Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff filed suit to recover withheld Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA), 26 U.S.C. 3101, taxes from Credit Suisse and the IRS, to which Credit Suisse had forwarded the withheld taxes. Plaintiff had filed a complaint under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. 621 et seq., against Credit Suisse and the parties subsequently settled on a lump sum payment of $250,000. At issue was whether, under FICA, these settlement proceeds were fairly characterized as "wages" received by plaintiff "with respect to employment," and were thus subject to FICA taxes. The court concluded that plaintiff had not offered sufficient evidence to suggest that the settlement payment was anything else but the "[w]ages, tips, other comp[ensation]" that Credit Suisse had classified the settlement payment as. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court granting the IRS summary judgment and dismissing the complaint against Credit Suisse. View "Gerstenbluth v. Credit Suisse, et al." on Justia Law

Michael Koubek appealed from the district court's refusal to dismiss the contribution claims of third-party plaintiffs, the Hallocks, after Koubek's wife, who was driving Koubek's car from a business meeting, collided with a car driven by one of the Hallocks. Koubek's wife was driving in the car with Mathew Isabella at the time of the accident and Isabella sustained injuries. Isabella was prevented by New York Workers' Compensation Law from suing Koubek's wife, and he eventually obtained workers' compensation benefits. Isabella then sued the Hallocks and the Hallocks filed a third-party complaint against Koubek for contribution and indemnification. At issue on appeal was the conflict between two provisions of New York law: Section 29(g) of New York's Workers' Compensation Law, which provided that workers' compensation was the exclusive remedy of an employee injured by his co-employee's negligence, and Section 388 of New York's Vehicle and Traffic Law, which provided that every owner of a vehicle operated in New York was liable for injuries resulting from the negligent permissive use of that vehicle. The court certified the issue to the New York Court of Appeals and stayed resolution of the appeal. View "Hallock v. Koubek" on Justia Law

E&Y appealed from the district court's order denying its motion to dismiss or stay proceedings, and to compel arbitration, in a putative class action brought by its former employees. At issue on appeal was whether an employee could invalidate a class-action waive provision in an arbitration agreement when that waiver removed the financial incentive for her to pursue a claim under the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201, et seq. The court held that the FLSA did not include a "contrary congressional command" that prevented a class-action waiver provision in an arbitration agreement from being enforced by its terms. The court also held that, in light of the supervening decision of the Supreme Court in American Express Co v. Italian Colors Restaurant, the employee's argument that proceeding individually in arbitration would be "prohibitively expensive" was not a sufficient basis to invalidate the action waiver provision at issue here under the "effective vindication doctrine." Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings. View "Sutherland v. Ernst & Young LLP" on Justia Law

Defendants, the children of the late Jack Kirby, one of the most influential comic book artists of all time, appealed the district court's grant of summary judgment to Marvel. This case concerned the property rights in 262 works published by Marvel between 1958-1963. After defendants served various Marvel entities with Termination Notices purporting to exercise statutory termination rights under section 304(c)(2) of the Copyright Act of 1976, 17 U.S.C. 304, Marvel filed suit seeking a declaration that defendants have no termination rights under section 304(c)(2). The court concluded that the district court lacked personal jurisdiction over Lisa and Neal Kirby and, therefore, vacated the district court's judgment against them; Lisa and Neal are not indispensable parties and it was appropriate for the action against Barbara and Susan Kirby to have proceeded on its merits; the district court did not err in determining as a matter of law that the works at issue were "made for hire," made at Marvel's instance and expense, and that the parties had no agreement to the contrary; and the district court properly granted Marvel's motion for summary judgment as to Susan and Barbara, who were without termination rights under section 304(c). View "Marvel Characters, Inc. v. Kirby" on Justia Law

Plaintiff filed suit against her employer, Healthfirst, alleging that it failed to pay her overtime wages under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 207(a)(1), and New York Labor Law. The district court granted Healthfirst's motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6). The court agreed with the district court that plaintiff did not plausibly allege that she worked overtime without proper compensation under the FLSA and, therefore, affirmed the judgment of the district court. The court need not decide whether the district court was also correct when it first concluded that plaintiff had not sufficiently alleged that she was an "employer" of Healthfirst within the meaning of the FLSA. Nonetheless, the court offered its views on this issue because the court disagreed with the district court's conclusion. View "Dejesus v. HF Management Services, LLC" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, former Lehman employees, filed suit alleging that defendants, members of the Benefits Committee, and the company's Directors, breached their duties under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1001 et seq. In regards to plaintiffs' claims that the Benefits Committee Defendants breached their duty of prudence in managing the company's employee stock ownership plan (ESOP), the court concluded that plaintiffs have not rebutted the Moench v. Robertson presumption because they failed to allege facts sufficient to show that the Benefits Committee Defendants knew or should have known that Lehman was in a "dire situation" based on information that was publicly available during the class period. In regards to plaintiffs' claims that the Benefits Committee Defendants breached their duty of disclosure, the publicly-known information available to defendants did not give rise to an independent duty to investigate Lehman's SEC filings prior to incorporating their content into a summary plan description issued to plan-participants. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal of plaintiffs' remaining claims. View "In Re: Lehman Bros. ERISA Litig." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court's dismissal of their complaints alleging that defendants failed to compensate them for work performed during meal breaks, before and after schedule shifts, and during required training sessions. The court affirmed the district court's dismissal with prejudice of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 201 et seq., gap-time, conversion, estoppel, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, and Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), 18 U.S.C. 1961, claims. The court remanded, however, the FLSA and New York Labor Law claims, the NYLL gap-time claims, the breach of express and implied oral contract claims, the breach of an implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing claims, the quantum meruit claims, and the unjust enrichment claims for amended pleading. Accordingly, the court vacated and remanded for further proceedings. View "Nakahata, et al. v. New York-Presbyterian HealthCare System, Inc. et al." on Justia Law

Petitioners, undocumented aliens, petitioned for review of the Board's ruling that they were precluded from receiving an award of backpay from their employer pursuant to Hoffman Plastic Compounds, Inc. v. NLRB. The court granted the petition for review to the extent that the matter was remanded to the Board for consideration of issues relating to petitioners' request for conditional reinstatement where the ALJ Order did not recommend conditional restatement despite the findings in the ALJ Decision that reinstatement offers would be appropriate and that the company had not met its obligations to make such offers, and despite an explicit request by the General Counsel for an order requiring offers of conditional reinstatement; petitioners did not file any exceptions with the Board despite the failure of the ALJ Order to recommend conditional reinstatement; and the Board did not consider whether an order requiring offers of conditional reinstatement would be appropriate. The court considered petitioners' remaining arguments and found them to be without merit and, therefore, denied the petition for review to that extent. View "Palma v. NLRB" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, employees of Gristede's supermarkets, moved for partial summary judgment on the issue of whether John Catsimatidis, the chairman and CEO, could be held personally liable for damages. The court affirmed the district court's decision so far as it established that Catsimatidis was an "employer" under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), 29 U.S.C. 203(d), based on his actions and responsibilities. The court vacated and remanded, however, the grant of partial summary judgment on plaintiffs' New York Labor Law (NYLL), N.Y. Lab. Law 190(3), 651(6), claims in light of the possible disagreement between the parties regarding the need for the court to decide an issue of state law and in light of the absence of discussion of the issue in the district court's decision. View "Irizarry v. Catsimatidis" on Justia Law

A class of seafarers sought, as part of unearned wages, overtime pay from Maersk that they would have earned from the time of their discharge until the end of their respective voyages. On appeal, Maersk challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of the seafarers. The court concluded that the district court correctly determined that the application of general maritime law could be limited, but not abrogated, in collective bargaining agreements (CBAs); the CBA at issue here did not address the inclusion of overtime pay in the calculation of Plaintiff Padilla's unearned wages; the unearned wages included overtime pay where the seafarer reasonably expected to earn overtime pay on a regular basis throughout his service in an amount that was not speculative and would have earned it "but for" an illness or injury; and, given that overtime was a substantial and routine component of the seafarer's compensation, they were entitled to overtime payments because, under general maritime law, they must be placed in the same position they would have been in had they not been injured or disabled. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment, including the district court's denial of Maersk's motion to amend the judgment. View "Padilla v. Maersk Line, Limited" on Justia Law