Labor and Employment Law Commons^™

City Of Mesquite V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 135 Nev., Adv. Op. 33, Dylan Lawter

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The City of Mesquite asked the Court to determine which statute of limitations (“SOL”) applies to a local government employee's complaint alleging both that the employer breached the collective bargaining agreement and that the union breached its duty of fair representation. The City argued that the claims are subject to a six-month limitations period under Nevada’s Local Government Employee-Management Relations Act (“EMRA”). The Court declined to answer the question. Instead, it clarified that there is no private cause of action to enforce a claim against a union for breach of the duty of fair representation in the first instance. But, …

Patush V. Las Vegas Bistro, Llc, 135 Nev. Adv. Op. 46 (Sep. 26, 2019), Katrina Weil

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) claims for wrongful termination are subject to the limitations period from NRS § 11.190(4)(e) for injuries or death caused by another person’s wrongful act or neglect; and (2) attorney fees were not warranted under § NRS 18.010(2)(b) as the issue was one of first impression.

Sex- And Gender-Based Harassment In The Gaming Industry, Ann C. Mcginley

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Bombardier Transp. Usa, Inc. V. Nev. Labor Comm’R; The Int’L Union Of Elevator Constructors; And Clark County, 135 Nev., Adv. Op. 3 (Jan. 17, 2019), Amanda Stafford

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court found Nevada’s wage law requirement for a “public work” applies to construction of the airport shuttle system. The Labor Commissioner did qualify the work as a “public work” because it is repair work and found that twenty percent of the work involved repair rather than maintenance so NRS § 338.010(15) does apply.

Politically Engaged Unionism: The Culinary Workers Union In Las Vegas, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

This chapter introduces the reader to "politically engaged unionism" as demonstrated by the bargaining successes of The Culinary Workers Union Local 226 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Professor Ruben J. Garcia provides a brief background of the union and its member demographics, arguing it can serve as a model for unions across the country.

Mandatory Arbitration Stymies Progress Towards Justice In Employment Law: Where To, #Metoo?, Jean R. Sternlight

Scholarly Works

Today our employment law provides workers with far more protection than once existed with respect to hiring, firing, salary, and workplace conditions. Despite these gains, continued progress towards justice is currently in jeopardy due to companies’ imposition of mandatory arbitration on their employees. By denying their employees access to court, companies are causing employment law to stultify. This impacts all employees, but particularly harms the most vulnerable and oppressed members of our society for whom legal evolution is most important. If companies can continue to use mandatory arbitration to eradicate access to court, where judges are potentially influenced by social …

The Thirteenth Amendment And Minimum Wage Laws, Ruben J. Garcia

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Worker Collective Action In The Time Of Fissuring: Independent Contractor Labor Boycotts, The Thirteenth Amendment, And Antitrust Law, Richard Blum

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Slavery, Liberty, And The Right To Contract, Rebecca E. Zietlow

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Mdc Rests. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 132 Nev. Adv. Op. No. 76 (May 31, 2018), Jeff Chronister

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

Health benefits," as considered by the Minimum Wage Act of the Nevada Constitution, must mean the equivalent of one extra dollar per hour in wages to the employee, but offered in the form of health insurance as opposed to dollar wages.

Dolores V. State, Dep’T Of Employment Sec. Div., 134 Nev. 34 (May 3, 2018), Xheni Ristani

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court considered whether, pursuant to NRS 612.380, an employee that resigns when faced with a resign-or-be-fired option does so voluntarily, and is thereby disqualified from unemployment benefits. The Court determined that where the record shows that the appellant’s decision to resign was freely given and stemming from his own choice, the resignation is voluntary.

Felton V. Douglas County, 134 Nev. Adv. Op. 6 (Feb. 15, 2018), Joshua Garry

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that when an uncompensated volunteer, who has concurrent private employment and is injured during the course of volunteer work, shall have their average monthly wage for the purposes of workers’ compensation benefits to be the aggregate of the “deemed wage” provided by statute along with their earnings from the concurrent private employment.

Is There A Future For Work?, Wendi S. Lazar, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

No abstract provided.

The Masculinity Motivation, Ann C. Mcginley

Scholarly Works

In this essay, Professor Ann McGinley explores a phenomenon she coins the Masculinity Motivation. Society and courts ignore that harassing behaviors and the motives behind them are nearly identical in schools and workplaces. Moreover, the motives driving same-sex harassment are often the same as those causing sex-based harassment of women and girls. These motives include proving the perpetrators' and their group's masculinity, punishing those who do not adhere to gender expectations, and upholding conventional gender norms. Professor McGinley advocates for courts to broadly define "because of sex" under Titles VII and IX by clarifying that harassment motivated to denigrate the …

Religious Freedom, Human Rights, And Peaceful Coexistence, Leslie C. Griffin

Scholarly Works

At the Second Vatican Council, Fr. John Courtney Murray, S.J., persuaded the Catholic Church to abandon its long, and absolute, opposition to the separation of church and state. He brought a new concept of religious freedom to the Catholic Church. In honor of Murray, this essay looks at several current ways “religious freedom” harms individual rights.

The article describes the ministerial exception, which gives religious organizations the right to dismiss many employment discrimination lawsuits brought against them. It studies women’s right to contraceptive access, which has long been opposed by the Catholic hierarchy, and where employers have earned a legal …

Neville, Jr. Vs. Eighth Judicial Dist. Court, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 95 (Dec. 7, 2017), Anna Sichting

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court clarified that NRS 608.140 allows for private causes of action for unpaid wages based on the language discussing attorney fees in a private cause of action.

Recognizing An Overcorrection: A Proposal For Nevada's Policy On Non-Compete Agreements, Kristopher Kalkowski

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Sargeant V. Henderson Taxi, 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 27 (June 1, 2017), Ping Chang

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Court determined that (1) a summary judgment is proper when the opposing party did not file a substantive opposition to the motion for summary judgment and (2) a class certification is inappropriate when the plaintiff/appellant did not meet the burden of demonstrating “numerosity, commonality, and typicality,” and the ability to “fairly and adequately” represent the class members when an earlier-filed grievance between the union and taxi company resolved the minimum wage back-pay dispute at issue.

Western Cab Co. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 133 Nev. Adv. Op. 10, (Mar. 16, 2017), Sydney Campau

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

An employer challenged the validity of Nevada’s Minimum Wage Amendment (MWA). The Court held that (1) the MWA is not preempted by the NLRA, (2) the MWA is not preempted by ERISA, and (3) the MWA is not unconstitutionally vague. The Court declined to address factual issues related to the employer’s wage calculations.

Corporate Masters & Low-Wage Servants: The Social Control Of Workers In Poverty, Nantiya Ruan

Scholarly Works

The Article describes and analyzes how the state’s control over low-wage workers has been relegated to private employers. While the state has historically controlled and limited the lives of poor people, today, people in poverty are subjugated through the privatizing of poverty governance by corporate masters who control the lives and shape the behaviors of their low-wage worker servants. The policies of these employers ensures that low-wage work is precarious, unpredictable, and insufficient.

This Article starts an important conversation about how today’s low-wage employers are corporate masters that control their servants through poverty-level pay and precarious positions. Work is scheduled …

Where's The Power - Defamation And Wrongful Interference In The Restatement Of Employment Law, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

In this article, Professor Ruben Garcia argues that the Restatement of Employment Law ("REL") misses the opportunity to address power relations between employers and employees as part of the "law as a whole" in the torts of the workplace. He argues that the omission shows the limits of restatements generally. However, there were other roads not taken by the drafters that might have acknowledged these power differentials in the final draft. Professor Garcia also argues that the normative choices that are made by the REL about the doctrine of compelled self-publication are based on questionable footings. "[A]cceptance of the doctrine …

Foreword: The Workplace Law Agenda Of The Obama Administration, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

Professor Ruben Garcia introduces a Symposium issue of the Employee Rights and Employment Policy Journal focused on an assessment of several key aspects of the workplace law record thus far of President Barack Obama.

Public Policy And Workers’ Rights: Wrongful Discharge Discipline Actions And Reasonable Good Faith Beliefs, Ann C. Mcginley, Nicole Buonocore Porter

Scholarly Works

In this paper, Professor Ann McGinley responds to Chapter 5 of the ALI's Restatement of the Law: Employment Law ("Restatement of Employment Law"), concerning "The Tort of Wrongful Discharge in Violation of Public Policy."' It proceeds in five parts. Following an introduction in Part I, Part II summarizes generally the provisions of Chapter 5, the Working Group's objections to the earlier version and recommendations for changes, and explains (when appropriate) where the final version deviated from the prior version. Part III argues that this chapter should have kept the prior version's protection against wrongful discipline instead of protecting only against …

Five Myths About Public Sector Labor Law In Nevada, Ruben J. Garcia

Scholarly Works

The forces of collective bargaining reform in the 78th Nevada Legislative Session primarily set about to: (1) make it easier for employees not to pay anything to the unions that are required to represent them in negotiations and grievance handling and (2) eliminate the kinds of agreements and practices that purportedly have caused financial turmoil to the state as it emerges from the depths of the Great Recession. Unfortunately, many of these “reforms” were based on misconceptions about the role and effects of public sector collective bargaining in Nevada and in American society generally. In this article, I describe five …

Mdc Rests. V. Eighth Jud. Dist. Ct., 132 Nev. Adv. Op. 76 (Oct. 27, 2016), Alysa Grimes

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

To “provide” health benefits under the Minimum Wage Amendment, an employer need only offer to employees (rather than enroll them in) a qualifying health benefit plan. Tips are not included in an employee’s gross taxable income for calculating maximum health benefit plan premiums.

Perry V. Terrible Herbst, Inc., Nev. Adv. Op. 75 (Oct. 27, 2016), Wesley Lemay Jr.

Nevada Supreme Court Summaries

The Minimum Wage Amendment (MWA) of the Nevada Constitution does not have a specific statute of limitations provision. Because the MWA is closely analogous to recovery for back pay under NRS 608.260, the two-year statute of limitations provision in NRS 608.260 applies, and not the catch-all four-year period from NRS 11.220.

The Three Phases Of The Supreme Court’S Arbitration Jurisprudence: Empowering The Already-Empowered, Martin H. Malin

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Decisions And Orders Of The Nevada Occupational Safety And Health Review Board: Time To Lift The Veil Of Secrecy, Stephen C. Yohay

Nevada Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Blowing The Whistle On Nightclub Illegality To The Nevada Gaming Control Board And Nevada's Common Law Protections, Robert Loftus

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Joint Employers: The Nevada Casino Operator's Role In Regulating Labor Conditions Of Venue Employees, Mary Tran

UNLV Gaming Law Journal

No abstract provided.