Featured Articles

9th Cir: Consequential Wage Loss Under the FMLA

Will Schendel
June 27, 2008 17:17

In a Ninth Circuit opinion published this morning, the issue was: Whether the FMLA allows a plaintiff to recover damages for absences from work [i.e., lost wages] that were caused by an emotional condition that itself resulted from the employer’s wrongful denial of FMLA leave. The 9th Circuit...

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DAlaska: Students and Copyright Law

Will Schendel
April 18, 2011 17:40

A University of Alaska Anchorage student has been sued for copyright infringement after she included a business logo in a student project; she apparently wrote a paper on the business’s model for delivering “trans-cultural” nursing care, and illustrated the paper by including the...

DAlaska: Federal Employee Wins Retaliation Jury Trial, Loses Post-Trial Motions

Will Schendel
April 13, 2011 19:11

An Anchorage civil servant won her Title VII retaliation claim against the Air Force, though she lost disparate treatment and impact claims. A jury awarded her $60,000 for medical care, and $40,000 for pain and suffering. U S District Judge John Sedwick has now resolved plaintiff Janet...

The Weekend: MLK, James Brown and Kevin Hagen White

Will Schendel
April 09, 2011 11:13

April 4th was the 43rd anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis. His murder was accompanied by riots, vandalism and fatalities in most large American cities. But not in Boston. James Brown, the self-styled (not without reason) Hardest Working Man in Show...

9th Cir: Private Employer Decisions on Security Clearances Sometimes Subject to Judicial Review

Will Schendel
April 07, 2011 21:56

In 1988, the U. S. Supreme Court held in Department of the Navy v. Egan that the administrative agency responsible for adjudicating civil service disputes lacked jurisdiction to review employment grievances based on the executive branch’s security clearance decisions. In 1995, the Ninth Circuit...

DAlaska: Park Service Control over the Yukon-Charley Rivers Preserve

Will Schendel
April 07, 2011 18:29

The U S Magistrate Judge in Fairbanks, Scott Oravec, rejected a criminal defendant’s defense that the National Park Service had no jurisdiction over conduct occuring on the part of a National Preserve whose river bed is owned by the State of Alaska. Oravec held that the Property Clause and...

AkBA ELS: Recent Decisions

Will Schendel
April 05, 2011 18:25

At the April 6th meeting of the Employment Law Section of the Alaska Bar Assocatiion, two Anchorage attorneys will discuss two recent cases from the U.S. Supreme Court and the Ninth Circuit Court. Natalie Cale of Turner & Mede, P.C. will discuss the U.S. Supreme Court decision Staub v....

Should Alaska Recognize the Labor Relations Privilege?

Will Schendel
April 05, 2011 10:14

May an employee who’s filed a wrongful discharge lawsuit assert a privilege when the employer-defendant seeks to discover the employee’s earlier communications with his union? Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip Pallenberg said, No. The employee’s attorney, Douglas Mertz of...

DAlaska: Defamation Claims Against Newspaper

Will Schendel
April 04, 2011 21:10

U S District Judge Timothy Burgess has dismissed most defamation claims filed by a Native Alaska corporation specializing in Section 8(a) contracts. A writer associated with The Center for Investigative Reporting had published a piece in the San Francisco Chronicle reviewing work performed by...

The Weekend: Room Full of Mirrors, Part II

Will Schendel
April 03, 2011 10:57

Chasing Alan Douglas-produced albums led me to Charles R. Cross’s Room Full of Mirrors, one of the better Hendrix biographies. Cross focuses less on the performer’s years as a big star and more on Jimi’s origins in Seattle as a latchkey child of alcoholic parents, an exceedingly poor but good...