Legal News

Case Summaries

Civil Rights

[02/08] DG v. DeVaughn
In a class action against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services claiming that the department's agency-wide foster care policies and practices exposed all class members to an impermissible risk of harm, the district court's order certifying a class is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs presented more than conclusory statements that defendants' agency-wide monitoring policies and practices, or lack thereof, created a risk of harm shared by the entire class; 2) due to the common risk of harm and the common underlying legal theory for asserting that risk, the district court acted within its discretion to find that typicality was satisfied; and 3) the injunction sought by plaintiffs applied to the proposed class as a whole without requiring differentiation between class members.

[02/08] Johnson v. Weld County
In an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) action based on defendant's failure to hire plaintiff, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where plaintiff failed to rebut defendant's evidence suggesting that the male candidate it hired as Fiscal Officer had superior qualifications to plaintiff's, as well as its evidence that she was not, at the time of the hiring decision, disabled within the meaning of the ADA.

[02/08] Covell v. Menkis
In plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit following his termination by a government agency, summary judgment in favor of the defendant is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to sufficiently demonstrate that he had a property interest in his employment because he did not establish that there was a mutually explicit understanding that he could only be terminated for cause; and 2) plaintiff failed to sufficiently demonstrate that the defendant's actions deprived him of a liberty interest.

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Class Actions

[02/08] DG v. DeVaughn
In a class action against the Oklahoma Department of Human Services claiming that the department's agency-wide foster care policies and practices exposed all class members to an impermissible risk of harm, the district court's order certifying a class is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs presented more than conclusory statements that defendants' agency-wide monitoring policies and practices, or lack thereof, created a risk of harm shared by the entire class; 2) due to the common risk of harm and the common underlying legal theory for asserting that risk, the district court acted within its discretion to find that typicality was satisfied; and 3) the injunction sought by plaintiffs applied to the proposed class as a whole without requiring differentiation between class members.

[02/08] Yokoyama v. Midland Nat'l Life Ins. Co.
In an action alleging deceptive representations in defendant's brochures, which promoted certain annuities as appropriate for seniors, a denial of class certification is reversed where the Hawaii Deceptive Practices Act did not require individual showings of reliance on the alleged misrepresentations.

[02/08] Ward v. Dixie Nat'l Life Ins. Co.
In a class action lawsuit against multiple insurance companies alleging that defendants violated a contractual promise under insurance policies to pay policyholders the "actual charges" of cancer treatments, judgment in favor of the plaintiffs is affirmed where: 1) under the three-step retroactivity analysis, the presumption against retroactivity operates to bar the application of the South Carolina statute to the claims in this case; and 2) defendants' remaining arguments are meritless.

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Labor & Employment Law

[02/08] Johnson v. Weld County
In an Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) action based on defendant's failure to hire plaintiff, summary judgment for defendant is affirmed where plaintiff failed to rebut defendant's evidence suggesting that the male candidate it hired as Fiscal Officer had superior qualifications to plaintiff's, as well as its evidence that she was not, at the time of the hiring decision, disabled within the meaning of the ADA.

[02/08] Covell v. Menkis
In plaintiff's 42 U.S.C. section 1983 suit following his termination by a government agency, summary judgment in favor of the defendant is affirmed where: 1) plaintiff failed to sufficiently demonstrate that he had a property interest in his employment because he did not establish that there was a mutually explicit understanding that he could only be terminated for cause; and 2) plaintiff failed to sufficiently demonstrate that the defendant's actions deprived him of a liberty interest.

[02/08] Turner v. Saloon, Ltd.
In plaintiff's employment discrimination suit against his former employer, summary judgment in favor of defendant is affirmed in part, reversed in part and remanded where: 1) the judgment of the district court is affirmed to the extent that it dismissed plaintiff's ADA claims, his overtime claims, and his Title VII retaliation claim; but 2) judgment of the district court with respect to plaintiff's hostile-workplace claim based on alleged sexual harassment is reversed and remanded as the court dismissed the claim after excluding most of the alleged instances of harassment as time-barred, contrary to Supreme Court precedent establishing that in a hostile-workplace claim, acts of harassment falling outside Title VII's statute of limitations may be considered as long as some act of harassment occurred within the limitations period.

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