Alaska Employment Law

Planned Parenthood rehearing:  The State filed its petition for rehearing on November 13th.  The Court System’s website says that PP’s Opposition is due November 30th.   (Go to Motions/Orders, then click on item 32.)

Bong Hits 4 Jesus:  The ex-Juneau student has appealed to the 9th Circuit from Judge Sedwick’s final judgment. Frederick’s issues on appeal are:  

1) Did the District Court properly dismiss the state constitutional issues as moot?

2) Did the District Court properly rule that all federal issues were disposed of by the Supreme Court so nothing remained to be adjudicated?

Frederick v. Morse, Case 1:02-cv-0008 (D.Alaska Nov. 20, 2007).

Federal summary judgment in employment cases:  The Federal Judicial Center has issued a report on the use of Rule 56 in federal courts that challenges common notions about employee (non)success in federal court.  According to Paul Mollica at Daily Developments in EEO Law (11/19/07 post),

Table 6 reports that 35% of employment discrimination cases culminate in a summary judgment motion. Table 12 reports the bottom-line figure that 9 to 14% of the employment discrimination cases (depending on the district studied) were actually terminated on summary judgment. (One way to square the numbers is that in many instances, the defendant succeeds on dismissing some counts but not others; multiple counts often seek the same relief.)

This study contrasts with a 2004 study of data from the Administrative Office of the U. S. Courts, whose abstract states:

relatively often, the numerous plaintiffs must pursue their claims all the way through trial, which is usually a jury trial; at both pretrial and trial these plaintiffs lose disproportionately often, in all the various types of employment discrimination cases; and employment discrimination litigants appeal more often than other litigants, with the defendants doing far better on those appeals than the plaintiffs.

H/T: Daniel Schwartz at Connecticut Employment Law Blog

Programming note:  Early in 2008, the Employment Law Section will host a panel discussion concerning the choice between state and federal courts for employment cases.  Tim Dooley and Peter Partnow will present.