N.J. Supreme Court to Weigh Employee’s Use of Private Company Records in Bias Suit

December 1, 2009

The New Jersey Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal by a former Curtiss-Wright Corp. employee whose $10.6 million sex discrimination judgment was reversed because she shared confidential company records with her lawyer.

 

The issue, in Quinlan v. Curtiss-Wright Corp., C-321-09, is whether an employee’s acquiring of company information in the normal course of her job, and communicating it to her attorney in her discrimination case, is protected activity for which retaliation is actionable. So far, a trial judge has said yes, an appeals court has said no.

 

Joyce Quinlan, executive director for human resources at Curtiss-Wright in Parsippany, N.J., sued in November 2003 after she was bypassed for promotion to vice president in favor of a male employee hired many years after her.

 

By dint of her human resources position, Quinlan copied more than 1,800 pages of personnel files, including salary records, and gave them to her lawyer, Neil Mullin, of Smith Mullin in Montclair, who provided them to Curtiss-Wright counsel Rosemary Alito, of K&L Gates in Newark, as part of discovery.

 

Read Article: Law.com

 

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Oakland to pay $245,000 to settle lawsuit

The city of Oakland has agreed to pay $245,000 to settle a lawsuit filed by an Oakland Fire Department captain who alleged that she was discriminated against after she suffered a seizure and passed out on the job.

Vicky Evans-Robinson, 55, who has served as a spokeswoman for the agency, filed a disability discrimination lawsuit in Alameda County Superior Court in 2006 after the city temporarily barred her from returning to active duty following an on-the-job seizure and other medical problems.

 

Judge Ronni MacLaren ruled on Nov. 13 that the city was not liable for disability discrimination but said a jury would have to decide whether Evans-Robinson was subjected to “adverse employment actions because of a medical condition.”

 

Read Article: San Francisco Chronicle

 

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Civil lawsuit in Utah teen’s death can proceed

A federal judge has refused to dismiss claims of negligence leveled at several state agencies and private individuals by a Utah woman whose teenage son died in November 2007.

 

Donna Whitney has sued the state of Utah, the Department of Human Services, the Division of Juvenile Justice Services, private provider Quest Youth Services and several individuals who operate or work for the company, over the death of her son, Dillon Whitney.

 

U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ruled Wednesday that Donna Whitney’s negligence claims can go forward. However, he dismissed her civil-rights claims against the state. Attorneys for the state had sought to have the lawsuit dismissed in its entirety, arguing in part that the state is immune from a negligence claim because of the “incarceration exception” to the Utah Governmental Immunity Act.

 

Read Article: The Deseret News

 

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Ford ordered to pay Aurora man $55.6 million in patent dispute

Inventor shows Ford Motor Co. his prototype for new technology. Automaker dismisses the idea. Ford later unveils similar technology in its cars. Sound familiar?

Such a scenario played out in real life and was the subject of the 2008 movie “Flash of Genius,” starring Greg Kinnear as Robert Kearns, who invented the intermittent windshield wiper. Now, history has repeated itself.

Jacob Krippelz of Aurora has waged an 11-year legal battle against Ford over a lighting system he patented in 1991. In December, a federal jury in Chicago awarded him $23 million in royalties for Ford’s patent infringement.

 

Read Article: Chicago Tribune

 

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Doctor wins suit against cancer institute

A radiation oncologist who formerly worked for the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute won a potential $3 million verdict in federal court yesterday on charges that her employer retaliated against her for raising concerns about discrimination.

 

The jury recommended that Dr. Kristina Gerszten be awarded $1.5 million in back pay from the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute, which works in tandem with the UPMC Cancer Centers, as well as $827,292 in front pay. But according to Dr. Gerszten’s attorney, those amounts are only advisory.

 

It will be up to U.S. District Judge Arthur J. Schwab to determine what amount the defendant will have to pay.

 

Read Article: Pittsburgh Post-Gazzete 

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