Daily eBriefs - May 31, 2024

Employment A drug treatment center’s claims that a health plan administrator’s denial of reimbursements violated state law were preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act because they had both a reference to and an impermissible connection with the ERISA plans that the defendants administered. Bristol SL Holdings v. Cigna Health and Life Insurance - filed May 31, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 23-55019 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0624//23-55019

Biden administration sues states over immigration laws

The U.S. Department of Justice has sued two more states this month to prevent them from implementing new state laws targeting immigrants. Why it matters: The lawsuits against Iowa and Oklahoma — in addition to one against Texas — signal that the Biden administration is taking an aggressive stance against states taking immigration matters into their own hands. Yet border security and immigration are major vulnerabilities for Biden as polls show they are a rising concern among voters ahead of this year's election. Catch up quick: Iowa and Oklahoma joined Texas in passing new state laws that charge undocumented immigrants with either a criminal misdemeanor or a felony for entering the country without authorization. Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds, both Republicans, have said the moves were necessary given a surge of people seeking asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border. The DOJ filed suit against Iowa on May 9 and against Oklahoma on May 21, saying the laws are unconstitutional. The DOJ is also in court against a Texas law passed last year that would allow state authorities to arrest and deport people suspected of entering the country illegally. That law, which critics warn will lead to racial profiling, is on hold pending the outcome of the lawsuit. What they're saying: "Oklahoma cannot disregard the U.S. Constitution and settled Supreme Court precedent," Brian M. Boynton, head of the Justice Department's Civil Division, said in a statement. Boynton said the same thing about Iowa's law. The other side: Stitt says Oklahoma was forced to act since the "Biden administration refuses to do its job to secure our borders." That was echoed in a statement from Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird: "When Biden fails to do his job and secure our border, states have to take matters into their own hands." Yes, but: Some local law enforcement groups warn that any new state immigration laws would make it harder for police to fight crime. "This law has the potential to destroy the connections and relationships we have built within our local immigrant communities and set us back for many years to come," the Oklahoma Association of Chiefs of Police and the Metro Law Enforcement Agency Leaders said in a joint statement. The intrigue: Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp recently signed a new law that requires law enforcement agencies in Georgia to notify federal authorities when undocumented immigrants are arrested. The law also requires local and state police to identify, arrest and detain people suspected of being undocumented. What we're watching: The Texas case is likely to make it to the Supreme Court. Subscribe to Axios Latino to get vital news about Latinos and Latin America, delivered to your inbox on Tuesdays and Thursdays. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

3 theories for America’s anti-immigrant shift

Six years ago, the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” policy at the southern border went into effect. Thousands of immigrant families were split up; migrant children were taken and kept separately while their parents awaited prosecution. The images and sounds of caged children stunned the nation, and the outcry was swift: Democrats rallied against then-President Donald Trump, protests swept the country, and public opinion was sharply against Trump’s policy. Immigration soared to become a top concern again, and the share of Americans saying immigration was a good thing for the country jumped. That sentiment continued to grow during the rest of Trump’s presidency. Now, things look much different. Americans once again view immigration as the country’s single most important problem, but public sentiment appears to have taken a turn to the negative. Recent polling seems to suggest that a significant share of American voters — not just Republicans — are warming up to the idea of tough-on-immigration policy proposals and rhetoric. Inside this story Numerous polls suggest the American public is souring on immigration, with even Democratic voters showing more interest in Donald Trump’s policy proposals for mass deportations. It’s a reversal of the public’s several-decades-long trend of increasing sympathy and appreciation for immigrants. This piece lays out three reasons for this surprising trend in public opinion. A recent poll suggested 42 percent of Democrats would support mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. Other polls have also found an anti-immigrant shift in the public’s mood. Gallup’s long-term tracking poll, which has been running since the 1960s, shows a more general decline in the share of Americans who want to increase rates of immigration or keep them the same. Conversely, the portion of Americans who want to decrease immigration has grown: 41 percent of Americans feel this way, up from a low point of 28 percent in 2020. This shift against immigration is happening even as the general American consensus has been moving in favor of immigrants over the last few decades. In 1994, for example, 63 percent of Americans believed that immigrants were a “burden” to the country; only 31 percent said immigrants strengthen the country, according to Pew Research Center data. By 2019, those dynamics had flipped: 62 percent of Americans believed immigrants were an asset to the nation; only 28 percent thought they were a burden. Now, with the public seemingly lurching to the right on immigration, politicians are moving accordingly. There’s been a rightward pivot by Biden and congressional Democrats, and Trump — who built his first campaign on demonizing immigrants (and particularly immigrants of color) — has stepped up his constant attacks on the Biden administration’s immigration policy. So what explains the American public’s souring mood on immigrants and immigration? Though there are no simple answers, pollsters and immigration researchers offer a few explanations that can be roughly sorted into three theories. The first theory centers the role of elected officials — specifically Republicans, and more specifically Trump. As Republicans left power and shifted into opposition mode, they’ve refocused attention on immigration as a threat to American identity. Other experts argue the economy — particularly inflation and the public’s “scarcity mindset” — has made more Americans critical of immigration. When the public feels as though the economy is booming and there's plenty to go around, they feel more open to sharing that wealth. But when people perceive the economy to be tenuous, like after the pandemic when inflation took off, Americans feel more hesitant to share with outsiders. A third group argues that the anti-immigrant turn is being driven by concerns about the rule of law and social disorder. This theory posits that the post-pandemic surge in crime, combined with heightened media coverage of disorder in public, prompted greater concerns from Americans about security and quality of life — concerns that were then also applied to the border and people trying to cross it without documentation. Theory 1: It’s the politicians Trump’s first presidential campaign — starting quite literally with his announcement speech — was built on demonizing immigrants and claiming that open borders were destroying America. But that created a rhetorical tension once he took office, as he had to claim that the problem was rapidly improving thanks to his new anti-immigration measures. Since Joe Biden took office, he has pledged a more open, humanitarian approach to immigration and border politics. He paused construction on a border wall; he issued new protections for DACA recipients, and sent a new immigration bill to Congress. He essentially sought to create the sharpest contrast possible with Donald Trump’s legacy. That shift, however, created the perfect opportunity for Republicans, led by Trump, to once again cast immigration and immigrants as a threat to American identity. The surge in illegal border crossings and legal asylum seekers that followed the pandemic — as well as this liberalizing of migration policy — were fodder for the fear-mongering and exploitation of racial and social fears. And right-wing politicians and commentators have routinely played up this threat, unifying immigrant-skeptical Americans. The lead-up to the 2022 midterms and the 2024 campaign so far provide evidence of this shift. While the 2020 campaign centered on the pandemic and the economy, once Biden took over, Republican candidates across the country shifted into talk about “open borders.” For example, the pro-immigration groups America’s Voice and Immigration Hub in 2021 tracked an increase in mentions of the terms “Biden-Harris border crisis” and “mass amnesty” in paid advertising, as well as increased anti-immigrant discourse online. Once the midterm season picked up, more Republican campaign ads began to mention immigration negatively — about one in five ads in March 2022, for example. And in 2024, Republican candidates (most visibly Donald Trump) have also stepped up talk of immigrant “invasions.” Trump’s more recent framing of illegal immigration as “poisoning the blood of our country” is a key example of this more vitriolic talk of immigrants. And it fits into a longstanding history of American xenophobia; immigration scholars consider this kind of discourse a direct appeal to “in-groups”: existing communities that define themselves against “out-groups” like immigrants, and exploit suspicion and bigotry. Still, this theory can’t fully explain the shift in negative sentiment since the pandemic. Republican politicians (including, famously, Trump) and right-wing media have previously led other cycles of outrage and panic over migration, “caravans,” and the southern border. Immigration was a key campaign point for Republicans during the 2018 midterms, but support for immigration continued to rise. Theory 2: It’s the economy When Americans feel good about their financial security and the health of the national economy, they also feel good about immigrants and immigration. That’s the lesson from the last few decades of Gallup polling, according to Jeff Jones, one of Gallup’s data and public opinion experts. “We saw some declines around the Great Recession — favorable percentages were in the 50s — and then in 2018 and 2019, opinions were quite positive,” Jones told me. In fact, both Republicans and Democrats were more positive about immigration during that time. But after the pandemic and its ensuing inflation and interest rate hikes, economic sentiment took a nosedive, and anti-immigrant sentiment began to pick up as well. These more recent swings also show up in a few of Gallup’s other tracking polls. When asked whether immigrants have a positive or negative effect on job opportunities, taxes, or the economy in general, negative sentiment tended to increase in the lead-up to the Great Recession but recovered after. A similar dynamic emerged before and after the pandemic: 43 percent of respondents said immigrants had a positive effect on the economy, while 31 percent said it had a negative effect. By 2023, respondents were nearly evenly divided: 39 percent to 38 percent. But economics alone don’t explain recent twists. Both economic conditions and sentiment about the economy have been improving more markedly over the last year, but the public’s anti-immigrant shift has been accelerating. Clearly, something else is happening here. Theory 3: It’s the “law-and-order” mindset Matthew Wright, a University of British Columbia political scientist who studies immigration, suggests a third complementary explanation: a renewed public desire for “law-and-order” policies prompted by the pandemic-era rise in crime and the Biden-era increase in border-crossing attempts. Compared to the lull in rates of immigration during the pandemic, the surge in border crossings in the last three years was unprecedented, overwhelming what federal and local officials have been able to manage. That volume has resulted in dramatic scenes at the border, in border communities, and in big cities, where many asylum seekers have been moved. Wright suggests that a good chunk of Americans feel conflicting emotions that conflate illegal immigration, asylum seekers, and immigration in general with a sense of public disorder. They are torn between having sympathy for immigrants in general and feeling worried about public safety, order, and the rule of law. And they combine their feelings about the border with their attitudes about crime and governance. “In terms of what people are concerned about, the way I read these figures and these trends is that they're mainly concerned about illegal immigration, and they're mainly concerned about the border,” Wright said. “There's something to be said for people being seriously uncomfortable with the idea that their country doesn't have a border, that the border is not something we can enforce.” Gallup polling also provides some clues of shifting sentiment here: In 2023, 47 percent of Americans said they believed immigrants had a worsening effect on crime in the US, up from 42 percent in 2019. And the share of Americans who say they personally worry a “great deal” specifically about illegal immigration has steadily increased since 2020 — from 32 percent in March 2020 to 48 percent in March of this year. To Wright, these findings complement other polling that shows a confounding mix of opinions on immigration. A not insignificant number of voters hold both these more critical views of immigration as well as generally open views: positive toward refugees, favoring reform of legal migration, and supporting pathways to citizenship for those already here. This law-and-order theory suggests that these voters can hold competing ideas in their minds: not opposing migration, but wanting it done in an orderly manner. This theory also explains why Trump and Republicans may have a unique opening this year — to activate both nativist and bigoted attitudes in some voters, as well as to exploit fear of “chaos” and bad management. “They can use a very simple message to capture different kinds of people: They can capture both the prejudicially motivated person and the pure law-and-order guy — that person is not expressly racist, necessarily, but values order in society,” Wright said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Democrats grapple with the right way to talk about Biden’s immigration policies

Phoenix CNN — Laura Grant has been keeping tabs on what Congress has done – or not done – to overhaul US immigration and border policy. The 47-year-old insurance agent said she’s concerned about the deteriorating situation at the border. The Phoenix resident wants a more streamlined process for migrants but said she doesn’t trust either party to solve the issue. Democrats didn’t seem to grasp the severity of the situation, she said. And Republicans rejected a bipartisan border security bill she supported. “I just don’t know what their agenda is anymore,” Grant told CNN during a recent interview at her home here. “They’re for it. They’re not for it. So we’re just kind of in the middle now.” ADVERTISING Ahead of the November election, President Joe Biden and many Democratic campaigns are hoping to chip away at what polls have shown is a Republican advantage on immigration, particularly in battleground states such as Arizona. The centerpiece of Democrats’ approach has been the bipartisan border bill. In February, Republicans blocked a border deal and foreign aid package despite demanding last year that Democrats pair border security with Ukraine aid. The border security legislation, which failed for a second time in the Senate last week in a vote GOP senators called a political stunt, has given Democrats a concrete example to point to as they seek to portray Republicans as unwilling to address the issue. But the strategy, an effort to triangulate between liberal and conservative policies to appeal directly to results-driven voters, has also reignited an ongoing debate within the Democratic coalition over how to address migration and the border. In this image from February 29, President Joe Biden receives a briefing at the US-Mexico border in Brownsville, Texas. RELATED ARTICLE White House and Democratic lawmakers plot ways to strengthen their hand on border security Democratic campaigns, which have mostly been on defense on immigration policy since Donald Trump entered the political scene, have pointed to New York Rep. Tom Suozzi’s February special election win as a sign that campaigning on border security as well as legal pathways for migration is a winning approach for the party. Polling has also shown voters want Congress to pass the bipartisan border deal. But some members of the Democratic coalition – including progressives, members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus who were excluded from negotiations over the border bill and migrant advocacy groups in swing states – have warned that Democrats need to emphasize pro-immigrant policies to draw a clear contrast with Republicans. They have argued for a course correction from the party and a bigger push toward work permits for long-term residents. Both sides of the debate argue their approach is key to helping Biden win, particularly in swing states like Arizona, where immigration is top of mind for voters and polling has shown Biden trailing Trump. Alejandra Gomez, the executive director of Living United for Change in AZ, or LUCHA, said it would be difficult for her organization’s canvassers to talk to voters about Biden’s immigration policies. For now, the organization is focusing on down ballot races and local issues. But Gomez also framed the 2024 election as a binary choice. “There is accountability that has to happen, but that accountability won’t exist under a Trump administration,” she said. Grant, who was visited by a LUCHA canvasser knocking on doors for US House candidate Raquel Terán on a recent Friday, said she would ultimately vote for Biden because of his stance on abortion rights. Arizona lawmakers recently repealed a near-total abortion ban and advocates are gathering signatures for a ballot initiative that would enshrine abortion rights in the state Constitution. Damon, a 57-year-old Phoenix resident and Department of Veterans Affairs employee who declined to give his last name, also cited abortion as a reason he plans to vote for Biden in an interview after a visit from a LUCHA canvasser. But he said he felt Biden had waited too long into his presidency to take action on the border. “If we’re going to cut right to the chase here, I think he lost the election for us already,” he said. A binary choice Ahead of next month’s first presidential debate, mainstream Democrats are doubling down on a border security-focused strategy and the effort to shift blame to Republicans. “Trump killed it – not once, but twice,” Biden campaign spokeswoman Fabiola Rodriguez said in a statement to CNN after Thursday’s vote. A recent memo from House Democrats’ campaign arm said candidates would go “on the offensive against disingenuous far-right political attacks from Republicans” on border policy. House Republicans have said the bipartisan border proposal doesn’t go far enough but have also signaled a reluctance to grant Biden an election year victory. Trump said earlier this year that a border deal now would be a political “gift” for Democrats. The White House is considering other options to display a tougher stance on migration, including sending Biden to visit the border and issuing a new executive order limiting asylum claims, CNN reported earlier this month. “What the average American wants, including the average Latino, is a well secured and well managed border,” said Matt Barreto, a pollster who focuses on Latino voters and who worked with Biden’s 2020 campaign. In this 2017 photo, President Donald Trump walks to the Oval Office after arriving back at the White House. RELATED ARTICLE How Trump’s first term may have laid the groundwork to make his radical immigration agenda a reality Those same voters also support Democratic immigration priorities such as permanent legal status for Dreamers, who were brought to the country illegally as children, Barreto said, adding that he expects the president’s campaign to focus on those policies ahead of the election. For now, calling Republicans on their bluff is also a winning issue, Barreto said. “I think part of the political strategy is, you’ve got the Republicans cornered on the border,” he said. “So why not keep talking about it?” California Rep. Robert Garcia, a national advisory board member for Biden’s campaign, acknowledged the frustration of immigration advocates but argued that Trump presents the “worst possible choice.” Trump has proposed swift and severe changes to the immigration system, including increasing the number of ideological screenings, expanding the ban to travel from predominantly Muslim countries and ending birthright citizenship for the children of undocumented migrants (which many legal observers believe is unconstitutional and likely implausible). He has also promised to launch the “largest domestic deportation operation in American history.” Trump has coined the term “Biden Migrant Crime” as he and other Republicans highlight crimes committed by migrants to falsely argue that migrants have fueled a crime wave. The bipartisan border bill, introduced in February, was designed to appease Republicans who said they wouldn’t approve foreign aid to Ukraine and Israel without a border security component. The legislation would have sped up the asylum process and expanded the president’s ability to limit migrant crossings at the US-Mexico border. Trump came out against the deal before it was introduced, dooming the initial vote. On Thursday, Senate Democrats’ second attempt to pass the bill failed by an even larger margin – 43-50 – and lost the backing of two of the key negotiators, independent Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma. “Today is not a bill. Today is a prop,” Lankford said ahead of the vote. Finding middle ground For months, polls have shown immigration and the border as a top issue for voters, behind the economy and inflation. A CBS News/YouGov poll released this month found that 61% of likely Arizona voters said the US-Mexico border was a major factor in how they would vote, compared with 82% who pointed to the economy and 78% who named inflation. Trump led Biden in the poll by 5 points. Among registered voters, 68% said they did not think the Biden administration was taking steps to reduce the number of migrants crossing into the US. Asked how recent immigrants from Mexico and Latin America had shaped life in Arizona, 52% said they’d made life worse, 13% said they’d made life better and 35% said they saw no impact. Asylum seekers walk for their asylum interview appointment with US authorities at the El Chaparral crossing port in Tijuana, Baja California State, Mexico on May 18, 2024. Behind the political and economic stability that the outgoing president Andrés Manuel López Obrador boasts, hides the reality of thousands of people cornered by violence who become internally displaced people and, with luck, asylum seekers. One third of illegal migrant interceptions on the US side of the border in 2023 were Mexicans according to the UN International Organization for Migration. (Photo by Guillermo Arias / AFP) (Photo by GUILLERMO ARIAS/AFP via Getty Images) RELATED ARTICLE Democrats in tight races support border bill despite past opposition to stricter asylum rules and border wall money To address those divides, Democrats – from the Biden campaign down to Senate and House Democrats’ campaign arms – have tried to find a middle ground. Biden has frequently referred to the bipartisan border bill as the “toughest” set of reforms in decades. But he has highlighted his efforts to push comprehensive immigration reform in the first days of his presidency at Democratic campaign events. Allies also note that even the border security bill contains pro-immigrant policies, including a pathway to citizenship for Afghans; 250,000 new green cards, raising the cap for the first time in more than 30 years; relief for children who came to the US on a parent’s work visa; and funding for immigration lawyers for children. Supporters have also pointed to the administration’s efforts to expand protections to migrants through regulations and executive actions, including Biden’s broad use of humanitarian parole authority to allow various groups to stay in the country. “The theory I think that this administration is really operating under is creating lawful pathways so that we have people coming with a visa and not with a smuggler, and that they’re coming for a purpose,” said Angela Kelley, a former volunteer with the Biden-Harris transition team and chief adviser at the American Immigration Lawyers Association. “They’re coming to work, they’re coming to reunite with a family member, they are coming because they’re seeking protection.” Broken promises Immigrant rights advocates – and Democratic lawmakers critical of their party’s border-first strategy – say the risk heading into the fall is that organizers will feel deflated, and some voters will ultimately choose to stay home if Democrats don’t develop a more distinctive message that celebrates the contributions of immigrants and focuses on their positive impact on the economy. They cite a recent projection by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that GDP will increase by about $7 trillion from 2023 to 2034 and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion due largely to immigration. Donald Trump and Joe Biden. RELATED ARTICLE This Memorial Day weekend heralds a bitter campaign season ahead “The Democratic Party is making it really hard for us to do our job,” Luis Zaldivar, the Georgia state director for CASA in Action, a progressive group that mobilizes voters around immigrant rights issues, told CNN. “The immigrant voice has not been heard through the process.” Illinois Rep. Delia Ramirez, a progressive who has continued to oppose the border bill, says it’s not enough to say the former president’s policies would be worse. “I think we have this assumption: Let’s just move to the center and sound more Republican. We’ll get people to vote for us,” Ramirez said. “It’s not working. We’re sounding just like the other guy, so what ends up winning is apathy.” The risk is losing voters like Abigail Gutierrez, a 22-year-old EMT from Phoenix who voted for Biden in 2020. Gutierrez told CNN that immigration is her top issue because she’d seen how much federal policies have affected her community. She hoped to see something done to help migrants who are already in the country “so people aren’t scared to be here.” Asked about Biden, Gutierrez said she’s not sure if she will back him again this November. “I just think there were a lot of promises that were made that weren’t kept,” she said. For more information, visit us at https://www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com/.

Cook v. University of Southern California

Contracts An arbitration agreement of infinite duration that requires an employee to arbitrate all claims against the employer, its agents, affiliates, and employees irrespective of whether they arise from the employment relationship, is unconscionable. Cook v. University of Southern California - filed May 24, 2024, Second District, Div. Four Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1740 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//B330640.

Daily eBriefs - May 23, 2024

Contracts Where parties have agreed to two contracts—one sending arbitrability disputes to arbitration, and the other either explicitly or implicitly sending arbitrability disputes to the courts—a court must decide which contract governs. Coinbase v. Suski - filed May 23, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 23-3 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//23-3_879d, Contracts When an employer modifies its employment policy to require employees to arbitrate their disputes and clearly communicates to employees that continued employment will constitute assent to an arbitration agreement, the employees will generally be bound by the agreement if they continue to work for the company, however, if the employee promptly rejects the arbitration agreement and makes clear he refuses to be bound by the agreement, there is no mutual assent to arbitrate. Mar v. Perkins - filed May 22, 2024, Second District, Div. Seven Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1721 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//B327665. Contracts An order granting a motion under Code of Civil Procedure § 1281.97 to withdraw from arbitration and proceed in court is appealable. When an agreement falls within the scope of the Federal Arbitration Act and does not expressly adopt California arbitration laws, the FAA preempts the provisions of §1281.97 that mandate findings of breach and waiver. Hernandez v. Sohnen - filed May 22, 2024, Second District, Div. Five Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1727 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//B323303. Employment Law Labor Code §1102.6 sets for the exact standards to be used for evaluating whistleblower retaliation claims brought pursuant to §1102.5; pursuant to §1102.6, once an employee has shown a protected disclosure was a contributing factor in an adverse employment action, the statute shifts the burden to the employer and if the jury finds the employer satisfies its second-step burden in a civil case, the employee is barred from all relief. The Legislature did not intend for a contributing factor alone to prove a violation of §1102.5. Ververka v. Department of Veterans Affairs - filed May 6, 2024, publication ordered May 22, 2024, First District, Div. One Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1736 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//A163571.

Daily eBriefs - May 21, 2024

Employment Law Assuming substantial compliance were enough, a public employee did not substantially comply with the Government Code’s claim presentation requirement by simply noting she previously submitted various racial discrimination and whistleblower complaints. Campbell v. Los Angeles Unified School District - filed May 1, 2024, publication ordered May 21, 2024, Second District, Div. Eight Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1674 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//B320442.

Daily eBriefs - May 17, 2024

Employment Employment discrimination claims under Title VII and the California Fair Employment and Housing Act are analyzed under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework, under which the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination, or alternatively, the plaintiff may prevail on summary judgment by showing direct or circumstantial evidence of discrimination. Hittle v. City of Stockton; amended May 17, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 22-15485http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//22-15485

Daily eBriefs - May 16, 2024

Contracts When a district court finds that a lawsuit involves an arbitrable dispute and a party has requested a stay of the court proceeding pending arbitration, 9 U.S.C. §3 compels the court to issue a stay, and the court lacks discretion to dismiss the suit. Smith v. Spizzirri - filed May 16, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 22-1218 Full text click here > http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//22-1218_5357

Daily eBriefs - May 9, 2024

Employment Law Absent a mandate which explicitly directs to the contrary, a district court upon remand can permit the plaintiff to file additional pleadings; plaintiffs adequately alleged facts that, if proved, triggered an ERISA plan administrator’s duty to provide pension benefit statements and they stated a viable ERISA claim by alleging that the plan administrator provided substantially inaccurate pension benefit statements Bafford v. Administrative Committee of the Northrop Grumman Pension Plan - filed May 9, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 22-55634 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//22-55634.

Daily eBriefs - May 6, 2024

Administrative Where a case was remanded to the National Labor Relations Board to explain better its decision that an employer may unilaterally cease union dues checkoff after the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement and the board rendered a new decision readopting its prior rule prohibiting employers from unilaterally ceasing dues checkoff after expiration of a collective bargaining agreement, the board did not exceed the scope of the mandate since the mandate did not clearly foreclose reconsideration of the board’s underlying rule regarding dues checkoff after expiration of the applicable collective bargaining agreement. Valley Hospital Medical Center v. National Labor Relations Board - amended May 6, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 22-1978 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//22-1978. Employment Law If an employer reasonably and in good faith believed it was providing a complete and accurate wage statement in compliance with the requirements of Labor Code §226, then it has not knowingly and intentionally failed to comply with the wage statement law. Naranjo v. Spectrum Security Services - filed May 6, 2024 Cite as 2024 S.O.S. 1524 Full text click here >http://sos.metnews.com/sos.cgi?0524//S279397.