The case involved Kristine Naragon, a graduate student and part-time graduate assistant at Louisiana State University, who sued university officials after her teaching assignment was changed to research duties. She claimed the change resulted from the university learning of her homosexuality and violated her rights under the First Amendment, Equal Protection Clause, and Due Process Clause. The university maintained that the reassignment stemmed from her having entered into a romantic physical relationship with an 18-year-old undergraduate student while serving as a full-time instructor, conduct deemed unprofessional and contrary to university interests regardless of the participants' orientations. After trial, the court ruled for the university, finding that Naragon's sexual orientation was not a substantial motivating factor in the decision and that the university had a compelling interest justifying the action taken.
This case involved labor unions suing a construction contractor to enforce pre-hire agreements signed in 1974, seeking damages for unpaid wages, pension benefits, and related fees under the Labor-Management Relations Act and ERISA. The court interpreted the agreements as covering all jobs obtained after October 26, 1974 (excluding one specific prior project), and found them enforceable for unions like the Carpenters and Operating Engineers where majority employee support was shown, but not for the Laborers’ Union due to lack of majority support and lack of authorization for the negotiating agent. The core reasoning relied on Supreme Court precedent holding that construction-industry pre-hire agreements have no legal effect until the union proves majority status at the relevant work sites, resulting in partial enforcement and an award of attorney fees.
Ella M. McCray applied for disabled widow’s insurance benefits and Supplemental Security Income but was denied on the ground that she was not disabled; she then sought judicial review of the agency decision under 42 U.S.C. § 405(g). The court determined that once McCray established she could no longer perform her prior heavy-labor job due to her back impairment and other conditions, the burden shifted to the Secretary to prove that other substantial gainful employment existed in the national economy that she could perform. The Administrative Law Judge’s reliance on administrative notice of specific light-work jobs such as household domestic or school crossing guard was insufficient because the claimant was not given an opportunity to respond to those noticed facts. The case was therefore remanded for a new hearing at which the Secretary must properly meet this burden, either through vocational testimony or properly noticed facts subject to rebuttal.
The case involved a Louisiana state employee, R.C. McCormick, who alleged he was fired from his position as District Director for the Capital District Law Enforcement Planning Council solely for political reasons by Governor Edwin Edwards and other officials, in violation of his First and Fourteenth Amendment rights under 42 U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, 1985, 1986, and 1988. The court found after trial that the four defendants conspired to cause the discharge, that McCormick was neither a policymaker nor a confidential employee under Elrod v. Burns, and that the defendants acted outside the scope of any official immunity. It awarded the plaintiff $63,713 in damages including attorney fees, holding the officials personally liable, but denied prospective reinstatement as too speculative given the plaintiff's campaign for sheriff. The core reasoning focused on narrow state-law immunity for officials, the prohibition on purely political firings for non-policymaking employees, and factors for calculating reasonable attorney fees.
This case involved a claim by Doris Falkenheiner, a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society of Baton Rouge, that the organization violated Title VII by twice denying her appointment as Executive Director due to her sex. The court ruled that the defendant did not engage in sex discrimination and dismissed the suit. The core reasoning was that the board's decisions were based on legitimate, non-discriminatory factors, including performance issues during her time as Acting Executive Director, such as an employee walkout stemming from management problems, and the superior qualifications of the male candidates selected, rather than any stereotypical views about women.
This case arose from a collision between two pleasure boats—a ski boat and a bass boat—on the Amite River, where neither vessel had any history of commercial use and the operators and passengers were engaged solely in recreational activities. The sole question presented was whether the federal district court had admiralty jurisdiction over the resulting claims. The court held that it did not. The core reasoning was that admiralty jurisdiction requires a sufficient relationship to traditional maritime activity, which was absent here because the boats were purely recreational with no commercial or maritime connection of any kind, consistent with precedents such as Executive Jet and commentary emphasizing that the jurisdiction exists to address concerns of the shipping industry.
