Leos v. Darden Restaurants, Inc.

Agreement requiring employees to arbitrate disputes with employer was not substantively unconscionable where employer’s right to amend the agreement was limited by the phrase "as required by law," limitations on discovery were not per se unreasonable, requirement that employee pay the cost if employee ordered a transcript was no more burdensome than if the case was litigated, and provisional remedy language was neither overly harsh nor so one-sided as to shock the conscience. Employees who did not sue on behalf of a class lacked standing to argue that agreement’s ban on class-wide arbitration violated the National Labor Relations Act, and if they had standing, the argument would fail on its merits.

    

     Leos v. Darden Restaurants, Inc. - filed June 4, 2013, publication ordered June 24, 2013, Second District, Div. One

     Cite as B241630

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University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar

Title VII retaliation claims must be proved according to traditional principles of but-for causation, not the lessened causation test stated for status-based discrimination claims in 42 U.S.C. Sec. 2000e–2(m).

     

University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar - filed June 24, 2013

     Cite as 12-484_o759

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Vance v. Ball State University

An employee is a "supervisor" for purposes of vicarious liability under Title VII only if he or she is empowered by the employer to take tangible employment actions against the victim.

     

Vance v. Ball State University - filed June 24, 2013

     Cite as 11-556_11o2

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Grace v. Beaumont Unified School District

School district complied with statutory requirement that probationary employee be notified by March 15 that district would not offer her a contract for the following school year. It gave actual notice by adopting a resolution to that effect, identifying plaintiff by employee number, at a meeting at which she was present. Any defect in the form of notice that plaintiff would not be rehired was waived when plaintiff declined the opportunity to meet personally with a school official, whom she knew intended to serve her with such notice, and insisted that such notice be served by certified mail, which it was.

     Grace v. Beaumont Unified School District - filed June 4, 2013, Fourth District, Div. Two

     Cite as E054801

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Harris v. Amgen, Inc.

ERISA plan terms did not require or encourage defendant fiduciaries to invest primarily in employer stock. The presumption of prudence articulated in Quan v. Computer Sciences Corp., 623 F.3d 870 (9th Cir. 2010) did not apply to a claim that defendants acted imprudently and violated their duty of care by continuing to provide employer’s common stock as an investment alternative. They knew or should have known that the stock was being sold at an artificially inflated price due to material omissions and misrepresentations, as well as illegal sales. Fiduciaries’ duties of disclosure to ERISA plan participants are no less extensive than their duties to the general public under the securities laws. Employer is an ERISA fiduciary in the absence of a delegation of exclusive authority over the plan. District court erred in dismissing employer as a non-fiduciary merely based on delegation of authority to a "fiduciary committee". Delegation neither provided exclusive authority to the committee, nor precluded employer from acting on its own behalf.

     Harris v. Amgen, Inc. - filed June 4, 2013

     Cite as 10-56014

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Hillman v. Maretta

State statute purporting to create a cause of action in favor of a surviving spouse, against a previous spouse who received benefits under a contract based on an unrevoked beneficiary designation made during the previous marriage, was preempted to extent it conflicted with Federal Employees’ Group Life Insurance Act of 1954--which gives the employee the absolute right to make or revoke a beneficiary designation. This does not provide for automatic revocation where the beneficiary is the employee’s spouse and the marriage is later dissolved, and preempts states from revoking such designations by operation of law.

     Hillman v. Maretta - filed June 3, 2013

     Cite as 11-1221_7l48

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