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Hawaii Employment Law Decisions from March 22 to March 28 – Jeffrey S. Harris

A pregnant employee denied light duty could make a disparate treatment claim against an employer who provided light duty to employees who were work injured, disabled or lost their Department of Transportation certificates, unless the employer could offer a legitimate reason for denying her light duty that is not based simply on greater expense or less convenience, and the employee could not show that reason caused significant burden on pregnant workers and was not sufficiently strong to justify that burden.  Young v. United Parcel Service, 135 S.Ct. 338 (March 25, 2015).

Service advisers who worked at car dealerships were not exempt from the overtime pay requirements of the FLSA as "any salesman, partsman or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobile".  Navarro v. Encino Motorcars, LLC, 780 F.3d 1267 (9th Cir. March 24, 2015).

Note: We analyze cases to learn rules the courts will follow or disappoint us if they don't. Rules that the courts follow allow us to behave and provide explanations that they accept. But competent advocates may limit the rules to the facts of the case where they are discussed, or expand rules by showing that differences in other cases are irrelevant.