The wackiness of employees seem to know no bounds when it comes to their lawsuits. Gerald Skoning, a lawyer who specialises in representing management in employment law matters with Chicago-based firm, Seyfarth Shaw, reveals how work-related lawsuits around the world continue to provide the most remarkable variety of fascinating and bizarre cases for our entertainment
The wackiness of employees seems to know no bounds when it comes to their lawsuits. Gerald Skoning, a lawyer who specialises in representing management in employment law matters with Chicago-based firm Seyfarth Shaw, reveals how work-related lawsuits around the world continue to provide the most remarkable variety of fascinating and bizarre cases for our entertainment.
10. The Lone Ranger rides again. The Nova Scotia Court of Appeal has upheld a ruling by a Human Rights Board of Inquiry that Dorothy Kateri Moore, a Native Canadian from the Mi’kmaq tribe, was not discriminated against when her store manager boss called her Kemosabe, the term that Tonto, the 1950’s TV character once used to address the Lone Ranger. After spending an entire day reviewing old Lone Ranger shows, the Board ruled that Kemosabe was never used in a derogatory way, and that Tonto and the Lone Ranger treated each other with respect. The Court of Appeal affirmed, reasoning that Moore failed to show the term was “notoriously offensive”. For the first time in its 37 year history, the Human Rights Commission has asked the Supreme Court of Canada to review a decision of the province’s Court of Appeal to decide whether the word “Kemosabe” is inherently racist and offensive to native Canadians.
9. A senior moment on the bench. Justice Marian P Opala, an 83-year old member of Oklahoma’s Supreme Court, has sued his eight colleagues in Federal District Court, charging that they discriminated against him on the basis of his age when they changed a court rule to allow the Chief Justice to serve consecutive terms. Historically, the post had rotated every two years, and Justice Opala would have been next in line to lead the Court. The octogenarian justice in his lawsuit described himself as in “good health and of sound mind” and argued that his age was a “significant factor in being passed over for Chief Justice”, a post that carries with it ceremonial duties and a slightly larger pay cheque – US$110,000 ($143,000) instead of the mere US$107,000 ($139,000) paid to associate justices. Here come the judge … making a federal case out of a US$3,000 ($3,900) pay differential … and of course those coveted ‘ceremonial duties’. Sooner senility?
8. Rage against rouge. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco has ruled that a Nevada casino did not engage in sex discrimination by requiring a female bartender to wear makeup. Darlene Jespersen initially went along with Harrah’s ‘Personal Best’ program which required women to wear stockings, coloured nail polish, and “teased, curled or styled” hair, but she balked at wearing makeup, claiming that it made her “feel sick, degraded, exposed and violated”. As a result, she was fired and filed suit claiming that the grooming standards imposed a greater burden on women than on men, who were simply required to maintain short haircuts, neatly trimmed fingernails, and were prohibited from wearing makeup or coloured nail polish. In upholding the decision dismissing her case, the Ninth Circuit reasoned that Ms Jespersen had failed to prove that the makeup requirement was any more of a burden than the requirements imposed on male employees.
7. The one beer to have when you’re having more than one. Brazilian master brewer Bernd Naveke has won increased worker compensation from the Brahma Brewery near Rio De Janeiro. At his hearing, he testified that his duties as a taster required him to drink up to eight litres of beer a day, causing him to leave work drunk. He claimed he could not return to his job because of alcoholism. He appealed his original award, which was US$30,000 ($39,000) and a monthly pension for life equal to his old salary of US$2,600 ($3,400), on the ground that the award was insufficient. A court in Rio has now ordered the brewery to pay Mr Naveke US$2 ($2.6) million in compensation. You can buy a lot of beer with that kind of money.
6. Cop ‘does’ San Diego. The US Supreme Court has ruled that a San Diego police officer who sold sexually explicit videotapes of himself in a police uniform during off-duty hours was not taking part in First Amendment-protected speech, and the city was justified in firing him. In an unusual decision without oral argument, the justices found that the San Diego police officer was not “commenting on an issue of public concern” when he sold on eBay videotapes of himself in a police uniform stripping and masturbating. The Supreme Court reasoned that, “The speech in question was detrimental to the mission and functions of his employer. There is no basis for finding that it was a concern to the community as the Court’s cases have understood that term in the context of restrictions by governmental entities on the speech of their employees.” Unlike the Federal Court of Appeals on the West Coast, the Supreme Court recognised the officer’s behaviour as conduct unbecoming of a police officer, whether in or out of uniform, and whether on duty or off.
Next issue: The Top Five. These wackiest employment law cases first appeared in the US-based National Law Journal.
