In Sandifer et al. v. U.S. Steel Corp., No. 12-417 (Jan. 27, 2014), a unanimous Supreme Court recently affirmed a grant of summary judgment in favor of U.S. Steel Corp. (“Defendant”). The Court held that time spent by Plaintiffs, former and current employees of Defendant’s steelmaking facilities, donning and doffing protective gear at the beginning and end of each workday was not compensable under a collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) between Defendant and Plaintiffs’ union. This holding was based on the Court’s finding that Plaintiffs’ donning and doffing ...
On April 9, 2014, the Seventh Circuit issued its opinion in Johnson v. Pushpin Holdings, LLC, No. 14-8006 (7th Cir. April 9, 2014). In Pushpin, the Seventh Circuit held that before a class is certified, a statement by the named plaintiff in the complaint does not limit the amount of potential damages that the class would be able to recover and, therefore, that named plaintiff could not thereby avoid removal under the Class Action Fairness Act (“CAFA”) by indicating that the complaint sought less than $5 million. In so ruling, the Seventh Circuit followed the binding precedent set by ...
The qualifications for a clerkship with a federal circuit judge are steep: high class ranking from a top law school, significant law review experience, recommendations from well-respected faculty, etc. Now another qualification may be added to that list: the ability to don and doff poultry sanitary gear in less than two minutes.
Such was the “experiment” performed by court staff at the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to help decide a case styled Mitchell v. JCG Industries, Inc. The majority opinion in that case, written by Judge Posner and joined by Judge ...
On March 18, 2014, District Judge Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr. issued a Memorandum and Order dismissing the former Chief Executive Officer and Chief Financial Officer of Patriot Coal Corporation in a stock drop securities class action filed in the Eastern District of Missouri. Glenn E. Davis, Partner in HeplerBroom LLC’s St. Louis office assisted Sidley Austin LLP with the decisive analysis and briefing under the Securities Exchange Act and Private Securities Litigation Reform Act (“PSLRA”).
The Court found that the defendants lacked scienter to sustain federal securities ...
"Hello, Mr. Jones. Did you just try to make a $10,000 jewelry purchase in Brazil?" To put it mildly, that is not the type of question that want your customers-- or as an insurance company, the customers of your policyholder-- to receive. All too often, however, despite the best security efforts, data breaches of sensitive personal information, like credit card data, do occur.
The insurance industry sells a variety of differing products designed specifically to provide coverage for these types of claims and losses. But, would liability for such a data breach be covered by the backbone of ...
