The St. Petersburg Times has a story on the jury verdict yesterday for Lisa Holland, a Kwall, Showers & Barack client. The jury found that Ms. Holland was demoted and then fired from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office because of her pregnancy.
The jury agreed that the actions of the Sheriff’s Office in this case were illegal and awarded Ms. Holland $80,000 in back pay and $10,000 in emotional distress.
Ms. Holland was represented by Ryan Barack and Michelle Nadeau of Kwall, Showers & Barack.
The Sheriff’s Office was defended by Tom Gonzalez and Christopher Bentley of Thompson, Sizemore, Gonzalez & Hearing.
Here is a copy of the article.
The St. Petersburg Times has a story about the recent decision in Remia v City of St. Petersburg. Mayor Bill Foster’s comment that he didn’t know where the money to pay the former officers would come from is strange since the City has been holding the officers’ money and earning interest on it for years.
Kwall, Showers & Barack is honored to have represented the officers in their fight to get their money back.
Click here for a link to the St. Petersburg Times Story.
On July 16, 2010, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled in City St. Petersburg v. Remia, et al, that the City had to return the pension contributions made by police officers who left employment with the City prior to vesting in the pension.
The issue was that the City did not return the individual pension contributions of police officers who left the department prior to vesting in the pension plan. The Second DCA affirmed the trial court’s determination that this failure to return the police officers’ money violated the police officer pension statute, chapter 185.
Now St Pete has to give the officers back their money.
Here is the link to the decision
Kwall, Showers & Barack is honored to have represented the officers in their quest to have their money returned.
On June 22, 2010, the First District Court of Appeal held that an employee can refuse to answer questions about their immigration status.
In Fernandez v. Blue Sky/ Venecia Food Corp., the employee, who was seeking temporary total disability, temporary partial disability, and medical benefits for injuries allegedly stemming from a March 7, 2008, industrial accident, refused to answer questions during her deposition regarding her immigration status.
The Judge of Compensation Claims dismissed with prejudice all petitions and claims for benefits following the refusal to answer certain questions during her deposition related to her immigration status by invoking the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.
The First District Court of Appeal concluded that the Judge abused his discretion in dismissing with prejudice all petitions and claims for benefits and reverse. The Court held that the employer had failed to demonstrate meaningful prejudice resulting from Claimant’s refusal to answer. Therefore, the Court reversed the Judge of Compensation Claims’ decision.
The Department of Labor has revised the protections under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to protect parents of children even when the law does not recognize the parential rights.
This was done under an interpretation of the FMLA. No Congressional action was required. Under the FMLA, employees can take upto 12 weeks of unpaid leave to deal with their own serious health condition or the serious health conditions of certain family members.
The regulation clarifies the definition of “son and daughter” under the Family and Medical Leave Act to ensure that an employee who assumes the role of caring for a child receives parental rights to family leave regardless of the legal or biological relationship.
Here is the DOL press release on the issue.
A story in today’s St. Petersburg Times about a Department of Labor investigating the failure of a state agency to pay proper overtime, mentions lawsuits against the Department of Children and Families under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
While the federal government can sue states for violation of the FLSA, the Supreme Court has held that there is no private right of action against the state. See Alden v. Maine.
So at least right now, the employees are likely to lose their case, unless they can get the Department of Labor to take their case or there is a change in how the Supreme Court views these cases.
Hillsborough County has fired its County Administrator. Links articles about the firing are here and here and here.
I would like to see the actual language of the contract about what represents “cause” such that severance payments are not due to Pat Bean. Without a close examination of the language it is very hard to determine what the County’s exposure will be in the lawsuit that is sure to follow.
JKAGBPABE3KT
The Eleventh Circuit today remanded back to the trial court a challenge to The Florida Bar advertising rules holding that the trial court improperly granted summary judgment for The Florida Bar.
The court held that the lawyer challenging the Bar Rules “has made a sufficiently credible showing that the rules are unconstitutionally vague on their face; if they are, we decline to let the Bar ‘hammer[] [them] out case by case and thereby ‘provide [them] with a patina’ of determinacy. Eaves, 601 F.2d at 822 (citation omitted). The district court should hear these claims now.”
– City of Ontario, California v. Quon. This case involved a police officer’s text messages being reviewed by the City. The Court sidestepped the question whether public employees have an expectation of privacy, but in any event unanimously found that the city’s search of a worker’s text messages at issue in the case was reasonable under the Fourth Amendment.
– New Process Steel v. National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB due to political battles only had 2 members for a very long time. The NLRB should have 5 members. A majority of the Court held that a two-member NLRB does not have the legal authority to do the business of the board. This decision may have a major impact upon the Board, as there were over 500 decisions issued during the more than 2 years that the Board functioned with only 2 members.
Yesterday, President Obama nominated Robert O’Neill to the U.S. Attorney position in the Middle District of Florida. O’Neill has served as an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Middle District since 1993. O’Neill must go through a review by the Senate Judiciary Committee and be confirmed by the Senate to become U.S. Attorney.
For more information, read the St. Pete Times article here.