Corporate, Litigation, and Labor & Employment Lawyers

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Hawaii Employment Law Decisions Jan 29, 2017 to Feb. 4, 2017 – Jeffrey S. Harris

Section 301 Labor Management Relations Act preempted state law claims because resolving them would require interpreting the collective bargaining agreements and not only looking to them.  Estrada v. Kaiser Found. Health Plan, Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1800 (9th Cir. Feb. 1, 2017).

District court improperly granted summary judgment against trade secrets misappropriation claim.  Plaintiff raised material issues whether its customer lists and other documents were trade secrets.  Defendant unlawfully ratified employee's misappropriation by failing to cease using documents, disavow employee's conduct and terminate the employee after it had reason to know of his misappropriation.  Contemporary Servs. Corp. v. Landmark Event Staffing Servs., Inc., 2017 U.S. App. LEXIS 1616 (9TH Cir. Jan. 30, 2017).

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 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.