In Shurick v. Boeing, the 11th Circuit held that the granting of summary judgment in a claim under the False Claims Act acted as res judicata on the plaintiff’s Florida Whistleblower Act claim. This was even though the plaintiff filed the two lawsuits at the same time and the parties were different. The court did […]
Author: Ryan Barack
St. Pete Times Story on Jury Verdict for KSB Client
The St. Petersburg Times has a story on the jury verdict yesterday for Lisa Holland, a Kwall, Showers & Barack client. The jury found that Ms. Holland was demoted and then fired from the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office because of her pregnancy. The jury agreed that the actions of the Sheriff’s Office in this case […]
St. Petersburg Times Story on Return of Pension Funds
The St. Petersburg Times has a story about the recent decision in Remia v City of St. Petersburg. Mayor Bill Foster’s comment that he didn’t know where the money to pay the former officers would come from is strange since the City has been holding the officers’ money and earning interest on it for years. […]
Second District Court of Appeal Rules That St. Pete Has To Give Police Officers Back Their Money
On July 16, 2010, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled in City St. Petersburg v. Remia, et al, that the City had to return the pension contributions made by police officers who left employment with the City prior to vesting in the pension. The issue was that the City did not return the individual […]
Employee Can Refuse To Answer Questions About Immigration Status
On June 22, 2010, the First District Court of Appeal held that an employee can refuse to answer questions about their immigration status. In Fernandez v. Blue Sky/ Venecia Food Corp., the employee, who was seeking temporary total disability, temporary partial disability, and medical benefits for injuries allegedly stemming from a March 7, 2008, industrial […]
FMLA and Protections for Gay Parents-Revised
The Department of Labor has revised the protections under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) to protect parents of children even when the law does not recognize the parential rights. This was done under an interpretation of the FMLA. No Congressional action was required. Under the FMLA, employees can take upto 12 weeks of […]
Want to go after the state under FLSA? You can’t do it, but Feds can.
A story in today’s St. Petersburg Times about a Department of Labor investigating the failure of a state agency to pay proper overtime, mentions lawsuits against the Department of Children and Families under the Fair Labor Standards Act. While the federal government can sue states for violation of the FLSA, the Supreme Court has held […]
Hillsborough County Fires Pat Bean
Hillsborough County has fired its County Administrator. Links articles about the firing are here and here and here. I would like to see the actual language of the contract about what represents “cause” such that severance payments are not due to Pat Bean. Without a close examination of the language it is very hard to […]
11th Circuit Remands Fla Bar Ad Rules Case Back to Trial Court
The Eleventh Circuit today remanded back to the trial court a challenge to The Florida Bar advertising rules holding that the trial court improperly granted summary judgment for The Florida Bar. The court held that the lawyer challenging the Bar Rules “has made a sufficiently credible showing that the rules are unconstitutionally vague on their […]
Two Supreme Court Labor and Employment Law Decisions
– City of Ontario, California v. Quon. This case involved a police officer’s text messages being reviewed by the City. The Court sidestepped the question whether public employees have an expectation of privacy, but in any event unanimously found that the city’s search of a worker’s text messages at issue in the case was reasonable […]