I have often said that getting summary judgment in an employment discrimination case in Connecticut state court is hard.
State judges are typically reluctant to grant such motions, and the conventional wisdom among practitioners is that it takes extraordinary facts to get there.
Which is what makes a recent decision worth noting. The court granted
I’ve been writing this blog long enough that, let’s just say, that retirement is closer than it was when I started. Heck, I’ve even had friends retire early recently.
But here’s a question that I sometimes hear: is an employer’s reference to retirement enough to satisfy a claim of age discrimination?
Not always but maybe
In a classic Seinfeld episode, George Costanza once built a bed under his desk at Yankee Stadium so he could nap during the workday.
But note to future employees: Sleeping on the job can (and probably will) get you fired on the job and the courts can (and likely will) dismiss a lawsuit against the
Can a company that uses progressive discipline for some employees be forced to use it for all employees? A new decision from the District of Connecticut says no, and the reasoning provides a useful roadmap for employers who want to preserve their at-will flexibility. It also reinforces a notion that employment law attorneys often stress
The Connecticut Appellate Court issued a ruling that employers need to understand when dealing with pregnant employees. The case, Long v. Town of Putnam, reversed summary judgment for the employer and remanded the case to trial.
According to the court’s opinion, Cassie Long was hired as Assistant Finance Director in June 2019. On her
In prior posts, I’ve talked about the difficulty for employers in getting a motion for summary judgment granted in state court in discrimination cases.
(Motions for summary judgment are procedural tools that can be used when there are no disputed issues of material fact and therefore the court can decide the case on law
Can an employer ever win a motion for summary judgment on a discrimination case in state court?
The prevailing wisdom is no. A fool’s errand, some might say.
But a new Connecticut Appellate Court case (Alvarez v. City of Middletown) shows at least what’s possible.
The case has some details that stand out. The
Every week or two, the federal court in Connecticut is asked to decide a motion for summary judgment in a discrimination case. I’ve yet to discuss what these motions are in detail on this blog, but a recent federal case in Connecticut provides a good learning example.
To simplify (drastically?) a federal court case in Connecticut, after a lawsuit is filed by an employee and responded to by the defendant/employer, the parties engage in what is called discovery — interrogatories, requests for production and depositions — all in the hopes of getting information that can help them at trial.
But at the end of discovery — before a trial happens — the parties (and typically the defendant) have an opportunity to file a “motion for summary judgment.” Such a motion is the defendant’s chance to say, “Based on the undisputed facts, we should win on the law.” Or, in other words, there’s no need for a trial.
What people unfamiliar with the legal process often misunderstand, however, is that the court isn’t merely looking at the law in deciding whether the case merits a trial. Rather, the court first looks to see whether all the material (or, in plain English, important) facts are undisputed.
If there are genuine disagreements as to key factual issues, then the case has to go to a trial to let a jury or judge decide the key facts.
A car accident case is the easiest way to understand this. Suppose there is an accident at an intersection and the key issue is who had the right of way. Driver A says the light was green. Driver B says light was red. Witness C says the light had just turned yellow. In this situation, there is a genuine issue as to what color the light was and therefore, who had the right of way. It’ll be up to a jury to weigh the evidence and decide who is to blame for the accident.Continue Reading What Happens in a “He Said/She Said” Case? A Trial
At 47 pages, U.S. District Court Judge Hall’s decision last week in Costello v. Home Depot USA (download here) denying an employer’s motion for summary judgment in an overtime case, isn’t exactly a light read.
She is, of course, not to blame. The
This morning, Jon Hyman over at the Ohio Employer’s Law Blog, reported on a 6th Circuit decision that suggested that an employment discrimination claim could survive even in the absence of a jury finding an “adverse employment action.”
Yesterday, a District Court decision in Connecticut said exactly the opposite. Indeed, the court granted an employer’s