This morning, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in Heimeshoff v. Hartford Life & Accidental Life Ins. Co., concerning statute of limitation accrual issues for benefit claims under Section 502(a)(1)(B) of ERISA. The Court unanimously held that Hartford’s Long Term Disability Plan’s requirement that any suit to recover benefits be filed within three years …
Union organizing campaigns run up against the fact that labor law enforcement, wealth, and power in the workplace are all stacked against workers, and if bosses fight a union with everything at their disposal, it is damn hard for workers to win. That environment could get a lot worse, though, with the Supreme Court hearing …
Some unpaid interns from Black Swan sued the production company for actual wages, and guess what? They won. A couple days ago the Southern District of New York issued its opinion in Glatt v. Fox Searchlight Pictures (opinion here). The Court broke it down into two issues: 1. Were the interns employees under the FLSA? 2. …
A recent Supreme Court ruling in Knox v. SEIU Local 1000 has some labor advocates howling that the Court is beginning to come after workers. The 7-2 ruling last week states that public sector employees must opt in to have their money spent on political action, instead of opting out as had been previously mandated …
Summer is a sleepy time at the Supreme Court as most of the justices exit the scorching Washington heat. Justice Stevens was known to keep busy on the tennis court while Justice Thomas often heads around the country in his RV. As for Justice Kennedy, he regularly teaches abroad and others hit the speaking circuit. …
Challenge to Health Care Law Flying Under the Radar Read More »
It’s no secret that the nation’s employees did not fare well in the two most highly-publicized Supreme Court rulings affecting them this term, Wal-Mart v. Dukes and AT&T v. Concepcion. In both cases, the ability of plaintiffs to get relief as a class in the courts was curtailed. The Wal-Mart holding will make it especially …
Supreme Ct. News Not All Bad for Employees This Term Read More »
As legions of Walmart workers shuffled into work on Monday, the Supreme Court smacked down a major class-action lawsuit that might potentially have shifted the legal landscape on women’s rights in the workplace. The gender-discrimination lawsuit against the world’s most notorious retail giant had been pending for years. Now the Court’s majority opinion has declared that, in …
Too Big to Sue? High Court Thwarts Wal-Mart Gender Discrimination Case Read More »
The Supreme Court’s landmark decision on Monday in Wal-Mart v. Dukes understandably garnered front-page headlines in the nation’s newspapers. After all, the case was the largest employment discrimination case in history, dwarfing all other competitors by far with its potential to have included more than one-million current and former female Wal-Mart employees. But in reality, …
Why Wal-Mart Matters, But Perhaps Less Than You Think Read More »
Immigrants rights advocates and employers, including farmers, are lashing out at the Supreme Court’s May 26 decision upholding Arizona’s right to demand employers use the controversial e-Verify system, which is meant to confirm whether someone is in the country legally. The decision also allowed Arizona to continue the so-called “business death penalty,” which entails denying …
Supreme Court’s E-Verify Decision Devastating for Employers, Immigrant Workers Read More »
A while back Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas achieved a quiet milestone. He has gone five entire terms as a Supreme without asking a question. Just to put this in perspective, no previous Supreme level judge had gone one entire session without asking a question. Five years. Hello darkness my old friend, I’m come to …
Madeline Messa is a 3L at Syracuse University College of Law. She graduated from Penn State with a degree in journalism. With her legal research and writing for Workplace Fairness, she strives to equip people with the information they need to be their own best advocate.
