Justia U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Appellant is a pipeline-inspection company that hires inspectors and sends them to work for its clients. When Plaintiff was hired, Appellant had him sign an Employment Agreement that contained an arbitration clause. That arbitration provision explained that Plaintiff and Appellant agree to arbitrate all claims that have arisen or will arise out of Plaintiff’s employment. Appellant staffed Plaintiff on a project with Defendant, a diversified energy company that stores and transports natural gas and crude oil.   Alleging that the Fair Labor Standards Act entitled him to overtime pay, Plaintiff filed a collective action against Defendant; he brought no claims against Appellant. Appellant moved to intervene. The magistrate judge granted that motion, explaining that Appellant met the criteria for both permissive intervention and intervention as of right. Appellant claimed that it was an “aggrieved party” under Section 4 of the Federal Arbitration Act (“FAA”) and thus could compel arbitration. The magistrate judge rejected all the motions. The district court affirmed.   The Fifth Circuit dismissed for lack of jurisdiction Appellant’s appeal. The court held that Appellant is not an aggrieved party under Section 4 of the FAA and cannot compel arbitration. The court explained it is only where the arbitration may not proceed under the provisions of the contract without a court order that the other party is really aggrieved. Here, Plaintiff only promised to arbitrate claims brought against Appellant. Claiming that Plaintiff did not arbitrate its claims with Defendant is therefore not an allegation that he violated his agreement with Appellant. View "Hinkle v. Phillips 66 Company" on Justia Law

Plaintiff sued her employer under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), claiming that Defendant engaged in unlawful age discrimination and retaliation. Plaintiff filed a motion with the district court requesting additional time so that Defendant could respond to her requests for production. The court denied the motion and Plaintiff later filed a supplement to her Rule 56(d) motion, again asking the court to defer consideration of Defendant’s summary-judgment motion and allow Plaintiff to conduct discovery, or alternatively, deny Defendant’s motion. The district court granted Defendant’s motion and entered final judgment in their favor.   The Fifth Circuit reversed the district court’s order and held that a district court cannot deny discovery rights protected by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. The court explained that a Rule 56(d) movant first must demonstrate that additional discovery will create a genuine issue of material fact. Here, Plaintiff identified such evidence for (1) her age-discrimination claim, and (2) her retaliation claim. The court reasoned it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to deny Plaintiff the opportunity to conduct discovery on the relevant issues in question and then fault her for having “no evidence of a causal connection” between her protected activity and the adverse employment actions. Further, the fact that Plaintiffs requests for discovery were repeatedly denied does not reveal a lack of diligence on her part. View "Bailey v. KS Mgmt Services" on Justia Law

Plaintiff alleged that her former employer, Circassia Pharmaceuticals (“Circassia”), fired her for discriminatory and retaliatory reasons. The district court granted summary judgment for Circassia, holding that Owens had failed to create a genuine dispute of material fact as to pretext.The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment for Defendant in Plaintiff’s employment discrimination lawsuit. The court held even when an employee presents evidence that would allow a jury to conclude that an employer’s proffered justification for an adverse action is false, that does not necessarily permit a rational inference that the real reason was discrimination Plaintiff provided enough evidence to permit a finding that Circassia’s proffered justification for her termination is false. But she has presented a mere scintilla of evidence that the true reason for her termination was discriminatory animus, and “the burden of proof [is hers] throughout.” The court held that summary judgment for Circassia is therefore appropriate because Plaintiff's evidence is of insufficient “nature, extent, and quality” to permit a reasonable factfinder to resolve “[t]he ultimate determination” of discrimination in her favor. Finally, the court reasoned that Plaintiff failed to raise additional arguments regarding pretext to support her retaliation claim, thus falling short of creating a genuine dispute of material fact. View "Owens v. Circassia Pharmaceuticals" on Justia Law

Defendant, a foreign oil company, contracted with Ecuador to develop an oil-rich region of the rainforest. Defendant paid its Ecuadorian employees a sizable portion of its annual profits. The government canceled the exploration contract and expropriated Occidental’s property, leading to massive losses. Profits and profit-sharing abruptly ceased. Occidental sought arbitration and, a decade later, received a nearly billion-dollar settlement from Ecuador. Plaintiffs, a group of Occidental’s former Ecuadorian employees, then sued Occidental, claiming the arbitration settlement represented profits they were entitled to share. The district court correctly dismissed the employees’ claims. On appeal, the Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of Plaintiffs' claims holding that Defendant owes its former employees no shared profits for the relevant year. The court reasoned that under the plain terms of Ecuadorian law, a company’s profit-sharing obligation depends on the profits lawfully declared in its annual tax returns. Plaintiffs maintained that tax returns are “not the exclusive mechanism for determining profit-sharing liability.” However, the court held Ecuador's law is clear that the calculation [of profits shall be conducted on the basis of the declarations or determinations prepared for the payment of Income Tax, and Occidental’s tax returns for the interrupted year of 2006 showed not profits but losses. View "Cisneros Guerrero, et al v. Occidental Petro, et a" on Justia Law

A&D Interests, Incorporated (doing business as the “Heartbreakers Gentlemen’s Club”), petitioned the Fifth Circuit for a writ of mandamus. Petitioners argue that the district court should not have certified a Fair Labor Standards Act collective action comprised of “exotic” dancers who had worked at Heartbreakers in the last three years.   The Fifth Circuit granted Petitioner’s motion for a writ of mandamus in their Fair Labor Standards Act collective action. The court held that none of the three causes of the arbitration agreement prohibit potential plaintiffs from participating in collective action.   The court analyzed whether mandamus is warranted and found that Petitioners met the first requirement because the relevant issue will become moot before Petitioners can file an appeal. The court held that the second requirement is met because ensuring judicial neutrality and preventing district courts from needlessly stirring up litigation is good cause for a writ to issue. Thus, the court held that in light of In re JPMorgan Chase & Co., 916 F.3d 494 (5th Cir. 2019), the district court clearly and indisputably erred. View "In re: A&D Interests" on Justia Law

Petitioner, an office services and facilities management company, refused to bargain with a labor union based on its position that the union was not a "properly certified representative of its employees." In turn, the union filed a claim with the NLRB, claiming that Petitioner violated the NLRA by refusing to bargain in good faith. The NLRB found in the union's favor.The Fifth Circuit denied Petitioner's petition for review, rejecting Petitioner's argument that the prosecution was ultra vires. Petitioner claimed that President Biden's removal of the NLRB General Counsel was unlawful and that his replacement lacked authority to bring the complaint against Petitioner. The Fifth Circuit disagreed, finding that no provision of the NLRA protects the General Counsel of the NLRB from removal.The Fifth Circuit then rejected the merits of Petitioner's claim, finding that there was substantial evidence in the record supporting the NLRB's decision. Thus, the court granted NLRB's cross-petition for enforcement. View "Exela Enterprise Solutions v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed a claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) against the Administrators of the Tulane Education Fund (“Administrators”), alleging gender discrimination, retaliation, and hostile work environment. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Defendant and Plaintiff appealed arguing that the district court’s ruling was erroneous.   The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Administrators. Plaintiff argued that the district court improperly required her to demonstrate that her proffered comparators were strictly identical. The court found that Plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case because she did not present evidence that any male physician shared characteristics that would render them similarly situated. Further, even if Plaintiff established a prima facie case, her claim would not succeed because she did not rebut Defendant’s non-discriminatory reasons for declining to renew her contract.   The court further affirmed summary judgment in favor of Defendant on Plaintiff’s retaliation claim. The court concluded that a reasonable jury could not establish that her protected conduct was the “but for” reason for the alleged adverse employment action.   Finally, the court affirmed summary judgment in favor of Defendant on Plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim. The court found that although Plaintiff endured severe treatment by her supervisor, she did not establish that the treatment was based on her gender. View "Saketkoo v. Admin Tulane Educ" on Justia Law

Defendant, Union Pacific, is a national rail carrier. Plaintiff, The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen ("BLET"), is a labor union representing Union Pacific engineers. Division 192 is the exclusive representative for Union Pacific employees around the area. An issue arose when an off-duty fistfight broke out during a union meeting between local division officers and an engineer. About two months after the fight, the engineer filed a complaint with Union Pacific, alleging that was threatened and assaulted by local division representatives in retaliation for taking extra shifts. The suspension of six union members effectively barred all of Division 192’s leadership from Union Pacific’s premises.BLET sued Union Pacific in federal court, alleging Union Pacific retaliated against the union for its shove policy. BLET argued the retaliation violated the section of the Railway Labor Act (“RLA”) prohibiting carrier interference with union activity.The court first found that federal courts have jurisdiction over post-certification disputes alleging that railroad conduct motivated by antiunion animus is interfering with the employees’ “choice of representatives.” Next, the court found that the facts support the determination that the union was likely to succeed in showing that the discipline was motivated by a desire to weaken the local division. Thus, the court found that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that the union is likely to prevail in showing that Union Pacific’s suspension of effectively all the division’s elected representatives amounted to the prohibited interference under the RLA. View "BLET v. Union Pacific Railroad" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a temporary employee on a construction job suffered a diabetic attack at work. Six days later, the plaintiff was terminated along with several others. After exhausting her administrative remedies, the plaintiff sued her employer in the Eastern District of Texas, bringing claims for damages under the ADA, alleging she had been discriminated against due to her diabetes.The circuit court found that the evidence was that plaintiff was terminated immediately after an event that highlighted her ADA-protected disability. The court reasoned proximity of her diabetic episode on the job and her termination was sufficient to constitute a prima facie case that she was included in the group to be terminated for ADA violative reasons. The court further found that plaintiff has presented evidence sufficient to rebut the defendant’s nondiscriminatory reason for termination and show that a fact question exists as to whether that explanation is pretextual. Thus, the plaintiff established the elements of her prima facie case and she has also presented “substantial evidence” that the defendant’s nondiscriminatory rationale for her inclusion in the reduction in force was pretextual. An issue of material fact remains regarding whether the defendant discriminated against the plaintiff on the basis of her disability by including her in the reduction of force. View "Gosby v. Apache Industrial" on Justia Law

The Fifth Circuit affirmed the district court's judgment in this civil rights action brought by plaintiff against his prior employer with one exception: the court reversed as to the hostile work environment claim. The court concluded that, under the totality of the circumstances, a single incident of harassment, if sufficiently severe, can give rise to a viable Title VII claim. In this case, the incident plaintiff has pleaded, that his supervisor directly called him a racial epithet containing the n-word in front of his fellow employees, states an actionable claim of hostile work environment. The court remanded for further consideration. View "Woods v. Cantrell" on Justia Law