Discrimination ~ Retaliation
*Thomas v. Farmers Insurance Exchange (10th Cir., April 14, 2021) (affirming summary judgment in favor of Farmers on Thomas’s sexual-orientation discrimination and retaliation claims: there was no direct evidence of discrimination or retaliation, and no showing of pretext)
Workers’ Compensation ~ Occupational Safety and Disease
*Keenan, Hopkins, Suder, and Stowell Contractors, Inc. v. Department of Labor (10th Cir., April 15, 2021) (affirming Commission decision finding KHS&S had committed serious violations of applicable safety and health standards)
Ackley v. Labor Commission (Utah Ct. App., April 15, 2021) (setting aside Commission decision denying Ackley workers’ compensation benefits: the court should have reviewed Ackley’s injury under the idiopathic fall doctrine, under which the effects of a fall are compensable if the employment increases the danger of a fall—on a height, near machinery or sharp corners, or in a moving vehicle)
JBS Carriers v. Labor Commission (Utah Ct. App., April 15, 2021) (setting aside Commission decision awarding workers’ compensation benefits to David Hickey, a driver who developed blood clots: the injury was not legally caused by Hickey’s employment, but the question remains whether Hickey even needed to show legal causation in the first place)
Wright v. Labor Commission (Utah Ct. App., April 15, 2021) (declining to disturb Commission’s denial of benefits: the Commission did not err in relying on the medical panelists’ opinions, and its decision is supported by substantial evidence in the record)
*Cases marked with an asterisk are not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel.
