ERISA and Employee Pension Plans
Babcock v. Kijakazi (U.S., January 13, 2022) (affirming determination that Babcock’s retirement benefits should be reduced (a “windfall elimination”) to reflect his receipt of both a civil-service pension and military pension payments for his work as a dual-status National Guard technician: Civil-service pension payments based on employment as a dual-status military technician are not payments based on “service as a member of a uniformed service under federal law)
Wages
*Jackson v. City and County of Denver (10th Cir., January 13, 2022) (affirming summary judgment in favor of Denver on Plaintiff Fraternal Order of Police claim that the Denver sheriff improperly stopped deductions from his deputies’ paychecks intended to fund an FOP campaign to make sheriff an elected position: municipal liability did not attach, because the Sheriff did not have final policymaking authority over payroll deduction matters, nor did he ratify the decision to stop the increased deductions)
Workers’ Compensation ~ Occupational Safety and Disease
Biden v. Missouri (U.S., January 13, 2022) (staying injunctions against the COVID-19 vaccination ordered by the Secretary of Health and Human Services for employees of medical facilities receiving Medicare and Medicaid funding (that is, requiring vaccinations): Congress has authorized the Secretary to impose such conditions in the interest of the health and safety of those furnished services. In concluding that the vaccine mandate is necessary, the Secretary did not exceed his statutory authority)
National Federation of Independent Business v. OSHA (U.S., January 13, 2022) (staying OSHA’s COVID-19 vaccination and testing mandate for employees of employers with at least 100 employees: Although Congress has indisputably given OSHA the power to regulate occupational dangers, it has not given it power to regulate public health more broadly. “Requiring the vaccination of 84 million Americans, selected simply because they work for employers with more than 100 employees, certainly falls in the latter category”)
*Cases marked with an asterisk are not binding precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estop
