Court Rulings

Public employment—In order to negate statutory rights of public employees, a collective bargaining agreement must use language with such specificity as to explicitly demonstrate that the intent of the parties was to preempt statutory rights.

Appeal from the District Court of the Fourth Judicial District of the State of Idaho, Ada County. Honorable Michael McLaughlin, District Judge. The decision of the district court following trial is affirmed.

Employment relations—Labor unions—Collective bargaining agreement—Arbitration—Arbitrator, after determining there was just cause to discipline an employee, has authority to review appropriateness of type of discipline imposed, when.

In 1956 petitioner executed a collective-bargaining agreement with the Soft Drink Workers Union, Local 812. The agreement contained a severance-pay provision. In 1959 petitioner executed another agreement with the union which eliminated the severance-pay benefit and provided that petitioner would contribute to a union retirement fund. The 1959 agreement also froze any benefits under the 1956 severance-pay provision. In its return for its taxable year ending on Mar. 31, 1960, petitioner deducted its entire remaining liability under the 1956 severance-pay provision. Held, sec. 404(a) (5), I.R.C. 1954, prohibits petitioner from deducting in its taxable year 1960 the amount of its liability under the 1956 severance-pay provision, because said amount was not \paid\ in its taxable year.

<p>Jan. T., 1909, by defendant, from order of C. P. No. 2, Phila. Co., Dec. T., 1906, No. 640, dismissing exceptions to report of referee in case of Albert E. Batchelder v. Standard Plunger Elevator Company.</p> <p>Assumpsit to recover damages for an alleged wrongful discharge of plaintiff by defendant, his employer.</p> <p>Exceptions to report of referee.</p> <p>The referee, Chester N. Farr, Esq., found as follows:</p> <p>FINDINGS OF FACT.</p> <p>1. That the plaintiff possessed the necessary mechanical skill and executive ability to carry out the work of employment in the office of outside foreman for which he had contracted to serve the defendant.</p> <p>2. That there is no evidence that his capacity for doing work deteriorated as time went on in the service of the defendant company.</p> <p>3. During the entire time that the plaintiff worked for the defendant he showed executive skill and efficiency of an order reasonably sufficient to comply with the conditions of the contract.</p> <p>4. There were no inefficient acts on the part of the plaintiff that resulted in any detriment or loss to the defendant company.</p> <p>5. The plaintiff employed a man named Tupper as a driller on the work on the Wanamaker building during the fall of 1904. At that time the defendant company had discharged Tupper, who had previously been working in the Pittsburg district. The plaintiff was aware of this discharge, and that the company had notified him not to re-employ Tupper; and in making this appointment the plaintiff violated the instructions given him by the company.</p> <p>6. The plaintiff, while on the Wanamaker building was directed by the assistant president of the company to keep a diary of the progress of' his work. This he did not do.</p> <p>7. The plaintiff was asked at the commencement of the work on the Wanamaker building to prepare a list of the tools which it would be necessary for him to have for the purpose of the elevator construction. This order he disobeyed, and h

<p>Error to the Court of Common Pleas of Elk county: No. 182, to January Term 1870.</p> <p>This was an action of trespass q. c. f. by Alfred Cox and Ferdinand Cox, executors, &c., of John Redman Cox, deceased, against E. B. England and Jacob Brown, for damages under the 2d sect, of the Act of March 1824 (8 Smith L. 283; Purd. 961 pl. 2) for cutting timber. The title to the land from which the timber was cut was vested in the decedent December 22d 1840. He died about March 28th 1864, having made his will proved on that day; the plaintiffs were the executors of the will.</p> <p>The case was tried November 2d 1869, before Johnson, P. J.</p> <p>The plaintiffs gave evidence of cutting timber by Brown, one of the defendants, in 1860, on the land of decedent near Kersey, and of the presence of England whilst the cutting was going on, and gave evidence as to the value of such timber; they then offered to prove the price of logs at Williamsport as the nearest market; there being no market value for timber on the stump at Kersey. The defendant objected to the offer, which was rejected and a hill of exceptions sealed.</p> <p>It was admitted that the defendants took timber from the land : and the plaintiffs closed.</p> <p>The defendants gave in evidence a power of attorney, dated January 13th 1847, from the decedent to J. R. Cox, Jr. (his son), “ to contract and execute articles of agreement for the sale and. conveyance of all or any part of my unimproved lands, in the counties of Lycoming, Clearfield and Elk, in the said state of Pennsylvania, for such prices per acre as he may be able to obtain for the same,” &c.</p> <p>They then called J. Gr. Hall and exhibited to him a contract dated February 17th 1863, between J. R. Coxe, Jr., “ by his attorney in fact or agent Lorenzo Lewis Coxe,” (his son), and Elijah B. England. The witness testified: “ This contract is in my handwi'iting; I think L. L. Coxe had a paper, which was a power of attorney from his father to act in the matter

SUBPOENA — COMPULSORY PROCESS — SELF INCRIMINATION — CONFRONTATION CLAUSE — RIGHT TO BE PRESENT —VOLUNTARY ABSENCE — JOINDER — SEVERANCE — SIMPLE AND DIRECT — EVIDENCE — SUFFICIENCY — MANIFEST WEIGHT —ATTEMPTED MURDER — COMPLICITY — CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE — AGGRAVATED MURDER — IDENTITY: The trial court did not err in quashing defendant's subpoena of his codefendant where defendant intended to call his codefendant to testify at defendant's murder trial regarding a confession purportedly authored by the codefendant, the codefendant's attorneys appeared before the court and stated that the codefendant did not wish to testify on behalf of defendant and intended to invoke his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination, and defendant did not state that he would question the codefendant about any other nonincriminating matter. The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding defendant was voluntarily absent from two days of trial where defendant initially refused to come to court, was ordered down to court, gave ambiguous responses to the trial court's question of whether defendant wanted to be present, and repeatedly refused to answer trial court's direct \yes or no\ question as to whether he wanted to be present. The trial court did not commit plain error in failing to sua sponte sever counts in the indictment related to two separate shootings as defendant could not show prejudice by the joinder of the counts where the evidence was simple and direct because the shootings occurred on two separate dates at different locations and were observed by different eyewitnesses. Defendant did not receive ineffective assistance of counsel where his second set of appointed attorneys failed to renew defendant's prior attorney's motion to sever counts in the indictment related to two separate shootings where defendant could not establish prejudice from the joinder, because the evidence in both counts was simple and direct and therefore the result would not have been d

The plaintiff bank sought to foreclose on a mortgage on certain real property owned by the defendant after he defaulted on a promissory note secured by the mortgage. The mortgage agreement included a provision authoriz- ing the plaintiff to purchase force placed insurance coverage for the property if the defendant failed to maintain adequate coverage. The defendant filed an answer and a counterclaim, and asserted various special defenses, including unclean hands and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, which were predicated on allega- tions relating to the plaintiff's purchase of force placed flood insurance from A Co., an insurance provider. The defendant did not challenge the plaintiff's right to purchase the force placed insurance but alleged that the plaintiff was involved in an undisclosed kickback scheme with A Co., pursuant to which the plaintiff used A Co. as its exclusive force placed insurance provider, and, in exchange, A Co. provided the plaintiff with certain rebates, including free or below cost mortgage services. The defendant claimed that, instead of passing those rebates on to him, the plaintiff charged him more than the cost of purchasing the force placed coverage, contrary to both the provisions of the mortgage agree- ment and certain representations the plaintiff had made to him. The defendant's answer also included numerous allegations concerning the plaintiff's nationwide kickback scheme with A Co. and its impact on borrowers generally. The plaintiff filed a motion to strike the special defenses and the counterclaim, which the trial court granted in part. In connection with its decision to strike the special defenses of unclean hands and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, the trial court reasoned that the allegations concerning the kickback scheme were broad and related to borrowers generally instead of to the defendant specifically, and, therefore, the allegations did not arise from the mak

The plaintiff sought visitation with L, the minor child of the defendant and the plaintiff's deceased sister, pursuant to the third-party visitation statute (§ 46b-59). The plaintiff had lived with L and L's mother since L was born in 2010, while the defendant lived elsewhere. After the death of L's mother in 2021, L initially continued to live with the plaintiff, but the defendant eventually took L to live with him full-time. The defendant moved to dismiss the plaintiff's visitation petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, claiming that the plaintiff lacked standing under § 46b-59 (b) because she failed to allege sufficient facts to establish that she had a parent-like relationship with L and that L would suffer real and significant harm if visitation were to be denied. The plaintiff then filed an amended petition for visitation with L, in which she alleged that, in a series of video calls that occurred while L was living with the defendant, L appeared very stressed, sad, and anxious. During those calls, L reported, inter alia, that she was miserable living with the defen- dant and devastated to be cut off from the plaintiff. L stated that she was crying herself to sleep and had lost weight. L also told the plaintiff that the defendant had mocked her for crying about the loss of her mother and had thrown her up against a car. The defendant objected to the amended petition, arguing that it would be improper for the court to consider the amended petition while the motion to dismiss the initial petition for lack of subject matter jurisdiction was pending. Following a hearing, the court granted the defendant's motion to dismiss the initial petition, concluding, without elaboration, that it did not satisfy the requirements of § 46b-59. The court also dismissed, sua sponte, the amended petition, concluding that its allegations, if proven by clear and convincing evidence, would not establish the plaintiff's parent-like relationship with L or establish that L woul

Retaliation Temporal Proximity Causation Wrongful Termination in Violation of Public Policy Free Speech State Action. In the absence of state action, the free speech protections of the Ohio Constitution do not generally provide a basis for an at-will employee to raise a claim of wrongful termination in violation of public policy against a private employer. An interval of more than three months between an allegedly protected activity and an adverse employment action is generally too long to support an inference of retaliatory causation based only on temporal proximity.

Court of Claims did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of appellees on appellants' claims for racial discrimination, hostile work environment, and retaliation.

Pursuant to the common law of this state, communications made in the course of and in furtherance of administrative proceedings that are quasi-judicial in nature are absolutely privileged. Pursuant further to Kelley v. Bonney (221 Conn. 549), in determining whether an administrative proceeding is quasi-judicial in nature, a court may consider whether the body or entity conducting the proceeding has the discretion to apply the law to the facts and the authority (1) to exercise judgment and discretion, (2) to hear and determine or to ascertain facts and decide, (3) to make binding orders and judgments, (4) to affect the personal or property rights of private persons, (5) to examine witnesses and to hear the litigation of the issues, and (6) to enforce decisions or to impose penalties. The plaintiff sought to recover damages for, inter alia, defamation in connec- tion with statements that the defendant had made about the plaintiff at a public hearing before a town planning and zoning commission in connection with the plaintiff's application for a special permit to con- struct a new house and to install a new sewer line on his property. At the hearing, the defendant expressed her concerns regarding the plaintiff's application, stating, inter alia, that the plaintiff had not been trustworthy in prior dealings involving his application, that he had ''a serious criminal past,'' and that he had paid more than $40 million in fines to the federal agency charged with enforcing federal securities laws. The defendant filed a motion to dismiss the plaintiff's action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, claiming that her statements were entitled to absolute immunity. The trial court granted the defendant's motion, concluding that her statements were entitled to absolute immu- nity because the proceeding before the commission was quasi-judicial in nature and the defendant's statements were pertinent to the proceeding. Accordingly, the trial court rendered judgment dismissing th