Justia U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Cleveland has had an age-65 mandatory retirement policy for police and fire department personnel since 1960. The policy allowed the chief of police or the fire department to allow a person to continue on active duty on a year to year basis, subject to approval of the Director of Public Safety, following independent medical evaluation. Extensions were routinely granted until 2010, when budget cuts caused lay-offs and the police chief denied all requests. The fire department continued to grant extensions. Former officers, forced into retirement, alleged violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, 29 U.S.C. 621., Ohio’s age discrimination statute, Ohio Rev. Code 4112, and the Equal Protection Clause. The district court granted the city summary judgment. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Federal law includes an exception that allows state and local governments to set mandatory retirement ages for firefighters and law enforcement officers; the city established that its retirement plan exists for the efficiency of the police department and is not a subterfuge to evade the Act. View "Sadie v. City of Cleveland" on Justia Law

In June 2007, Louzon, a Ford product engineer, took an approved leave of absence to visit family in Gaza. While he was there, security issues in the region caused Israel to close its borders, making it impossible for Louzon to return to the U.S. before the end of his leave. Ford initially extended his leave, but by the time the State Department was able to evacuate Louzon in August 2007, the extension had expired. Ford terminated his employment. In 2009, Louzon filed suit, alleging age and national-origin discrimination, moved to exclude Louzon’s evidence of comparable employees on the basis that none were similarly situated as a matter of law. The district court granted Ford’s motion and then granted summary judgment to Ford. The Sixth Circuit reversed on the motion in limine, holding that the district court improperly considered nonevidentiary issues in-limine, and vacated the summary judgment. View "Louzon v. Ford Motor Co." on Justia Law

Davis sued Cintas, individually and on behalf of a class of female job applicants denied employment as entry-level sales representatives, alleging that Cintas’s hiring practices led to gender discrimination, in violation of Title VII, and caused Cintas to reject her application for employment twice. The district court denied Davis’s motion for class certification and granted summary judgment for Cintas. The Sixth Circuit affirmed both denial of class certification and the entry of summary judgment on her individual disparate-treatment claim arising in 2004 and her disparate-impact claim. The court reversed with respect to a disparate-treatment claim arising in 2003, noting that she was at least as qualified as the male candidates at that time. View "Davis v. Cintas Corp." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs receive subsidies from Michigan’s Child Development and Care Program for providing home childcare services for low-income families. Following creation of the Home Based Child Care Council, a union was established and authorized to bargain on their behalf, based on submission of 22,180 valid provider-signed authorization cards out of a possible 40,532 eligible providers. The union and the Council entered into a collective bargaining agreement and the state began deducting union dues and fees from the subsidy payments. Plaintiffs sought to file a class-action lawsuit for the return of the money, collected allegedly in violation of their First Amendment rights. The district court denied certification of plaintiffs’ proposed class (all home childcare providers in Michigan) based on conflict of interest: some members voted for union representation and others voted against representation. Plaintiffs attempted to cure by proposing a subclass of only providers who did not participate in any election related to union representation. The district court rejected the proposal, finding that it could not assume that all members of the subclass opposed representation and that, even if all members of the proposed subclass did oppose representation, their reasons for opposition were different enough to create conflict within the class. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. View "Schlaud v. Snyder" on Justia Law

Michigan’s 2012 Public Act 53 provides: “A public school employer’s use of public school resources to assist a labor organization in collecting dues or service fees from wages of public school employees is a prohibited contribution to the administration of a labor organization,” so that unions must collect their own membership dues from public-school employees, rather than have the schools collect those dues via payroll deductions. The Act does not bar public employers other than schools from collecting membership dues for unions who represent their employees. Unions and union members challenged the Act under the First Amendment and the Equal Protection Clause. The district court entered a preliminary injunction barring enforcement. The Sixth Circuit reversed, quoting the Supreme Court: “The First Amendment prohibits government from ‘abridging the freedom of speech’; it does not confer an affirmative right to use government payroll mechanisms for the purpose of obtaining funds for expression.” The court further reasoned that there is a legitimate interest in support of the Act’s classification; the legislature could have concluded that it is more important for the public schools to conserve their limited resources for their core mission than it is for other state and local employers. View "Bailey v. Callaghan" on Justia Law

Dodd, an African-American mail carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, was the subject of an investigation for failing to deliver mail. He was arrested and held for seven days before charges were dismissed. He filed suit, alleging claims of false imprisonment, false arrest, abuse of process, and malicious prosecution under the Federal Tort Claims Act, and of race discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The district court dismissed Dodd’s FTCA claim because it determined that the claim was preempted by the Civil Service Reform Act, 5 U.S.C. 2301, and granted summary judgment in favor of defendants on Dodd’s Title VII claim because Dodd failed to make a prima facie showing of discrimination. The Sixth Circuit reversed with respect to the FTCA claim, noting that the Civil Service Reform Act does not apply to postal employee, but affirmed with respect to the Title VII claim. View "Dodd v. Potter" on Justia Law

In 1997, Warf began working for Veterans Affairs as a program assistant to the Chief of Psychology. In 2004, a specialist from Human Resources performed an audit and concluded that Warf was performing duties that warranted GS-7 status on the government pay scale, a step higher than her GS-6 status. Between 2004 and 2008, Warf requested promotions, but nothing happened. In 2008 Warf filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The director retroactively promoted Warf and she received back pay. Warf was subsequently denied a promotion and brought claims of hostile work environment, gender discrimination, retaliation, and Equal Pay Act violations under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. 2000(e), and the Equal Pay Act, 29 U.S.C. 206(d)(1). The district court entered summary judgment in favor of the department. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Warf provided no any evidence that she and DeLong (who got the promotion) performed substantially similar jobs. Warf’s position was that of an administrative assistant, which did not encompass any education or training responsibilities. There is a significant difference between DeLong, who held a master’s degree in business and had seven years of experience teaching, and Warf, who was working towards her bachelor’s degree. View "Warf v. U.S. Dep't of Veterans Affairs" on Justia Law

In 1977, the Environmental Protection Agency sued Michigan, Detroit, and the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department for exceeding effluent limitations and failing to satisfy monitoring requirements under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. 1251. In 1977, the district court entered an initial Consent Judgment. Over the next 30 years, the DWSD fell in and out of compliance. In the most recent round of violations and court orders, the district judge gave a committee of local officials 60 days to fashion a final plan or face more intrusive court-ordered remedies. The judge adopted most of the committee’s recommendations but also directly abrogated some provisions in collective bargaining agreements of approximately 20 different bargaining units. None of the DWSD unions were parties. Unions sought to intervene. The district court denied the motions as untimely. The Sixth Circuit reversed. Although the unions were aware of the potential significance of the proceedings and failed to intervene before the court-approved committee returned its recommendations, total denial of intervention was an abuse of discretion. The unions have substantial interests at stake that “may as a practical matter” be impaired absent intervention. While concerns of delay and re-litigation are serious, they can be alleviated by limiting the scope of intervention. View "Unted States v. City of Detroit" on Justia Law

Howard has been employed as an underground face coal miner with CRCC since 2005 and has filed seven prior discrimination complaints under the Mine Act, 30 U.S.C. 815(c)(1), alleging that: CRCC assigned him undesirable jobs because of his demanding nature; CRCC reduced the workforce to fabricate justifications to terminate him; and CRCC failed to protect his truck from vandalism in the parking lot. After Howard suffered an injury at work, CRCC fired him, stating that restrictions imposed by a physician made him unable to perform any job available at CRCC. An ALJ found discrimination and that the justification was pretextual. The Federal Mine Safety and Health Review Commission denied review. The Sixth Circuit affirmed. Howard’s seven-percent impairment was found to be minimal and unthreatening for his continued employment at the coal mine by all of his treating physicians; only after CRCC sent an overbroad job description and a brief clarification questionnaire did on doctor find that Howard should not return to work. View "Cumberland River Coal Co. v. Fed. Mine Safety & Health Review Comm'n" on Justia Law

Former employees of AK Steel filed a class action under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), including claims for a “whipsaw” calculation of their benefits from a pension plan in which they participated before terminating their employment. The employees were originally involved in a related class action that included identical claims against the same defendants, but were excluded from that litigation due to their execution of a severance agreement and release that each of them signed during the that litigation. The district court ruled in favor of the employees. The Sixth Circuit reversed an award of prejudgment interest for failure to consider case-specific factors, but otherwise affirmed denial of a motion to dismiss; class certification; and partial summary judgment on liability. The employees’s future pension claims were not released as a matter of law because the whipsaw claims had not accrued at the time of the execution of the severance agreements and because the scope of the contracts did not relate to future ERISA claims. View "Schumacher v. AK Steel Corp." on Justia Law