Order 533412: cases

Running head: Law 1

Law 7

Employment Law Case Study Analysis

Name

Institutional Affiliation

Date

Case Study 1: Case Number- 07- 4437/ 07-4438: Amy Baden Wintwood et al v Life Time Fitness Inc.

Question 1: Are you in accord with the court’s decision?

I am in accord with the decision of the court that Life- Time fitness was liable for overtime payment to the plaintiffs for the specified time, arguing that any salary deductions were made to recover overtime or bonus payments. Life Time Fitness claimed that these deductions were not related to the employee’s performance thus it did not violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. According to the Court, Life- Time Fitness indeed took actual deductions from the employee’s salaries when they stopped meeting the expected performance goals thus violated the FLSA.

Since Life- Time was an employer under FLSA, it was required of it to give its employees overtime as stipulated in the act. Therefore, as an employer under the FLSA, Life- Time Fitness should not have been exempted from giving its employees overtime payment. Employers should learn from this incident and avoid crafting of policies in permissive language that frustrates the purpose of the FLSA.

Question 2: Do you believe the Department of Labor Regulations, which changed the salary basis test was justifiable?

The Department of Labor Regulations that changed the salary- basis test was justifiable. The new regulations under the board were critical in determining instances when employers did not intend to pay their employees on a salary basis. The changes indicated that an actual practice of making improper deductions from an employee’s salary demonstrated that an employer did not intend on paying employees on a salary basis. The new regulations also stipulate that the amount an employee received as a salary or compensation was not subject to a reduction based on the quality or quantity of work performed.

The new regulations and changes on the salary basis test are justifiable as they provide employees with a safe harbor by protecting them from unlawful and unnecessary deductions by their employees as required from the Fair Labor Standards Act. If such regulations did not exist, employers would subject their employees to improper deductions.

Question 3: What would be an ethical resolution to this case?

An ethical solution in this case would be to reimburse Baden and the other plaintiffs for any improper deduction made in the implicated pay periods. The employer could also make a good faith commitment that they would not engage in such unlawful deductions in the future and comply with the regulations stipulated by the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Department of Labor Regulations.

Case Study 2: Case Number- 09-167: Ersaline Edwards v Odie Washington

Question 1: Are you in agreement with the court’s decision?

I agree with the Court’s decision in this case. By signing the Informed Consent: Liability Release document, Edwards had freed her trainer of any incidence that would occur during the course of her training. It was unfortunate that during her training, she sustained an injury that necessitated her to seek medical attention, thus the two hospital bills. But by signing the Informed Consent: Release Form, she had freed DCDC from being held liable in case anything happened to her during the training. She could therefore not hold liable DCDC for the payment of the bills incurred in treating an injury she sustained during training.

Question 2: Was her injury caused due to her own negligence or the DCDC’s negligence concerning the wet railing?

Ersaline Edwards’ injury was due to the DCDC’s negligence. The DCDC is required by the Occupational Safety and Health act to ensure that all its employees and potential employees have a safe working environment. The wet railing is therefore as a result of the negligence of the DCDC to ensure that its working environment was safe before the training exercise. The DCDC failed to provide a properly safe environment for the plaintiff to complete her physical training test, thus when she attempted to grip the railing on losing balance, she fell and ended up getting injured.

Employers are required by law to provide a safe working environment by: designing and maintaining workplaces that are safe posing no risk to the health of their employees or potential employees. It is also necessary that employers identify any actual and potential hazards and eliminate them. The DCDC failed to provide a safe training environment by failing to identify the wet railing and getting rid of the moisture. The negligence on the DCDC can therefore be blamed for the injury that Ersaline got during her physical test.

Question 3: What do you believe would have been an ethical resolution to this case?

In my opinion, an ethical resolution to this case would have been to request the DCDC to cater for the hospital bills that resulted from Ersaline’s treatment. The case involves a debate on morality and the Kidder’s paradigm principle of justice v morality. It would be just to enforce the law, by making Ersaline pay her own bills as she had freed the DCDC of any liability accruing from her training. But the moral and merciful action would be to require DCDC to cater for the hospital bills as their lack of providing a safe environment caused her injury.

Case Study 3: Case Number- 06-1279: Lucille K. Melvin v Car- Freshener Corporation

Question 1: Do you agree with the court’s decision?

I agree with the court’s decision. The Iowa public policy states that discharging an employee in retaliation is a violation of the policy. A retaliatory discharge claim is one in which an employee can prove that he/she engaged in a protected activity, suffered an adverse employment action and that there existed a causal connection between the protected activity and the termination (Love, 1985).

Melvin only relies on the proximity of three events: suffering the injury, filing the worker’s compensation claim and being temporarily laid off to prove a connection. She failed in providing evidence that her termination was prompted by her filing the claim thus lacked a material issue of fact to support her claims. I agree with the decision of the Court of Appeals to affirm the District Court’s decision in granting the defendant the summary judgment

Question 2: Should the proximity in time be sufficient to establish a prima facie case of retaliation requiring Car- Freshener to retort with a legitimate justifiable reason?

The elements required to establish a prima facie case of retaliation include an employee’s involvement in a protected activity, subsequent employer’s adverse action and a causal connection between the two. To prove the causal connection, the proximity in timing of the two events comes into question (O’ Brien, 2001). For a retaliation case to be under Title VII, there should be very close temporal proximity between the employee’s involvement in a protected activity and the employer’s subsequent adverse action to show a link necessary to establish a prima facie.

Therefore, in this case, the proximity in time between Melvin’s protected activity and Car- Freshener’s adverse action should be sufficient to establish a prima facie case of retaliation, thus requiring Car- Freshener to retort with a justifiable reason.

Question 3: Can you propose an ethical solution to this case?

In solving a reasonable accommodation claim, several issues need be considered: medical information, legal considerations, employee needs and desires and the conditions of the workplace. An ethical solution in this case would be to reinstate Melvin’s employment while considering the aforementioned issues. If there exist a vacancy in which Melvin can work without limitations from her disability, the company may provide her with a job. The ADA requires employers to provide reasonable accommodation to employees with disability by providing a working environment they can fit in or acquire devices that help the employee at work (Lee, 1993).

Case Study 4: Case Number- 04-55582/ 04-55583: Waldamar Miller v Xerox Corporation Retirement Income Guarantee Plan

Question 1: Do you agree with the decision of the court?

I agree with the decision of the court in this case, that the method of account for the previous distribution in calculating the final retirement benefit violated the requirements of the ERISA. By failing to calculate actuarial equivalence in the manner stipulated under the ERISA, Xerox had violated the act, thus the employees claim in questioning the phantom account mechanism was viewed as a fact by the court.

The phantom account mechanism that Xerox had incorporated for use in after amending the Income Guarantee Plan Formula had drastic effects on the payable retirement benefits to the employees upon their retirement. Using this amended scheme, the amount deducted exceeded the $300 as stipulated in the statutes and regulations of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act, thus a violation of the act.

Since Xerox had violated the ERISA, it was right for the Court to reverse the District court’s decision as the District Court had cited that there was no violation of ERISA.

Question 2: Was there any justification for Xerox’s scheme?

No, there wasn’t any justification for Xerox’s scheme. Xerox’s method of account for the previous distribution in calculating the final retirement benefit violated the requirements of the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. The phantom mechanism in the Income Guarantee plan overestimated the value of distributions that were made upon the employees’ previous employment, and the corresponding reductions in benefits at retirement.

The requirement under ERISA was: actuarial equivalence between the actual distribution and the accrued benefits it replaces (Eisenberg, 2004). By failing to act as required in this, Xerox violated the ERISA in its phantom account mechanism. Xerox improperly overstated the accrued benefits that the employees had received before attributed to the Profit Sharing Plan, thus there was no justification for the scheme Xerox used.

Question 3: Is there an ethical resolution to this matter?

An ethical resolution to this case would involve Xerox paying back the plaintiffs the amount of their retirement benefits that was reduced owing to the phantom account mechanism. A reimbursement to the plaintiffs of the amount deducted due to the drastic effect brought by Xerox’s new scheme would have helped solve the case, as their scheme reduced more than the $300 required by the statutes or the regulations. A second resolution to avert possible similar cases in the future would be compelling Xerox to review its phantom account mechanism for determining the employee benefits and ensuring that its mechanism was in accordance to the Employment Retirement Income Security Act of 1974.

References

Lee, B. A. (1993). Reasonable accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act: The limitations of rehabilitation act precedent. Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law, 201-250.

O'Brien, J. P. (2001). Weighing Temporal Proximity in Title VII Retaliation Claims. BCL Rev., 43, 741.