A union breached its duty of fair representation by favoring one group of pilots who wished to merge seniority lists for pilots of two merging airlines by using their length of service rather than the strength of their respective airlines, after taking the place of prior pilots' union that had obtained an arbitration award blending the two competing factors. Addington v. U.S. Airline Pilots Assn., 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10858 (June 26, 2015).
A district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to certify a class of employees that an employer allegedly did not pay for time between when they clocked in and started their scheduled shift and from the time when they ended their shift and clocked out, because the employer did not have a class wide policy that prevented all of the employees from using that time for their own benefit. The district court did not abuse its discretion by refusing to certify a class of employees that the employer allegedly did not pay for work during meal breaks, because the employer provided meal breaks and did not know and should not reasonably have known that some of its employees worked through their meal breaks. Green v. Federal Express Corp., 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10500 (9th Cir. June 22, 2015).
A district court properly granted an employer summary judgment that an applicant's over-qualification was non discriminatory and non pretextual reason for failing to hire him, because his over-qualification suggested he would not be receptive to training that interviewers thought he needed and his superior management experience suggested he was not a fit for the low level data entry position he applied for with few opportunities for promotion. There was no evidence that acrimony of employer's employees was connected to a protected ground. Phillips v. Mabus, 2015 U.S. App. LEXIS 10492 (9th Cir. June 22, 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.