TOV Injury and Safety Blog

Senate Republicans block discrimination reform legislation

Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a discrimination verdict that awarded compensation to Lilly Ledbetter.  Goodyear had underpaid her for almost two decades, but she didn't learn about the huge gap between her pay and her male co-workers until she was approaching retirement.  The Court's majority interpreted the equal pay statute in such a manner that Ledbetter had to file suit within 180 days of the start of the unequal treatment--even though she knew nothing about it.  Sadly, Senate Republicans rejected a reform measure that had broad support from both parties; it would have given women a limited time to sue after "discovering" that they had been victimized by discrimination.

No compensation for government defamation

   The State of Michigan recently made an inept effort to protect the safety of children at school by enacting a bill that excluded certain persons with felong convictions from working in the school environment.  Bureaucrats made a sloppy effort to fulfill that obligation by publishing a list of felons currently employed in  Michigan schools, knowing that the list would contain some "false hits".  Several of the innocent persons who were wrongfully included in the list filed suit against the bureaucrats involved for not exercising greater care to eliminate false claims.  The Michigan Supreme Court recently held that the government was not liable for this error, and pursuant to the Court majority's instructions, a panel of the Court of Appeals held on April 29 that the involved individuals were also immune from their stupidity and callousness.

"Let Brown ship for you": they pay their employees honestly.

The NYT reported in its April 20 edition that FedEx is saving as much as $400 million dollars a year by treating its drivers as "independent contractors" rather than employees.  UPS, on the other hand, acknowledges that its drivers are  employees and pays the appropriate taxes and insurance to cover them.

Federal Appeals Court upholds Family Medical Leave

  When Rosalyn Grace was hospitalized with asthma and did not get back to work for several weeks, she thought her job was protected by the FMLA.  The automotive industry, relying on "staffing agencies" as insulation, fired this 8 year employee.  While the Trial Court upheld the firing, the Court of Appeals reversed and reinstated her.

Whistleblower verdict

     Two City of Detroit police officers' claims that they were punished for investigating misconduct in the Mayor's office were vindicated this week, when a jury awarded each man more than two million dollars in damages.  The officers' attorney noted that both men could have settled the claims for less but felt stubbornly driven to establish the truth of their claims. 

        In typical fashion, the employer claimed that one of the men was fired for incompetence and "insubordination", and that the other man had not been retaliated against.  The jury was able to see through these defenses, which are common in employment disputes.  We don't know what evidence was offered in the case, but both men probably had stellar annual reviews until this controversy came up:  that would be common in our experience.  In any event, what a waste of public dollars:  too bad the verdict can't be paid out of the Mayor's pocket.

Employer responsibility for rape

     The Michigan Supreme Court controlling majority once again came down firmly on the side of corporate American and the insurance industry, when it held that a woman who was raped by a plant foreman on the nightshift could not sue their employer.  The radical Republican majority held that the woman, Lisa Brown (who worked as a night-shift security guard at Samuel-Whittar Steel, Inc.), had no recourse against the employer, even though the rape was not an isolated event and Lisa had repeatedly voiced complaints to the Plant Manager about verbal threats made to her by the perpetrator. 

        The unabashed majority rationalized its holding with the dubious claim that it is not enough that the employer had warning of the rapist's "vicious tendencies"; they held that the employer is not responsible unless the employee's lewd comments "convey an umistakeable, particularized threat of rape."  If you think that your daughter or sister is a little less safe today, because of the callous majority's refusal to hold employers resposible for inappropriate and potentially-violent behavior, you are right:  employers can refuse to address escalating complaints of this nature with impunity.  If you are embarrassed by the callousness of our Justices, join the rest of us who shudder at their superficial result-oriented activism.

Traveling employees

          For the past forty years or so, an employee in Michigan has been entitled to workers compensation if he was injured while traveling on behalf of his employer.  That ended definitively this year when the insurance-oriented majority of the Mighigan Supreme Court decided Bowman v. R.L. Coolsaet. 

          Mr. Bowman was working out of town and driving back to his hotel room when he was paralyzed in a motor vehicle accident.  The lower courts held that since he was traveling for his employer and was not off on a personal lark when the wreck occurred, he should be entitled to workers compensation.  The conservative majority rejected this analysis--which had been the law of our state for several decades--and held that Mr. Bowman was not entitled to workers compensation.  This group of judges would pay him comp only if he was injured while directly engaged in the employer's business task, regardless of the fact that he was visiting another city solely for the employer's purposes.

Discrimination in pay

President Bush's impact on the U S Supreme Court was apparent on May 30, 2007, when his new appointments formed a 5-4 majority that rejected a woman's lawsuit over a disparity in pay.  Lilly Ledbetter was the only woman among 16 men at the same management level with a Goodyear Tire plant in Alabama.  She was the lowest paid manager, despite having more seniority than several of her peers.  The disparity in pay was as much as forty percent, as she earned $3727.00 per month and the lowest-paid man earned $4286 per month.

Goodyear conceded that Ledbetter did not learn of this disparity until late in her twenty-year career with the company.  The Civil Rights Commission and the Federal District Court agreed that she was within her rights to sue over the disparity when she belatedly learned of it.  A jury awarded her back pay.  The Supreme Court majority, including Bush's new appointments, and Justices Thomas, Kennedy and Scalia, held that Ledbetter was barred from bringing her action because she didn't sue within 180 days of the first disparate pay increase--even though she was unaware of the disparity at the time.

The opinion written by new Justice Alito--who replaced Sandra Day O'Connor and reversed her probable vote--held that Ledbetter could not base her claim "on the cumulative effect of individual acts", despite their substantial and unfair impact on her.  Justice Ginsberg's dissent, with four Justices signing, stressed the unfairness and impractical aspects of the majority's decision and pointed out that it will be up to the Congress to re-write Title VII to address the Supreme Court majority's overly-constricted interpretation.