With the drop oil prices several years ago, many energy companies conducted reductions in force. Some of those headcount reductions triggered litigation under the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN). WARN requires employers with 100 or more full time employees conducting plant closings and mass layoffs to provide at least 60 days advance notice
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Fifth Circuit Holds Nonemployee Lacks Claim but Employee Can Recover Emotional Distress Damages in FLSA Retaliation Suit
The Fifth Circuit recently held that a plaintiff-employee in an FLSA retaliation claim can recover damages for emotional distress but that the statute does not provide a retaliation cause of action for a nonemployee spouse. In Pineda v. JTCH Apartments, LLC, an employee of the apartment complex who did maintenance work around the property…
Appeals Court Holds Former Employee AND Bankruptcy Trustee Judicially Estopped from Collecting on Undisclosed Claims
The Fifth Circuit issued an important opinion on an issue (i.e., judicial estoppel) that arises frequently when litigating employment disputes. The issue is whether an innocent bankruptcy trustee is judicially estopped from collecting assets, on behalf of the creditors, that were not disclosed by the debtor in his bankruptcy filings. The court of appeals held that, like…
Fifth Circuit Distinguishes Comments Constituting Direct Evidence of Discrimination Versus Stray Remarks
In a discrimination case it is very important to determine whether the plaintiff is alleging direct or circumstantial evidence of discrimination. This is important because the standard by which a court determines if the case should proceed to trial or not depends on this determination. In Jackson v. Cal-Western Packaging Corp., the U.S. Court of Appeals…