New York Employment Attorneys Blog

In August 2011, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ruled that four Caucasian flight engineers can pursue their employment discrimination claims in New York, against a Japanese air cargo carrier.

"In [the case of] Baker v. Nippon Cargo Airlines, 09-CV-3374 (RRM), four former flight engineers sued for discrimination, based on national origin, race, and age, when they were fired, while their younger, Japanese counterparts were offered new opportunities when Nippon Cargo Airlines changed its equipment."

The Court held that the case should remain under New York jurisdiction due to three of the Plaintiffs having a New York choice of law provision in their written employment agreements which preserves jurisdiction for any suits arising from the employment based on the agreement. While none of the Plaintiffs live in New York, their employment is based at the NCA hub at the John F. Kennedy International Airport located in Queens, New York.

In response to Defendants' objection to jurisdiction being held in New York, the Court states: "Surely, [D]efendants cannot be suggesting that [P]laintiffs' primary place of employment, where they 'spent most of their working hours' is in the air, and that therefore, there is no physical location that can serve as a proper forum for the litigation of plaintiffs' employment discrimination claims."

The Plaintiffs were flight engineers who had flown 747-Cargo planes for at least seven years prior to being terminated from employment. The Plaintiff's sue under federal, state and city anti-discrimination laws, including Title VII, ADEA, Sec. 1981, NYS & NYC Human Rights Law and will now be able to litigate this matter in New York Courts.

What happens when employees can't negotiate their own employment contracts? You could potentially lose a whole N.B.A. season. For months now, owners and players have been negotiating a new labor deal to satisfy various concerns raised by members of the National Basketball Association.

On October 27, 2011, negotiations seem to be looking more promising. The N.B.A. is hopeful that they will be able to have a full 82-game season schedule, despite starting the season a month late. In the event negotiations are not completed soon, the game schedule could be reduced as was done back in the 1998-1999 season, which season only contained a 50-game schedule.

The current pre-season has been completely cancelled and if the negotiations end soon, the regular season would begin December 1, 2011 and continue until sometime in April, 2012 to secure the full 82-game schedule.

Employment contracts protect the players' interests as well as the interest of the owners, and negotiations aim to satisfy all parties involved while allowing for players to move freely between teams and to allow teams to be able to hire top players in order to compete favorably in the market.

After hours of negotiations and many hours ahead, the future of a favorite American sport will depend on employment law issues.

A recent decision by the Appellate Division in New Jersey in the matter of Stengart v. Loving Care Agency, Inc ., No. BER-L-858-08, has held up the rights of an employee whose private, personal email to her lawyer had been stored by the employer. The employee had sent emails to her attorney from her work computer, using a personal, password protected email address that was separate from her work email. When the employee later resigned and brought a suit against the company, the employer had made a digital copy of her work laptop, including the emails sent from her private email account.

When the defense attorneys were required to respond to the interrogatories sent by the plaintiffs, the attorneys for the employer included these emails between the employee and her attorneys. Upon seeing these emails, the plaintiff's attorneys demanded all copies of what they believed to be privileged information between an attorney and client- one of the most fundamental principles of the attorney-client relationship.

The lower trial judge in the court upheld the employers belief that their policy of owning all documents and products that are produced on employer owned computers included these emails from the employee to her attorney, and that she had no reasonable expectation of privacy. However, upon appeal and review of the employer's policy, the appellate judge found for the client and sent the case back to the lower court, this time treating those emails as privileged communication under attorney/client privilege.

This decision is interesting, in that it shows the competing interests between workplace policies regarding computers and web technology, as well as the need to maintain a strong attorney/client confidentiality privilege. This decision is a victory for employees in New Jersey, and its influence will hopefully spread as employees start to challenge unfair and unreasonable policies of employers.