The Utah Court of Appeals upheld a trial court’s summary judgment dismissal of a former employee’s claim against Target for breach of contract, intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, and defamation. In a twenty page opinion, the court said that the employee, who had been caught on camera taking a customer’s wallet, had no […]
The following cases affecting Utah employment law were released during the week of August 11th:Utah Court of Appeals: Prows v. Labor Commission (Utah Ct. App., August 14, 2014) (declining, on the bases of what the definition of “is” is, to disturb refusal to find gainfully employed petitioner permanently and totally disabled)Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals: […]
BLAUER v. DEPARTMENT OF WORKFORCE SERVICES 2014 UT App. 100 (Utah Ct. App., May 1, 2014) When [ironies] come, they come not single spies, but in battalions. — Paraphrasing Hamlet IV.v The Department of Workforce Services, charged with administering Utah employment law, fired Blauer, its legal counsel, for rejecting its proposed accommodations to his […]
In Clark v. Cache Valley Electric Co. (10th Cir., July 25, 2014), the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a federal district court had properly dismissed a gender discrimination and retaliation claim brought by a Utah employee of Cache Valley Electric. The employee claimed that a supervisor was favoring an employee who had allegedly been […]
In a case decided today, Dalpiaz v. Carbon County, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Carbon County’s decision to discharge a benefits administrator when she “acted insubordinately by choosing to submit her FMLA forms at almost the literal last minute, more than seven weeks after the county made its first request for these forms […]
Since 2009, The Utah Employment Lawyer Blog has posted important information about events and legislation and cataloged cases that relate exclusively to Utah employers. In the last month, The Utah Employment Lawyer, created by D. Scott Crook, a partner at the boutique Utah law firm Arnold & Crook PLLC, has gone through a major overhaul […]
In Mallory v. Brigham Young University, the Utah Supreme Court held that a police cadet employed by BYU was considered an employee for governmental immunity purposes. The decision reversed a 2012 Utah Court of Appeals decision holding otherwise, and concluded that the plaintiff had no claim because he had failed to serve a notice of claim […]
In a case decided on June 20, 2014, Dorsey v. DWS, 2014 UT 22, the Utah Supreme Court held that the Department of Workforce Services (DWS) had “erroneously interpreted” a statutory provision to ban seasonal employees who receive work-search deferrals from leaving the country. As in many cases as discussed in an earlier post, the unemployment […]
On April 30, 2014, the United States Senate rejected a motion to end debate and force a final vote on the so-called Minimum Wage Fairness Act—a legislative cause celebre for the Democratic Senate majority and House minority, to say nothing of the Obama White House. The Bill would have raised the federal minimum wage from […]
In Almond v. Unified School District #501, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which was enacted in 2009, does not extend the statute of limitations on all discrimination claims every time a person receives a paycheck. Rather, the Tenth Circuit concluded it applies to extend the statute […]
