In an opinion issued two weeks ago, Johnston v. Duke University Medical Center, the North Carolina Court of Appeals concluded that the plaintiff’s occupational disease workers’ compensation claim was time-barred.  The plaintiff had been a nurse at Duke, and developed several conditions in her left foot: plantar fasciitis, tarsal tunnel syndrome, and Achilles tendinopathy.  These conditions developed over several years from the 1990′s through 2005, but the plaintiff did not file this case until 2007.

N.C. Gen. Stat. 97-58 specifies the statute of limitations for occupational disease claims.  Under that provision, “the two-year period within which an occupational disease claim must be filed with the Commission … begins to run when the employee learns that he or she has a work-related disability stemming from that occupational disease.”  In this case, the Court found that because all of the plaintiff’s left foot conditions were continuous and interrelated, and that the plaintiff had been told by her physician that her condition had been caused by work as early as 2001, the plaintiff had missed the two-year deadline to file her claim.  The Court rejected the plaintiff’s contention that each different diagnosis should be treated as a separate possible claim.

Categories: Judicial Decisions Tags: Case Commentary, Duke University Medical Center, NC Court of Appeals, Occupational Disease, Statute of Limitations, Workers' Compensation

On May 24, the Supreme Court issued two employment-related opinions.  The first, Lewis v. Chicago, concerned the filing deadline for disparate impact discrimination cases under Title VII.  The black firefighter plaintiffs in the case sought to challenge a written test used for determining promotions.  The question is whether their statute of limitations began running when the test was scored, or when the test results were actually used to determine promotion decisions.  Reversing the Seventh Circuit, the Court unanimously held (Scalia writing) that it was the latter because it was the use of the test results that could constitute an “employment practice” challengable under Title VII.  The case likely will return to the trial court, where the plaintiffs had originally won before the appeals.  Additional coverage is here.

The second case, Hardt v. Reliance Standard Life Insurance Co., concerns when plaintiffs in ERISA actions can receive attorneys’ fees for succeeding in their case.  ERISA (Employee Retirement Income Security Act) is the statue that governs employee benefits plans.  In this case, the plaintiff challenged the insurance company’s denial of her long-term disability benefits, and after a court found she would likely prevail, the insurance company awarded her the benefits.

In a nearly unanimous opinion (Thomas writing) reversing the Fourth Circuit, the Court held that a party who seeks to recover attorney’s fees in an ERISA case does not need to be a “prevailing party.”  Instead, a court may award fees and costs under the statute if the claimant has achieved “some degree of success on the merits.”  Thus, the trial court here was correct in awarding the plaintiff attorneys’ fees for basically succeeding in obtaining her benefits.  More coverage here and here.

Categories: Judicial Decisions Tags: Attorney Fees, Case Commentary, Disparate Impact, ERISA, Fourth Circuit, Labor and Employment, Long-term Disability Benefits, Racial Discrimination, Statute of Limitations, Title VII, US Supreme Court

The federal D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision last month, in Shuler v. PriceWaterhouseCoopers, sharply restricting the scope of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which President Obama signed into law soon after entering office.  The Fair Pay Act extends the timely filing deadlines for certain discriminatory employment actions, specifically those involving “discrimination in compensation.”  The case involved a plaintiff who was denied a promotion in 1999 and 2000 and who claimed that those decisions, which were made because of age discrimination, had continuing effects on his compensation because the promotions would have come with raises.  With little analysis, the Court held that “discrimination in compensation” means “paying different wages or providing different benefits to similarly situated employees, not promoting one employee but not another to a more remunerative position.”  A close reading of the statute’s language, purpose, and legislative history might challenge the Court’s conclusion, and hopefully other courts will consider the question more carefully.

Categories: Judicial Decisions Tags: ADEA, Case Commentary, DC Circuit, Discrimination, Labor and Employment, Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, Statute of Limitations