In Marshall v. Nelson Electric, plaintiff Deborah Marshall sued her former employer Nelson Electric and foreman Luther Noah after her layoff, alleging sexual harassment and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as intentional infliction of emotional distress based on Noah's alleged workplace conduct and the employer's failure to address it. The jury awarded Marshall compensatory and punitive damages on the emotional distress claim, but the court granted the defendants' motions for JNOV on that claim and separately ruled for Nelson Electric on the Title VII claim following a bench trial. The court found that the alleged conduct was not sufficiently extreme and outrageous to support emotional distress liability, much of it fell outside the statute of limitations without a continuing tort, and the evidence did not establish a hostile work environment or retaliatory layoff under Title VII for which the employer could be held liable.
The case involved Darrell Harris, Inc. suing the United States to recover taxes and penalties assessed for failing to treat its president and sole shareholder, Darrell Harris, as an employee and to file appropriate employment tax returns for 1986 and 1987. The United States counterclaimed for additional unpaid taxes and penalties. The court granted summary judgment to the United States, holding that Harris was an employee based on the level of control exerted by the corporation over his services, and that the plaintiff lacked a reasonable basis under Section 530 of the Revenue Act of 1978 or other provisions to classify him as an independent contractor. The court also rejected arguments for relief from penalties due to reasonable cause or undue hardship, finding no evidence supporting such claims.
This case was a civil rights lawsuit brought by Carl Lane, the former Chief of Police for the Town of Dover, Oklahoma, against the town and its officials under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. Lane alleged wrongful termination along with deprivations of liberty and property interests without due process, violations of equal protection and First Amendment rights, and a related state-law tort claim for wrongful discharge. The district court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment on the federal claims (and dismissed the pendent state claims), holding that the undisputed facts showed no genuine issue of material fact because Lane had already obtained new employment as a police chief elsewhere and had failed to present specific evidence supporting his allegations of stigmatization or other harms.
In this Title VII case, plaintiff Maxine Gonzales Townsend alleged that the Oklahoma Military Department rejected her application for a shop foreman position because she is a woman. The state moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b) on grounds including failure to obtain a right-to-sue letter from the attorney general as required by 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(f)(1), along with lack of personal jurisdiction, insufficient process, and failure to state a claim. The court denied the motion to dismiss and granted the plaintiff leave to correct an error in the case caption. It waived the attorney general right-to-sue letter requirement through equitable modification because the plaintiff had obtained an EEOC letter, made diligent but unsuccessful efforts to comply with the statute, and the attorney general had refused to issue the letter despite those efforts; the requirement is a condition precedent rather than a jurisdictional bar.
This case involves gas purchasing companies challenging three Oklahoma statutes that impose direct liability on first purchasers of gas for royalty payments owed to the state Commissioners of the Land Office under oil and gas leases, contrary to the companies' existing contracts with producers. The plaintiffs sought a declaratory judgment that the statutes (64 Okla.Stat. § 293, 52 Okla.Stat. § 87.1, and 52 Okla.Stat. § 540) are unconstitutional, including on preemption grounds. The court dismissed the preemption claim with prejudice, abstained from deciding the remaining constitutional and related claims under the Pullman, Burford, and Younger doctrines due to parallel state proceedings and important state interests in oil and gas regulation, and retained federal jurisdiction pending resolution of the state court cases rather than dismissing outright.
business & regulatorypropertyprocedurefederal power
The case involved a claim by the EEOC that an advertising firm violated Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act by discharging a secretary, Phyllis Kay Torbeck, shortly after she announced her pregnancy and requested a reduced work schedule based on her obstetrician's letter citing typical pregnancy symptoms such as fatigue and back pain. The court found that the firm had fired Torbeck because of her pregnancy, as it treated her request for a schedule adjustment under a higher standard than it applied to other employees seeking similar medical or personal leaves under its unwritten policy. The core reasoning was that the firm's stated reason of insubordination and insufficient medical evidence was pretextual, since the firm had routinely granted comparable adjustments without demanding rigorous proof of necessity and had no consistent policy requiring such documentation for non-pregnancy requests.