18th Annual Workplace Class Action Report - 2022 Edition

Annual Workplace Class Action Litigation Report: 2022 Edition 21 This trend is illustrated by the following graphic. Challenges to policies adopted by private employers faced worse odds in 2021. In 2021, litigants challenged employer policies on various grounds, including on the grounds that they supposedly discriminated against employees because they failed to provide disability or religious accommodations or retaliated against workers who expressed COVID-related concerns or sought such accommodations. In Sambrano v. United Airlines, Inc. , No. 21-CV-1074 (N.D. Tex. Nov. 8, 2021), for instance, a group of employees filed a putative class action alleging that United violated Title VII by refusing to engage in an interactive process, by failing to provide reasonable religious accommodations, and by retaliating against them for engaging in protected activity. After granting in part defendant’s motion to dismiss in part on personal jurisdiction grounds, the court denied plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction on the basis that plaintiffs failed to meet their burden to show that, without such an order, they would suffer imminent, irreparable harm. On December 13, 2021, the Fifth Circuit denied an emergency motion for an injunction pending appeal of the order in Sambrano v. United Airline, Inc. , No. 21-11159 (5th Cir. Dec. 13, 2021). By contrast, in Fraternal Order Of Police Chicago Lodge No. 7 v. City of Chicago , No. 2021 CH 5376 (Ill. Cir. Ct. Nov. 1, 2021), a group of police officers filed an action seeking a temporary restraining order to enjoin the implementation of defendant’s COVID-19 vaccination policy until the parties could arbitrate their grievances pursuant to their collective bargaining agreements. The court granted the motion in part. The court reasoned that, if all employees complied with the vaccine requirements, as of the end of the year, there would be no grievances to adjudicate and no remedy that an arbitrator could award. The court, therefore, ruled that plaintiffs demonstrated irreparable injury, stayed compliance with the vaccination requirement until the parties completed their arbitrations, and granted in part plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction.