Tag Archives: SCOTUS

Why Ketanji Brown Jackson could hear a workers’ compensation case at the beginning of her Supreme Court career

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TLDR: In short, I think the issue of whether requiring insurers/employers to reimburse employees for medical marijuana under state workers compensation laws is pre-empted by federal criminal law is one the Supreme Court will take up. Federal criminal law is a strong federal basis to review a preemption question. I also believe medical marijuana in workers compensation addresses federal criminal law issues in addition to separation of powers issues.  All of these factors distinguish medical marijuana from the issue of air ambulances charges in workers compensation that also involves preemption, but the Supreme Court declined to address in 2021.

District Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals Judge and Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson is going through Senate confirmation hearings this week. But if she is confirmed, could one of her first cases involve an issue about workers’ compensation?

I think so.

Last month, the Supreme Court asked the Solicitor General to submit a brief to help them decide to whether to hear an appeal from two Minnesota cases where that state’s high court decided that federal drug laws preempted Minnesota insurers/employers from needing to reimburse injured workers for medical marijuana under their state’s workers’ compensation laws.

Minnesota joined a growing number of states that have split over whether federal drug laws preempt their state workers compensation laws when it comes to medical marijuana. Last spring the United States Supreme Court declined to hear another conflict between state and federal law over air ambulances that split many state and federal jurisdictions.

But after reading the Minnesota decisions, I think it is more likely the Supreme Court will weigh-in over medical marijuana and workers’ compensation. Not only does medical marijuana involve a conflict between state and federal law, it is also implicates criminal law and separation of powers between the executive branch and the executive branch of the federal government.

Criminal law and medical marijuana in workers’ compensation

The split over medical marijuana in workers’ compensation turns on two questions 1) are insurers/employers aiding and abetting illegal activity under federal law by re-imbursing injured workers for medical marijuana through workers compensation and 2) are employers/insurers at risk of breaking the law by re-imbursing workers for medical marijuana.

The first question turns on how to interpret “aiding and abetting” and intent under criminal law. The second question goes to separation of powers issues. While marijuana is illegal under federal law, Congress has passed legislation through spending bills that prohibits the Department of Justice from prosecuting users and distributors of medical marijuana.

Further complicating the analysis is that fact the Department of Justice has shifted its policies about whether they will prosecute medical marijuana users and distributors depending on which party controls the White House.

As stated above, the medical marijuana cases also involve a question between whether federal powers to regulate interstate commerce conflict with state’s 10th Amendment police powers that are the constitutional basis for workers’ compensation. The court declined to ponder that conflict in the Texas air ambulance appeal last year. My hunch is that the Supreme Court believes federal criminal law provides a stronger basis to preempt state workers’ compensation laws than laws regulating air travel

For example, federal courts are moving away from giving deference to how federal agencies that regulate the domestic economy interpret the laws they enforce. But courts are still deferential to the executive branch when it comes to matters of national security.  My feeling is that conservative-leaning Supreme Court is going to view federal criminal law as closer to a matter of national security than economic regulation.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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A truly Epic failure for workers

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He just turned 50 last year…

Free speech in the workplace has been discussed heatedly in the wake of the cancellation of “Roseanne”and a new rule prohibiting NFL players from kneeling during the national anthem. Parties on both sides in the culutrue war have argued that employees don’t have freedom of the speech on the job. While that is generally true, the National Labor Relations Act gives employees some rights of speech and associationon the job. But a recent Supreme Court case could have paired back those rights.

In Epic Systems v. Lewis the United States Supreme court held in a 5-4 decision that neither the National Labor Relations Act  nor the savings clause of the Federal Arbitration Act  prevents enforcement of arbitration clauses that preclude class or collective actions against employers by their employees.

As many commentators and the dissent pointed out, the Epic decision will make it more difficult for workers to band together to address wage and hour violations. Individually, even with attorney fees available, it is not economical for employees to pursue individual cases of wage theft if those individual cases amount to a relatively small amount. An example of such a case were the so-called “donning and doffing” cases pursued against various meat packing plants in the Midwest.

Employers have won some major victories in the area of wage and hour law this Supreme Court term. Epic follows on the heels of a decision making it easier for employers to prove they are exempt from the overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act

But Epic could impact labor and employment law beyond just wage and hour law. Here are a few ways Epic could impact more than just wage and hour law. This list is not inclusive and Epic is probably worth more discussion, but I wanted to discuss the broader implications of this case and bring up lesser discussed but important implications of this case.

What is a protected concerted activity?

The National Labor Relations Act protects protected concerted activity for the mutual aid of co-workers that goes to the terms and conditions of employment. The employees argued that participating in a collective action case under the Fair Labor Standards Act. Justice Neil Gorsuch, writing for the five Justice majority, disagreed. Gorsuch wrote that the NLRA only covered activities that employees do for themselves, not class action litigation. What concerned me more, was Gorsuch’s  use of a “canon”of statutory construction to hold that seemingly broad language in the NLRA about it employees being able to engage in collective activity for “mutual aid and protection” only applied to forming labor unions and other activities related to formal collective bargaining.

This conclusion concerned me because I have long advocated for non-unionized employees to engage in collective self-help on the job to address issues like bullying  or even accommodation of a disability.  But, as the dissent points out, association rights on the job are also protected by the Norris-LaGuardia Act (NLGA) NLGA expressly provides for a right to self-organization among employees. Though the Epic court rejected NLGA as a basis for overcoming an arbitration clause, it’s broader language could still be the basis for workplace speech and assocation rights than a paired down NLRA.

That Norris-LaGuardia would serve as backstop for employee association rights would assume the Roberts/Gorsuch court is merely following some rules of statutory construction rather than imposing their own economic preferences into the law. That might not be a fair assumption. The Federal Arbitration Act explicitly excludes employment contracts from coverage. In 2001, the Supreme Court limited that exclusion from workers in the transportation industry.  Epic would appear to further limit that exclusion in contradiction to plain and clear statutory language to the contrary.

 

Can Epic be made to benefit workers?

Epic may benefit some employees. One impetus behind using arbitration clauses to prevent class action claims is to defeat class action claims on retirement plans under ERISA. However ERISA also governs short-term and long- term disability policies. Currently, short-term and  long-term disability policies very difficult to win because courts defer to insurers on how the plans are interpreted. Some employee-benefit attorneys believe that employees will have a better chance of disability claims in arbitration.  Union-side labor lawyer, Moshe Marvit has also speculated that Epic might make it easier for employees to form unions.

Many management-side attorneys are also skeptical of arbitration  which could also prevent employers from adopting arbitration clauses.

Constitutional perspectives

So how is it that the Supreme Court can ignore seemingly plain language about the Federal Arbitration Act not applying to employment disputes? The Circuit City decision from 2001, provides one clue. In Circuit City the Supreme Court used a narrow interpretation of interstate commerce to hold that the FAA only applies to transportation employees. This holding is consistent with other holdings from the Rehnquist and Roberts courts that limit that power of the federal government to regulate through the commerce clause. (12)

Though Epic doesn’t discuss state police powers under the 10th Amendment much of the case law relied upon in Epic has to do with how the FAA pre-empts state laws preventing arbitration in certain cases. Essentially the so-called “contracts clause” which prevents laws that impair the obligation of contract.  This includes state laws enacted under 10th Amendment police powers. The Supreme Court took up a contracts clause case, Sveen v. Melin, this term.  That case could also have implications in the world of employment law depending on the language of the decision and any possible concurring opinions from the likes of Justices Gorsuch, Alito or Thomas.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Arbitration, NLGA, NLRA, Supreme Court, Wage and Hour and tagged , , , , .

The United States Supreme Court’s  recent decision in Schindler Eleavator Corp. v. United States ex rel Kirk is a terrible decision for taxpayers and employees.

Supreme Court Justices 2011

Supreme Court Justices

A majority of Justices comprising Justices Samual Alito, Justice Anthony Kennedy, Chief Justice John Roberts, Justice Antonin Scalia and Justice Clarence Thomas ruled that employees could not solely rely on information obtained in Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests as a basis for whistleblower claims under the False Claims Act.

The whistleblower provision of the False Claims Act (FCA) allows private citizens with evidence of fraud against federal programs or contracts to sue on behalf of the government and collect a percentage of what the government recovers. Continue reading