Justia Civil Procedure Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs, current and former employees of RingCentral, participated in RingCentral’s employee welfare benefits plan. The plan participated in the “Tech Benefits Program” administered by Sequoia Benefits and Insurance Services, LLC, a management and insurance brokerage company. The Tech Benefits Program was a MEWA that pooled assets from employer-sponsored plans into a trust fund for the purpose of obtaining insurance benefits for employees at large-group rates. Plaintiffs filed this putative class action on behalf of the RingCentral plan and other Tech Benefits Program participants, asserting that Sequoia owed fiduciary duties to the plan under ERISA because Sequoia allegedly exercised control over plan assets through its operation of the Tech Benefits Program. Plaintiffs alleged that Sequoia violated its fiduciary duties by receiving and retaining commission payments from insurers, which Plaintiffs regarded as kickbacks, and by negotiating allegedly excessive administrative fees with insurers, leading to higher commissions for Sequoia.   The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal for lack of Article III standing. The court held that Plaintiffs failed to establish Article III standing as to either of their two theories of injury. The panel held, as to the out-of-pocket-injury theory, Plaintiffs failed to establish the injury in fact required for Article III standing because their allegations did not demonstrate that they paid higher contributions because of Sequoia’s allegedly wrongful conduct. And Plaintiffs failed to plead the third element, that their injury would likely be redressed by judicial relief. View "RACHAEL WINSOR, ET AL V. SEQUOIA BENEFITS & INSURANCE, ET AL" on Justia Law

Defendant In-N-Out Burgers appealed a trial court’s denial of its motion to compel arbitration of the claims of plaintiffs Tom Piplack and Donovan Sherrod for penalties under the Labor Code Private Attorneys General Act of 2004 (PAGA). Defendant argued Viking River Cruises, Inc. v. Moriana, 142 S.Ct. 1906 (2022), rendered while defendant’s appeal was pending, required plaintiffs’ individual PAGA claims to be arbitrated and all remaining representative claims dismissed for lack of standing. Plaintiffs contended: (1) the agreement did not require arbitration of individual PAGA claims; (2) defendant waived its right to arbitration by participating in trial proceedings; (3) plaintiff Sherrod was not bound by the arbitration agreement because he entered it before reaching the age of majority and disaffirmed it after reaching that age; and (4) that plaintiffs had standing to pursue representative PAGA claims in court even if their individual claims were sent to arbitration. The Court of Appeal concluded the arbitration agreements required individual PAGA claims to be arbitrated and defendant did not waive its right to compel arbitration. Accordingly, as to plaintiff Piplack, the Court of Appeal reversed: his individual PAGA claim had to be arbitrated. As to plaintiff Sherrod, the Court remanded for the trial court to consider his arguments regarding disaffirmance in the first instance, as those arguments were not properly briefed or decided in the trial court because they were irrelevant under pre-Viking law. View "Piplack v. In-N-Out Burgers" on Justia Law

Plaintiff asked the Foreign Service Grievance Board to review the Foreign Service’s decision to deny her tenure. While the Board was considering her grievances, Plaintiff asked the Board to grant “interim relief.” That relief would have let Plaintiff keep working for the Foreign Service until her case was decided. But the Board refused to grant it. So Plaintiff filed suit, claiming that the Board should have given her relief. After Plainitff in lost in the district court and appealed to this court, the Board reached final decisions on her grievances. 
 The DC Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss Plaintiff’s backpay claim, and the court dismissed Plaintiff’s appeal of her interim-relief claims as moot. The court explained backpay is not an available remedy on judicial review of the Board’s orders. Nothing in the Foreign Service Act authorizes a court to issue backpay. Plus, under the Act, judicial review is adjudicated “in accordance with the standards set forth in [the Administrative Procedure Act].” Here, the Board found no merit to four of Plaintiff’s grievances. As for the fifth grievance, the Board held that Plaintiff’s claim had merit, but it still denied her backpay. And because Plaintiff has not petitioned for judicial review of the Board’s decision to deny backpay in that grievance, the court wrote it cannot direct the Board to reconsider it. View "Julie Beberman v. Antony Blinken" on Justia Law

Core and Main LP (“C&M”) supplies water, wastewater, storm drainage, and fire protection products and services to commercial and governmental customers. C&M acquired the assets of Minnesota Pipe and Equipment Company (“MPE”), which supplied the same products and services in areas of Minnesota and South Dakota. Defendant, one of the shareholders, was part of MPE’s management team. Defendant started work at Dakota Supply Group, Inc. (“DSG”), a C&M competitor. C&M brought a diversity action against Defendant and DSG, asserting breach of the Employment Agreement’s noncompete and confidentiality covenants, tortious interference, and related claims. The district court granted Defendants’ Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim. The main issue on appeal is whether the court correctly concluded that the Noncompetition Agreement was a later agreement and, therefore, its Entire Agreement provision superseded the restrictive covenants.   The Eighth Circuit concluded that the breach of contract and tortious interference claims turn on fact-intensive issues that cannot be determined on the pleadings. Accordingly, the court reversed the dismissal of those claims and otherwise affirmed. The court explained that it agreed with C&M that it is at least plausible the two Agreements covered different subject matters, making Rule 12(b)(6) dismissal inappropriate. The Noncompetition Agreement restricting MPE shareholders from engaging or investing in a competing business was geographically broad, but its duration was precisely limited to a specific term for each restricted party. In addition, the court concluded that in the context of the multiple agreements that completed the Asset Purchase transaction, the term “prior or contemporaneous” in the Noncompetition Agreement’s Entire Agreement provision is ambiguous. View "Core and Main, LP v. Ron McCabe" on Justia Law

Johnson served as an Air Traffic Controller Watch Supervisor. The Air Force alleged that Johnson was at fault for a violation of FAA policy concerning the separation of aircraft during his watch in 2018 and that this was grounds for removal in light of his prior offenses. A notice of a removal decision was effective May 11, 2019. On May 7, 2019, the local Union initiated grievance procedures. When the dispute was not resolved, the Union invoked arbitration through the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service. In November 2020, the Arbitrator upheld the removal decision.The Union appealed but withdrew from the appeal because its national union had placed the local Union in receivership and stripped its counsel of all authority to proceed. Without reaching the merits, the Federal Circuit dismissed Johnson’s motion (Federal Rule 43(b) of Appellate Procedure), to substitute the Union. A party may not substitute under Rule 43(b) where the original party to the appeal lacked standing; unions lack standing to initiate an appeal of an arbitration decision under 5 U.S.C. 7703(a). A party may not substitute under Rule 43(b) when the original party being substituted lacked standing to initiate the appeal. View "American Federation of Government Workers v. Department of the Air Force" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appeals from the trial court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer, respondent Kaiser Foundation Hospitals (Kaiser). The Second Appellate District reversed the judgment. The court explained that as part of a round of employee layoffs, Kaiser planned, at least tentatively, to terminate Plaintiff before Plaintiff became disabled. Kaiser’s plan to terminate Plaintiff before she became disabled, by itself, was not discrimination against Plaintiff because of a disability. But Kaiser did not complete its layoff plans—or, a reasonable jury could find, make its final determination to terminate Plaintiff—until after Plaintiff had become disabled. On the record here, there was evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that Kaiser’s ultimate decision to terminate Plaintiff was motivated, at least in substantial part, by concerns Kaiser had about Plaintiff’s disability. That allows Plaintiff’s complaint to survive summary judgment. View "Lin v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals" on Justia Law

The last clause of section 248.5 (e) of California’s Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act of 2014 (the Act) (Labor Code, § 245 et seq.) was the focus of this appeal. Plaintiff Ana Wood filed a Private Attorney General Act of 2004 (PAGA) action against her former employer Kaiser Foundation Hospitals seeking penalties for alleged violations of the Act. The trial court sustained Kaiser’s demurrer without leave to amend, determining that a PAGA action was one brought “on behalf of the public” and since it sought only civil penalties, was prohibited by section 248.5 (e). After its independent review, the Court of Appeal reached a different conclusion: the statute’s text and history provided compelling evidence that the phrase “on behalf of the public as provided under applicable state law” in section 248.5 (e) was intended to refer to actions prosecuted under the Unfair Competition Law (UCL)—not PAGA. Accordingly, the judgment of dismissal was reversed. View "Wood v. Kaiser Foundation Hospitals" on Justia Law

Employees at C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. jumped ship to join Traffic Tech, Inc. C.H. Robinson then sued five of those former employees and Traffic Tech, raising various state-law claims, including tortious interference with a contractual relationship. After the case was removed to federal court, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of the former employees and Traffic Tech. The district court also awarded attorney fees to the former employees and Traffic Tech   The Eighth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiff’s claim for tortious interference with prospective economic advantage, reversed the judgment in all other respects, and vacated the district court’s order awarding attorney fees and costs. The court held that Minnesota law applies to the interpretation and enforceability of Defendants’ employment contracts. The court remanded for the district court to consider whether C.H. Robinson’s claims or disputes against Peacock arose in California or elsewhere under Peacock’s employment contract. The court further remanded for the district court to substantively analyze whether all or part of the former employees’ contracts are unenforceable and, if not, whether the claims for breach of contract and tortious interference with a contractual relationship survive summary judgment. View "C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc. v. Traffic Tech, Inc." on Justia Law

Alleging the creation of a hostile work environment in violation of federal, state, and city law, Plaintiff sued the New York City Housing Authority (“NYCHA”) and two NYCHA senior officials (collectively, the “NYCHA Defendants”) and the former Speaker of the New York City Council (collectively, “Defendants”). The district court granted summary judgment to Defendants. On appeal, Plaintiff argued that the district court erred in granting Defendants’ motions for summary judgment and, in doing so, misapplied the totality of the circumstances standard established in Harris v. Forklift Systems, Inc., 510 U.S. 17 (1993).   The Second Circuit agreed and vacated the district court’s judgment. The court concluded that the district court failed to draw “all reasonable inferences” in Plaintiff’s favor when it considered the five incidents underlying her claims, both when viewing the incidents individually and in their totality. The court explained that the district court held that Plaintiff did not demonstrate the effort to replace her tangibly impacted her work environment, bearing in mind that all a plaintiff must show is that the harassment “altered working conditions as to  make it more difficult to do the job.” But a jury could find that the delay in filling the HA vacancies and the transfer of the superintendent, along with the behind-the-scenes effort to transfer Plaintiff, made it more challenging for Plaintiff to carry out her job. Regardless, these are determinations for the jury, not the judge, to make. View "Allison Williams v. New York City Housing Authority" on Justia Law

After prevailing in state court on claims that he was fired in retaliation for exercising his state constitutional right to freedom of expression, Plaintiff filed a federal suit alleging the same set of facts but asserting for the first time a First Amendment claim. The district court dismissed Plaintiff’s suit, finding that Defendants’ factual attack showed that the only remedy not barred by sovereign immunity was impossible to grant and that Kling’s claim was prescribed. On appeal, Plaintiff contends that a factual attack on a district court’s subject matter jurisdiction is improper at the pleadings stage and that his state lawsuit interrupted prescription on his newly asserted federal claim because both rely on the same set of operative facts.   The Fifth Circuit concluded that the district court did not err in dismissing Plaintiff’s official capacity claims as barred by sovereign immunity and accordingly affirmed that ruling in the district court’s decision. However, because there are no clear controlling precedents from the Louisiana Supreme Court as to whether prescription on Plaintiff’s federal claim was interrupted by his state action, the court certified to that court to answer the following:In Louisiana, under what circumstances, if any, does the commencement of a suit in a court of competent jurisdiction and venue interrupt prescription as to causes of action, understood as legal claims rather than the facts giving rise to them, not asserted in that suit? View "Kling v. Hebert" on Justia Law