18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

480 Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition at 407. In Keller v. State Bar of California , 96 U.S. 1 (1990), the Supreme Court considered a First Amendment challenge to the State Bar of California’s use of "membership dues to finance certain ideological or political activities" with which Plaintiffs disagreed and held that the bar association could use membership dues to fund activities "germane" to the regulation of the legal profession and the improvement of legal services without violating freedom-of-speech principles. Id . at 408. Plaintiff argued that Lathrop and Keller no longer bound the Sixth Circuit because of intervening precedent of Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, Council 31 , 138 S. Ct. 2448 (2018), where the Supreme Court held that First Amendment challenges to similar union laws were to be analyzed under at least the heightened "exacting scrutiny" standard. Id . The Sixth Circuit disagreed with Plaintiffs’ position. It held that the District Court correctly concluded that Lathrop and Keller continued to bind the lower federal courts despite the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus . Accordingly, the Sixth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s ruling granting Defendants’ motion to dismiss. Williamson, et al. v. Maciol , 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 578 (2d Cir. Jan. 11, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of inmates in the Oneida County Jail, filed a class action alleging that following Defendants’ decision to move female inmates from pod units to smaller linear cell units, they essentially received unequal access to programming, privileges, and benefits, as compared to male inmates in alleged violation of the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the New York State Constitution. The District Court denied Plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction. On Plaintiffs’ appeal, the Second Circuit vacated and remanded the District Court’s ruling. The District Court had concluded that a preliminary injunction would alter the status quo, so that the mandatory standard – requiring a Plaintiff more clearly to demonstrate a likelihood of relief – was applicable. The Second Circuit concluded that on the present record, it was unable adequately to review the question. The Second Circuit determined that it could not review whether Plaintiffs exhausted their administrative remedies on the current record. With respect to whether Plaintiffs’ treatment was substantially equal to that of comparable men, the District Court had ruled that Plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that women in general custody did not receive substantially equivalent treatment to similarly-situated men. The Second Circuit reasoned that on the present record it was not clear whether Plaintiffs’ treatment was sufficiently similar to comparable male inmates so that it was unlikely that Plaintiffs could succeed on the merits. The Second Circuit opined that that affirmation of the jail’s Sheriff did not provide sufficient justification for the challenged policy to meet the bar for persuasiveness that intermediate scrutiny required. Id . at *12-13. The Second Circuit ruled that Defendants must explain to the District Court why it would be more difficult to provide Plaintiffs with equal treatment. The Second Circuit could not determine that the difficulty identified was a function of the administrative inconvenience of housing a small number of inmates in a pod, the pecuniary cost of needing to hire more staff, or the unique features of prison management. Id . at *14. Accordingly, the Second Circuit held that further development of the record was warranted to ascertain whether or not Plaintiffs would succeed on the merits of their claim. Accordingly, the Second Circuit vacated and remanded the District Court’s ruling denying Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Woodall, et al. v. Wayne County, Michigan, 2021 U.S. App. LEXIS 34149 (6th Cir. Nov. 15, 2021). Plaintiffs, a group of formerly incarcerated individuals, filed a class action alleging that they and other similarly-situated pretrial detainees were subjected to unconstitutional strip searches based on the jail’s policy or custom to strip search women: (i) in the presence, or public viewing, of male officers; (ii) in groups with numerous inmates; (iii) under unsanitary or unhygienic conditions; and/or (iv) subject to derogatory gender-biased comments. Id . at *3. The District Court granted Plaintiffs’ motion for class certification as to the common issue of law and fact relative to whether Defendant may be liable for maintaining a policy or custom that violated Plaintiffs’ constitutional rights under the Fourth and Eighth Amendments. On appeal, the Sixth Circuit reversed the Sixth Circuit’s ruling. Defendant argued that Plaintiffs failed to establish the commonality and typicality requirements of Rule 23. Plaintiffs asserted that the typicality and commonality of the class members claims were based on the common claim that Defendant maintained a policy or custom of tolerating the manner in which strip searches were being conducted in the jail. The Sixth Circuit disagreed. It opined that in order to establish commonality, Plaintiffs would have to prove that Defendant’s policy was unconstitutional for all inmates who have been strip searched. The District Court had recognized that the constitutionality of each strip search would depend on an individualized determination of the balancing of the particular need for the search against the personal intrusion the search entailed. However, the Sixth Circuit concluded that the District Court failed to recognize that the same was also true for the municipal liability claims. Id . at *11. The Sixth Circuit explained that Defendant’s