Employment Laws And Energy Drinks

Chief Justice Mark Cady, of the Iowa Supreme Court, signed an order on June 24, 2013, to reconsider a decision in which the Iowa Supreme Court ruled in favor of dentist, Dr. James Knight, on sexual discrimination charges brought by his recently terminated female dental assistant, Melissa Nelson.^[1] The December 2012 decision, filed by the court, asked whether a male employer terminating a female employee, under the circumstances presented in this case, amounted to sexual discrimination in violation of the Iowa Civil Rights Act.^[2] The reconsideration of this decision is quite rare since, according to the Des Moines Register, the court has only reconsidered five other decisions in the past decade.^[3]

The circumstances presented in this case, which raise a novel question for the Iowa Supreme Court, arose because Dr. Knight was trying to avoid having an affair with Ms. Nelson. The unanimous, all-male decision, written by Justice Edward Mansfield, stated that Dr. Knight was terminating Ms. Nelson because "he feared he would try to have an affair with her down the road if he did not fire her."^[2] After discovering texts between Dr. Knight and Ms. Nelson, Dr. Knight's wife insisted that he terminate Ms. Nelson. Dr. Knight's wife called Ms. Nelson "a big threat to our marriage," according to the court's opinion.^[2] However, the court found that "the texts [between Dr. Knight and Ms. Nelson] involved updates on the kids’ activities and other relatively innocuous matters" and Ms. Nelson's claims did not include any charges for sexual harassment.^[2]

In affirming the ruling by Judge Thomas J. Bice of the District 2B Court for Webster County, the Iowa Supreme Court determined that when a male employer fires a female employee at the behest of his wife, it does not amount to unlawful discrimination.^[2] The court's decision received public attention at the national level, and most of the reaction was negative.^[1] Iowa attorney, Ryan Koopmans, stated, "The only thing that's changed here is the public's reaction to the decision, which was mostly negative."^[1] A line in the decision which stated that the question presented by the case was "whether an employee...may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction," spawned numerous headlines which boasted that the Iowa Supreme Court was condoning employers who fire employees because they are too attractive.^[1][2][3][4]

This represents an oversimplification of the issues and facts presented in the case, according to Dr. Knight's attorney, Stuart Cochrane. Cochrane is quoted as saying that Dr. Knight and his wife "really agonized about" terminating Ms. Nelson, but that Dr. Knight had repeatedly asked Ms. Nelson to dress differently because her clothes were tight and distracting. The same article stated that Ms. Nelson denied wearing anything that was "out of place" and that her work attire consisted of scrubs.^[4]

The makers of 5-hour Energy have filed suit in Davidson County Chancery Court to protect the secret recipe for their product from state regulators. Living Essentials, a Michigan-based company, has rejected requests from the Tennessee Attorney General and the Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance for a detailed explanation of the exact ingredients used in their popular energy drink. The company filed the suit in Davidson County Chancery Court in June, arguing that a statute that protects trade secrets should keep them from having to disclose their recipe.^[5]

Living Essentials argued in the suit that disclosing a detailed ingredients list would destroy their competitive advantage in the energy drink market, and provide their competitors with valuable information that would allow them to emulate their profitable concoction. Nearly 9 million units of 5-hour Energy are sold each week, generating nearly a billion dollars in revenue per year.^[6]

This isn’t the first time that Tennessee courts have been asked to rule on the issue of 5-hour Energy. A 2009 civil suit filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee alleged that the energy drink was the “sole causative factor” in the death of twenty-seven-year-old Antonio Hassell, who used 5-hour Energy regularly while working a 4:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. shift at a warehouse. Living Essentials issued a response to the suit, claiming that 5-hour Energy “is a safe dietary supplement” and that its product “fully complies” with federal regulations.^[7][8]

On June 27, 2013, New York’s highest court, the Court of Appeals, ruled an employer can use GPS to track an employee during work hours and noted the tracking device could be attached to an employee’s personal car. A majority on the court agreed a warrant wasn’t required to track an employee using a GPS device and compared it to a workplace search. However, the court determined the way the government used the GPS device was not reasonable since the device was used to track a former Labor Department employee 24 hours a day.^[9]

Michael Cunningham was fired from his $115,000-a-year-job at the Labor Department after an investigation by his employer determined he had been lying about the hours he worked. State investigators placed a GPS device in the wheel well of Cunningham’s personal vehicle to collect information about his movements. The GPS device was left in place for a month and tracked Cunningham throughout the day and night. Investigators allege they resorted to secretly attaching a GPS device to his personal vehicle after Cunningham began taking steps to avoid being followed.^[10]

All the judges on the Court of Appeals considered attaching a GPS device to Cunningham’s car to be a "search" as defined by the Fourth Amendment. A majority on the court found the workplace exception that permits an employer to search an employee’s work area and employer-issued property without a warrant also applied in this case.

However, in a minority opinion, Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam indicated the majority on the court went too far in extending the workplace search exception to an employee’s private vehicle. She said the ruling could interfere with privacy rights granted to individuals under state and federal law and speculated the ruling could open the door to other methods for tracking employees who do not drive.

Cunningham was represented by Corey Stoughton, an attorney for the New York Civil Liberties Union. Stoughton noted,

On June 14, 2013, the New Jersey Supreme Court found that the State can intervene and remove a child from a parent's custody, even if no abuse or neglect has been proven.

In the case before the court, a mother, who was named in the complaint as "I.S.," went to the New Jersey Division of Child Protection and Permanency to seek help with her children in 2007. She complained that the twin nine-year-old girls were suffering from "various emotional problems and learning difficulties."^[14] I.S. realized that she could not afford to provide the girls with the specialized help they needed and asked the State to assist her in doing so. The State investigated reports of sexual abuse but found no evidence of any neglect or abuse on the part of the mother. The State, however, took away I.S.'s custody of the girls once she indicated she could not afford to pay for the "residential care" the girls required.^[15] The New Jersey Supreme Court approved the decision made by Child Protection to take away I.S.'s custodial rights despite the lack of abuse or neglect. However, they did so by citing to the abuse or neglect law.^[16]

Once the girls had received the help I.S. requested, though, the State did not return custody of both girls to their mother as expected. Instead, the father of the twins was given custody of one of the girls, who are now 15-years-old.

This ruling is important because now children with special needs may be moved to the State's care if their parents cannot provide for them. Diana Autin, Executive Director of Statewide Parent Advocacy Network of New Jersey, said,

An Illinois reporter who was repeatedly denied copies of city records may finally see the fruit of his requests, thanks to a June 28 ruling by the state Appellate Court.^[17]

The conflict began in 2010, when Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley announced plans to transfer dozens of police officers from desk jobs to street duty in order to more effectively curb crime. The changes were prompted in part, he said, by a thorough study by professional consultants that demonstrated the benefits of this plan.^[18]

Wishing to know more, Mick Dumke of the Chicago Reader filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the local police department, asking for a copy of all records generated by the study. The request was denied on account of inconvenience—so he resubmitted it, this time asking only for a copy of the study itself. He was rejected again and told that a loophole in the FOIA rendered the study exempt from disclosure, as it pertained to a preliminary or proposed policy rather than one that had been officially implemented at the time of reference.^[18]

Wrote Dumke in Reader,

Dumke proceeded to sue the city. Over the course of the lawsuit, Mayor Daley was replaced by Rahm Emanuel, who has vowed to facilitate the most "open, accountable and transparent government" in the history of Chicago. However, this change of office brought no immediate developments to Dumke's case. In 2011, Cook County Judge Franklin U. Valderrama ruled in favor of the city, agreeing with the police department that the study was exempt from disclosure.^[18][17]

Dumke appealed—and as the case progressed, the arguments began to hinge on more intricate details, even coming down to whether Daley had truly "publicly cited and identified" the study and whether his authority qualified him as the "head of the public body" according to FOIA standards.^[17][18]

The Georgia Supreme Court has reinstated the death penalty for Johnnie Worsley, who was convicted of the 1995 rape and murder of his 17-year-old stepdaughter and wife.

The July 1 ruling comes as a reversal of a lower court's decision in 2012. A Muscogee County court removed the death sentence after deciding that Worsley's trial attorneys had been incompetent. The Supreme Court agreed that the attorneys should have objected to certain testimony, but that the appeal failed to prove that such action would have resulted in a different outcome in the case.

The Supreme Court explained,