Justia U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff worked for the City of Clarendon, Arkansas, as a full-time police officer. After he was terminated, he sued the City, then-Chief of Police Laura Rash, and then-Clarendon Mayor James L. Stinson, alleging a violation of the Arkansas Whistle-Blower Act and retaliation for the exercise of his free speech rights. The district court granted summary judgment to the defendants on the free speech claim, and the case proceeded to trial on the whistleblower claim. The jury returned a verdict for Defendants. Plaintiff appealed, arguing the district court erred in its pre-trial discovery rulings, its grant of summary judgment to the defendants, and its denial of his motion for a new trial.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that at summary judgment, there was no evidence that Plaintiff sought to convey that message when he gave the video to Deputy Thorne. Instead, the record showed that Plaintiff asserted the opposite, telling Whitcomb and Times that he was trying to “protect” them and expressly denying any intent to give the video to Thorne for investigatory purposes. The district court did not err in granting summary judgment on Plaintiff’s free speech claim. View "John Marlow v. City of Clarendon" on Justia Law

Plaintiff, a former employee, sued on behalf of herself and similarly situated employees, claiming that St. Luke’s violated the Fair Labor Standards Act’s (“FLSA”) overtime provisions by failing to fully compensate employees for work performed. She also brought an unjust-enrichment claim under state law. The district court certified two classes with different lookback periods: (1) an FLSA collective comprised of employees who worked for St. Luke’s between September 2016 and September 2018, 1 and (2) an unjust-enrichment class comprised of all employees who worked for St. Luke’s in Missouri between April 2012 and September 2018. Houston also asserted individual claims, one under the Missouri Minimum Wage Law, and one for breach of her employment contract. The district court granted summary judgment to St. Luke’s on all claims.   The Eighth Circuit vacated and remanded. The court explained that Plaintiff has raised a genuine dispute that the rounding policy does not average out over time. The court explained that no matter how one slices the data, most employees and the employees as a whole fared worse under the rounding policy than had they been paid according to their exact time worked. Here, the rounding policy did both. It resulted in lost time for nearly two-thirds of employees, and those employees lost more time than was gained by their coworkers who benefited from rounding. The court concluded that the employees have raised a genuine dispute that the rounding policy, as applied, did not average out over time. The district court, therefore, erred in granting summary judgment on the FLSA and Missouri wage claims. View "Torri Houston v. St. Luke's Health System, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiff is a physician who provided medical care to Arkansas correctional facility inmates through her employer, Wellpath, LLC. Wellpath terminated Plaintiff’s employment, and she sued, claiming it unlawfully terminated her employment because she reported suspected alterations to her electronic patient medical records. The district court granted Wellpath’s motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff appealed, arguing the district court incorrectly interpreted Arkansas law regarding what constitutes legally protected conduct under the public policy exception to at-will employment and improperly determined at the summary judgment stage that Plaintiff failed to establish a causal link between her tampering reports and her termination.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that under Arkansas’s employment-at-will doctrine, employers may generally discharge employees whose employment is for an indefinite term “for good cause, no cause, or even a morally wrong cause.” Further, Arkansas recognizes a limited exception to this doctrine providing a cause of action to an at-will employee “for wrongful discharge if he or she is fired in violation of a well-established public policy of the State.” The court explained that Plaintiff failed to show anything beyond mere speculation or her own conclusory allegations that call into question the legitimacy of Wellpath’s stated cause for her termination. The court wrote that reasonable minds could not believe an employer would see into the future and begin preemptively generating evidence to support an impermissible basis for terminating a whistleblower-to-be. Simply because Plaintiff reported suspected suspicious electronic activity while Wellpath administrators labored to resolve ongoing employment disputes does not abrogate Wellpath’s broad right to terminate her at-will employment. View "Melanie Jones v. WellPath, LLC" on Justia Law

Four employee benefit funds and their Boards of Trustees, as well as two labor unions (collectively, “Boards”), sued B.F.W. Contracting, LLC and B.F.W. Contractors, LLC (collectively, “Contractors”) to compel an audit and recover money damages pursuant to a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) signed onto by Contractors. The district court granted summary judgment for the Boards and found damages in the amount of $48,568.76.   The Eighth Circuit reversed. The court explained that the Boards argued that the Contractors forfeited the argument about supplemental dues because they failed to raise it before the district court. The court concluded that the Boards are incorrect. The Contractors made this argument in their Response to the Statement of Material Facts by Plaintiff, as well as in their Supplemental Reply Memorandum. The court found that this was enough to avoid forfeiture and allowed the court to consider the issue on appeal.   Additionally, the Boards argue that failure to pay the supplemental dues resulted in a breach of the CBA provision, which authorized the dues under the Labor Management Relations Act, 29 U.S.C. Section 186(c)(2). However, as the plain language of the CBA makes clear, there is no violation of that provision if the Contractors never received the employee authorization cards as required by both the CBA and 29 -6- U.S.C. Section 186(c)(4). Without a breach of this subsection of the CBA, these statutory provisions are inapplicable. View "Greater St. Louis Const. Laborers Welfare Fund v. B.F.W. Contracting, LLC" on Justia Law

A former BNSF Railway Company employee died from lung cancer in 2018. Plaintiff, on behalf of her late husband’s estate, brought this wrongful death action against BNSF under the Federal Employers’ Liability Act (FELA), alleging that her husband’s cancer was caused by his exposure to toxins at work. The district court excluded Plaintiff’s expert witness testimony and granted summary judgment to BNSF.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court wrote that there is no direct evidence that Plaintiff’s husband was exposed to asbestos or diesel combustion fumes. Even if a jury could infer that Plaintiff’s husband had been exposed, there is no evidence of the level of exposure. The court explained that while a quantifiable amount of exposure is not required to find causation between toxic exposure and injury, there must be, at a minimum, “evidence from which the factfinder can conclude that the plaintiff was exposed to levels of that agent that are known to cause the kind of harm that the plaintiff claims to have suffered,” There is no such evidence here. Moreover, the court explained that the district court did not abuse its considerable discretion by determining that the expert’s opinion lacked a sufficient foundation and that, in turn, his methodology for proving causation was unreliable. View "Rebecca Lancaster v. BNSF Railway Company" on Justia Law

Lake Elmo Bank fired Plaintiff after receiving a report that she sexually harassed another employee. Plaintiff sued the Bank, claiming her termination was based on sex in violation of the Minnesota Human Rights Act, Minn. Stat. Sections 363A.08, subd. 2(2) and (3). She also sued the Bank and the reporting employee for defamation. On both claims, the district court granted summary judgment to Defendants. Plaintiff appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. First, the court explained that even assuming the complainant was not credible about some details, the Bank had sufficient information to reasonably believe that Plaintiff violated the harassment policy. The details at issue here are not significant enough to convince a jury that the Bank’s explanation was an attempt to cover up a discriminatory motive for Plaintiff’s termination.   Further, the court explained that here, unlike the employee in Bahr, the complainant’s complaint focused on only the conduct related to the harassment. There is also no evidence that the complainant, unlike the employee in Bahr, made any knowingly false statements or expressed an improper motive for making the complaint. In her interview, the complainant said that as a remedy, she sought to be moved off the teller line, away from Plaintiff, or switched to a different location. There is no evidence to show that the complainant made her statements causelessly and wantonly to injure Plaintiff’s employment. View "Heidi Nelson v. Lake Elmo Bank" on Justia Law

After serving in the United States Navy, Plaintiff became eligible to receive education benefits under the G.I. Bill, which he used to pursue a bachelor’s degree. Plaintiff also sought tuition assistance from his employer, Omaha Public Power District (OPPD), under the company’s Employee Education Program, but OPPD denied Plaintiff’s request because his G.I. Bill benefits fully covered his tuition expenses. Plaintiff sued, claiming that OPPD’s denial of company-provided tuition assistance based on his receipt of G.I. Bill benefits amounted to unlawful discrimination under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). The district court granted summary judgment in OPPD’s favor, and Plaintiff appealed.   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff y has “failed to present sufficient evidence to make” the requisite “threshold showing” that his status as a military veteran was “a motivating factor” in OPPD’s decision to deny him EEP benefits. His discrimination claim under USERRA thus fails, and the district court properly granted summary judgment in OPPD’s favor. View "Andrew Kelly v. Omaha Public Power District" on Justia Law

Plaintiff appealed rom the district court’s adverse grant of summary judgment in favor of TrialCard, Inc. (“TrialCard”) on employment claims she brought under Mo. Stat. Section 213.055.1 (“MHRA”), 42 U.S.C. Section 1981 (“Section 1981”), and the Family Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”).   The Eighth Circuit affirmed. The court explained that Plaintiff’s “me too” evidence is likewise insufficient to establish TrialCard’s proffered reason for her termination was pretextual. This Court has noted that “me too” evidence of other discrimination victims can be relevant because “an employer’s past discriminatory policy and practice may well illustrate that the employer’s asserted reasons for disparate treatment are a pretext for intentional discrimination. Plaintiff’s “me too” evidence, however, is insufficient because she has not shown that these individuals received the same discipline under the same circumstances from the same person. Further, the court explained that Cigna repeatedly reached out to Plaintiff and her therapist about obtaining medical certification. Because Plaintiff failed to present evidence to support her FMLA claim, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of TrialCard. View "Lakeitha Boston v. TrialCard, Inc." on Justia Law

Plaintiffs are food service managers employed by the Independent School District 191 in Burnsville, Minnesota. In 2015, Plaintiffs signed a contract to join the union that represents service workers in the school district, the School Service Employees International Union Local 284. These contracts authorized the school district to deduct monthly union dues from the union member’s paycheck and to send those dues to Local 284 on the union member’s behalf. The employees terminated their membership in the union in March 2020 and later sued the school district and Local 284. They alleged that the deduction of dues from their paychecks violated their rights under the First and Fourteenth Amendments and also contravened Minnesota law. At issue on appeal is whether a school district and a labor union violated the free speech rights of union members by deducting union dues from employee paychecks.   The Eighth Circuit agreed with the district court that the school district’s employees failed to state a claim, and the court, therefore, affirmed the judgment dismissing the action. The court explained that the employees’ argument mischaracterizes their choice: they were “faced with a constitutional choice—whether or not to join” the union. They chose to join the union and authorize the school district to deduct dues from their paychecks. They did so in exchange for the benefits of union membership, and they “assumed the risk that subsequent changes in the law could alter the cost-benefit balance of their bargain.” View "Pollyanna Burns v. School Svc Emp Union Local 284" on Justia Law

Plaintiff contracted to haul freight for CTW Transportation Services. Two weeks later, CTW terminated the contract. On October 7, 2020, Plaintiff filed an administrative complaint against CTW with the Department of Labor, alleging that his contract was terminated in violation of 49 U.S.C. Section 31105(a) for reporting safety violations. The administrative law judge (“ALJ”) ordered discovery to close on May 25 and set trial for July 27. At his deposition on March 30, Plaintiff testified that his attorney had not produced all the documents he had given him. Once in federal court, Plaintiff reasserted his Section 31105(a) retaliation claim. CTW moved to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction. The district court agreed that it lacked jurisdiction.   The Eighth Circuit vacated the dismissal. The court explained that in finding that it lacked jurisdiction, the district court did not find that pre-May 5 conduct alone caused the delay. Instead, it relied almost exclusively on Plaintiff’s conduct after May 5, 2011. For example, Plaintiff’s failure to prepare the case for trial and his “heaping personal insults on the ALJ” all occurred in August and September. Such conduct could not have caused the Secretary’s failure to meet the 210-day deadline. CTW argues that we can still affirm because Plaintiff engaged in bad-faith conduct before May 5. But because the district court did not specifically find that pre-May 5 conduct alone caused the Secretary to miss the deadline, its order dismissing the case must be vacated. View "Avery Wilson v. CTW Transportation Services" on Justia Law