In Griffith v. Louisiana, plaintiff Tammy Griffith, formerly the Fiscal Manager at the Orleans Parish Juvenile Court, sued multiple judges, the State of Louisiana, the OPJC, the City of New Orleans, and Judicial Administrator Pernell Denet. She alleged sexual harassment by former Chief Judge David Bell over several years, followed by a hostile work environment, retaliation, and intentional infliction of emotional distress after she testified regarding the harassment, culminating in her November 2010 termination for alleged incompetence. Griffith brought claims under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Title VII, and state discrimination and tort law. The court granted the defendants' Rule 12(b)(6) motions in part, dismissing most claims—including those against the individual judges, the State, the OPJC, and Denet—for failure to state a plausible claim, while denying the motions as to Griffith's Title VII and state-law retaliation claims and the parallel § 1983 claim against the City; it also barred further amendments to the complaint.
This case concerns defendants' motion to stay all proceedings in a civil lawsuit while they appeal the district court's prior orders denying their attempts to compel arbitration. The underlying dispute involves plaintiffs Berger and Brecek & Young Advisors, Inc., and whether Securities America, Inc. could enforce an arbitration clause in a New Account Form as an assignee, which the court had rejected for lack of documentary evidence. The court denied the stay request, holding that defendants failed to show the exceptional circumstances or genuine necessity required for a discretionary stay under the court's inherent powers or under principles of jurisdictional divestiture from the Federal Arbitration Act appeals. It balanced factors including judicial economy, potential prejudice to plaintiffs' right to litigate, and the policy favoring arbitration, but concluded that a stay was not warranted given uncertainty over defendants' arbitration rights.
The case involved union-member grips who worked on a film production and filed a grievance through their union alleging unpaid wages under a collective bargaining agreement with Spring Break Louisiana. After the union investigated and reached a Settlement Agreement with the employer that paid the disputed amounts in full, the plaintiffs sued multiple defendants under the Louisiana Wage Payment Act seeking additional wages and penalties. The court granted the defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that only Spring Break Louisiana was the signatory employer under the CBA, the Settlement Agreement was binding on the plaintiffs and resolved all claims for the disputed wages, and the LWPA did not apply because there were no undisputed unpaid wages at the time of the grievance or settlement.
The case concerned a pre-trial determination of whether defendant Joseph Smith, who faced capital charges for his alleged role in a 2004 attempted bank robbery that resulted in the death of a security officer, qualified as mentally retarded and was therefore ineligible for the death penalty under Atkins v. Virginia and the Federal Death Penalty Act. The court held an evidentiary hearing and applied the three-prong definition of mental retardation drawn from AAMR/AAIDD and DSM-IV-TR standards, requiring proof by a preponderance of the evidence of significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, significant limitations in adaptive functioning, and onset before age 18. The court reviewed extensive expert testimony on IQ testing, adaptive behavior assessments, school and employment records, and other historical evidence to evaluate each factor in turn.
In United States v. Hardy, the defendant in a capital case filed a motion seeking a pre-trial determination of mental retardation to preclude the death penalty. The district court conducted an extensive evidentiary hearing with expert testimony applying the AAMR and DSM-IV-TR criteria, which require proof of significantly subaverage intellectual functioning, significant limitations in adaptive functioning, and onset before age 18. The court analyzed Hardy’s IQ scores, adjustments for the Flynn effect, effort on testing, malingering concerns, and multiple retrospective assessments of adaptive behavior drawn from interviews, records, and observations by competing experts. After weighing the evidence on each statutory factor, the court issued findings of fact resolving whether Hardy met the diagnostic threshold.
This case involved a dispute between construction contractor Shaw Constructors, Inc. and subcontractor HPD, LLC over work performed on a chemical plant project in Louisiana under an unsigned Trade Contract, including claims of improper termination, licensing issues, and a lien on the property. After initial litigation, the parties agreed to binding arbitration, where a panel found HPD had cause to terminate Shaw and ordered Shaw to pay HPD over $700,000 in damages and fees while discharging the lien. Shaw moved to vacate the award, alleging the arbitrators exceeded their powers and disregarded Louisiana law, while HPD moved to confirm it under the Federal Arbitration Act. The court denied Shaw's motion, granted HPD's motion in part by confirming the award with interest, and denied additional requested relief, reasoning that the FAA limits judicial intervention and no valid grounds for vacating the award were shown.
