
- US District Court ME: A plaintiff has standing to seek compensatory damages for non-economic harm under Title II of the ADA despite the US Supreme Court’s decision that emotional distress damages are unavailable under the Rehab Act
- US District Court ME: Motion to dismiss Title VII complaint seeking religious exemption to health clinic’s employee vaccination requirement denied where it was unclear whether the requirement was mandated by the State of Maine (which would have established an undue hardship defense)
- US District Court ME: In partially denying and partially granting motion to dismiss Title VII and MHRA sex discrimination claims, the court addressed whether plaintiff adequately pled a continuing violation in the form of a systemic or serial violation sufficient to seek damages for otherwise time-barred allegations; found no systemic violation because there was no unlawful, systemic policy; but found a serial violation in the form of an actionable hostile work environment for some but not all of the alleged harassing conduct
- US District Court ME: Summary judgment denied on Congalese tenant’s national origin disparate treatment and hostile housing environment (a matter of first impression) discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, and Maine Unfair Trade Practices Act claims against property management company arising out of its blaming tenant for cockroaches in her apartment (and at first claiming they “came in through food from her country”), attempting to evict her, failing to renew her lease, and failing to return her security deposit
- US District Court ME: Summary judgment granted for hospital on surgeon’s gender, national origin, and Maine Whistleblowers’ Protection Act (“WPA”) claims where surgeon failed to show that the hospital’s stated reasons—performance, quality of care, patient safety—for placing surgeon on performance improvement plan and suspending her were pretextual or that her WPA-protected email was a causative factor
- US District Court ME: The court dismissed former employee’s Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”) interference claim because employer was not required to provide paid leave under the FMLA; FMLA retaliation claim because one-year gap between employee’s FMLA-protected leave and his demotion was too long, without more, to establish the necessary causal connection; ERISA interference claim because the complaint did not plausibly allege that an ERISA plan was implicated; and ADA and ADEA claims because former employer was notified of his demotion more than 300 days before he filed his EEOC complaint
- US District Court ME: Motion to dismiss denied on former (alleged) employee’s claim that former (alleged) employer violated federal damages statute by fraudulently misclassifying him to the Internal Revenue Service as an independent contractor and underreporting cash payments to him
- US District Court ME: Magistrate Judge denied motion to amend sex discrimination complaint to allege class action, citing undue delay (inadequate justification for the sixteen-month gap between the initial complaint and the proposed amendment), undue prejudice (finding amendment would effectively negate sixteen months of litigation), and futility (noting amendment failed to satisfy Rule 23 commonality, typicality, and predominance requirements)
- US District Court ME: Public university lecturer’s email to her supervisor communicating her decision not to abide by university’s mandatory masking policy was not protected speech under the First Amendment because it was sent pursuant to her ordinary duties as a lecturer rather than as a private citizen
- Maine DOL: Effective January 1, 2025, the Maine Department of Labor adopted its Rules governing the Maine Paid Family and Medical Leave Program
