Case Summaries

Labor & Employment Law

[03/11] Schaar v. Lehigh Valley Health Servs., Inc.
In plaintiff's suit against her former employer for violation of the FMLA, summary judgment in favor employer is vacated and remanded as an employee may satisfy her burden of proving three days of incapacitation through a combination of expert medical and lay testimony. Here, when expert medical opinion of a doctor that plaintiff was incapacitated for two days because of her illness is combined with plaintiff's lay testimony that she was incapacitated for two additional days, it necessarily follows that a material issue of fact exists as to whether plaintiff suffered from a serious health condition.

[03/11] Huth v. Haslun
In an action claiming that defendants, who were employees of the New York State Thruway Authority, violated plaintiff's rights under the First Amendment by initiating disciplinary proceedings against her resulting in her demotion, a denial of summary judgment for defendants based on qualified immunity is reversed where: 1) the conduct that resulted in plaintiff's demotion did not qualify as speech protected from retaliation by the First Amendment; and 2) plaintiff could not assert a claim on behalf of her coworker because that coworker suffered no infringement of her own constitutional rights.

[03/10] Foley v. Town of Randolph
In plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit claiming that he was wrongfully retaliated against in violation of his First Amendment rights when he was suspended, as Chief of the Fire Department, for fifteen days based on public statements he made at the scene of a fatal fire, summary judgment in favor of defendants is affirmed as, under the circumstances of the press conference in the case, there could be no doubt that plaintiff was speaking in his official capacity and not as a citizen when he addressed budgetary and staffing shortfalls at the department.

[03/09] Lockridge v. Univ. of Maine Sys.
In plaintiff's gender discrimination, retaliation and hostile work environment action against a university, grant of summary judgment in favor of the university is affirmed where: 1) given the lack of any evidence suggesting that the university's proffered reason for denying plaintiff a pay raise was pretextual, plaintiff's gender discrimination claim fails as a matter of law; 2) university's denial of plaintiff's particular request for office space did not amount to a materially adverse employment action; and 3) the hostile work environment claim fails as a matter of law.

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ERISA

[03/10] Darvell v. Life Ins. Co. of N. Am.
In an ERISA action regarding defendant-insurer's denial of long-term disability benefits to plaintiff, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) it was not an abuse of an ERISA plan administrator's discretion to ignore an opinion when the physician did not provide reliable objective evidence of testing or other proof to support a finding of long term disability; and 2) the plan administrator did not abuse its discretion by using the DOT description of plaintiff's occupation, rather than a description of his actual job duties.

[03/01] Jones v. Unum Provident Corp.
In an action under ERISA for wrongful denial of benefits, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) defendant thoroughly investigated plaintiff's claim, both initially and when plaintiff appealed, and its initial and final decisions were carefully reasoned; and 2) coverage under the policy at issue lapsed more than six weeks prior to plaintiff's return to full-time work, and thus her later disability claim was not covered because of a pre-existing condition clause.

[02/26] Overby v. Nat'l Ass'n of Letter Carriers
In an action seeking a declaration that a purported amendment to a trust plan, which would have rendered plaintiff ineligible to receive benefits under the plan as a surviving spouse, was not properly adopted, judgment for plaintiffs is affirmed where the district court committed no reversible error in either its factual determinations or in its conclusions of law in finding that the trustees of the plan had not submitted the amendment to the fund's actuaries for an evaluation and estimate of its cost, as required by the governing provisions of the plan, and therefore the amendment was not properly adopted.

[02/25] Carpenters Dist. Council v. JNL Const. Co.
In an ERISA action on behalf of certain pension funds against a construction company claiming that defendants failed to contribute union employees' fringe benefits to the funds as required by collective bargaining agreements, summary judgment for plaintiffs is reversed where plaintiffs did not produce sufficient evidence to show the absence of trialworthy issues on the issue of whether defendant corporation was used to perpetrate a fraud.

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Immigration Law

[03/11] Tijani v. Holder
Petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's asylum application is granted in part where the court was required to remand to the BIA to address the questions of whether petitioner would be in danger of persecution on account of his religion or would be entitled to other relief. However, the petition is denied in part where petitioner's credit card fraud in violation of Cal. Penal Code section 532a(1) constituted a crime of moral turpitude.

[03/10] Vila v. US Atty. Gen.
In a petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioner's application for a waiver of inadmissibility, the petition is denied where, because petitioner's approved I-140 visa petition did not make him a lawful resident under section 212(h) when the Immigration and Naturalization Service formally approved his application for adjustment, petitioner did not lawfully reside continuously in the U.S. for the seven years preceding the initiation of his removal proceedings on October 25, 2003.

[03/09] Tampubolon v. Holder
In a petition for review of the BIA's denial of petitioners' asylum application, the petition is granted in part where the BIA erred in failing to apply disfavored group analysis to petitioners' withholding claim because the record compelled a finding that Christians in Indonesia are a disfavored group. However, the petition is denied in part where the BIA's failure to address two irrelevant cases did not render the proceeding fundamentally unfair.

[03/09] Najmabadi v. Holder
In a petition for review of the BIA's order denying petitioner's motion to reopen her removal proceedings on the basis of changed conditions in Iran, the petition is denied where: 1) substantial evidence supported the Board's finding that the evidence petitioner submitted in her motion to reopen was not qualitatively different from the evidence presented at the original hearing; and 2) there was no evidence establishing that returnees from the U.S. would likely face persecution.

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Workers' Comp

[03/05] Rhine v. Stevedoring Servs. of Am.
In a petition for review of a decision of the Benefits Review Board under 33 U.S.C. section 921(c) of the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act, the petition is denied where: 1) a reasonable mind could have concluded that the Pacific Maritime Association Average adequately represented petitioner's annual earning capacity; and 2) the availability of alternative employment was determined by reference to two criteria: the claimant's physical abilities and the economic availability of particular jobs in the market.

[03/03] City of Laguna Beach v. California Ins. Guarantee Ass'n
In a city's action against an insurance company seeking reimbursement for incurring workers' compensation liability that exceeded its self-insured retention, grant of insurance company's motion for summary judgment is affirmed where: 1) the addition of subdivision (c)(13) to Ins. Code section 1063.1 did not abrogate Denny's Inc. v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd., 104 Cal.App.4th 1433 (2003); 2) the trial court properly invoked the Denny's rule when it granted summary judgment and concluded that the city cannot obtain reimbursement from defendant under section 1063.1(c)(13) as, although this provision renders the obligation of an insolvent excess workers' compensation insurer a "covered claim" that defendant must ordinarily reimburse, defendant need not reimburse a permissibly self-insured employer for benefits paid to an employee for cumulative injury if the employer's liability is based in part on a period of time when the employer was self-insured and chose not to buy excess insurance for the particular risk.

[02/26] Lara v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd.
Workers' Compensation Appeals Board's decision against the petitioner and in favor of the defendant is affirmed as, the petitioner, hired twice in the space of 12 months to prune bushes for a diner, was not an employee of the diner at the time he sustained injury, but rather, he was an independent contractor exempt from workers' compensation coverage.

[02/26] Elliott v. Workers' Comp. Appeals Bd.
Decision of the WCAB that plaintiff's employer was not obligated to provide the requested spinal surgery is reversed and remanded as, in light of its en banc decision in Cervantes v. El Aguila Food Products, Inc. (2009) 74 Cal.Comp.Cases 1336 explicitly denouncing the Brasher holding relied on by the WCAB in this case, the employer is ordered to authorize the requested surgery or object to the treating physician's recommendation under 4062(b) within 10 days of receipt of this order, thereby commencing the spinal surgery second opinion process.

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Insurance Law

[03/10] Darvell v. Life Ins. Co. of N. Am.
In an ERISA action regarding defendant-insurer's denial of long-term disability benefits to plaintiff, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where: 1) it was not an abuse of an ERISA plan administrator's discretion to ignore an opinion when the physician did not provide reliable objective evidence of testing or other proof to support a finding of long term disability; and 2) the plan administrator did not abuse its discretion by using the DOT description of plaintiff's occupation, rather than a description of his actual job duties.

[03/10] Abdelhamid v. Fire Ins. Exch.
In homeowner's action against her insurance company after it denied coverage to her for the fire that burned her house down, summary judgment in favor of the insurance company is affirmed as the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment on the breach of contract claim as plaintiff's failure to comply constituted material breach of her contractual duties.

[03/10] Scottsdale Ins. Co. v. Century Surety Co.
In an action against defendant-insurance company seeking equitable contribution based on defendant's failure to participate in the defense of 17 common insureds in hundreds of actions in which plaintiff and another insurer shared the costs of the defense, judgment of the trial court determining the equitable contribution is reversed as it was in conflict with the general rule (now to be applicable in insurance cases) that, in order to be entitled to equitable contribution, a party must have first paid more than its share of the loss and it bears the burden of proving such circumstance.

[03/10] Milwaukee Metro. Sewerage Dist. v. American Int'l Specilaty Lines Ins. Co.
In a sewerage district's suit for damages against an environmental liability insurer for denying coverage for costs incurred by the district in removing significant pollution on land it recently purchased, district court's judgment is reversed and remanded as the district court's finding that there was clear and convincing proof that a prior agreement existed between the insurance company and the sewerage district that the parcel would be covered property was clearly erroneous. Therefore, defendant is entitled to judgment on the sewerage district's reformation claim and, as a consequence, judgment in favor of defendant on its indemnity claim is vacated.

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