ultimately terminating their employment due to their military service. Plaintiff Mahone asserted that her termination and subsequent denial of reemployment were wrongful under the USERRA, while plaintiff Tole asserted he was denied promotion and raises after returning from military leave. The plaintiffs claimed that the defendant had a company-wide policy requiring prior written notice for military leave, which violated the USERRA. The plaintiffs filed a motion for class certification pursuant to Rule 23, which the court denied. Plaintiff Mahone was a private in the Alabama Army National Guard, and regularly took military leave. She notified the defendant of her military service obligations via a mobile application. In October 2020, Mahone informed the defendant about an upcoming military drill and was granted leave. However, on October 18, 2020, Mahone asserted that she was terminated from her employment when she had a negative unpaid time-off balance, despite her leave being approved. Following her termination, a case manager contacted her to question whether her military leave had been reported correctly, after which Mahone allegedly provided documentation of her military obligations. Ultimately, the defendant denied Mahone’s request for reinstatement request for an alleged failure to provide timely documentation. After filing suit, the defendant acknowledged that Mahone had been mistakenly terminated due to administrative errors and offered her reinstatement and back pay with no offset in earnings from the plaintiff’s new employment. Plaintiff Tole, an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps Forces Reserve, took military leave from May 2019 to late 2021, and provided the defendant with written notice. Despite positive performance reviews, Tole asserted he was removed from promotion consideration after announcing his military leave, assigned a lower position when he returned from leave, and that the defendant informed him that none of his pre-leave performance would count towards his promotion. The plaintiffs requested certification of one class and two sub-classes, consisting of all current and former employees of the defendant who served in the U.S. Armed Services or National Guard. The proposed classifications included a Military Employee Class, an Hourly Military Employee Sub-class, and a Salaried Military Employee Sub-class. The court found that regardless of the data, there were over 14,000 members in the proposed classes, thereby meeting the numerosity element of Rule 23. However, the court denied the motion for class certification because the plaintiffs failed to meet the commonality or predominance requirement. In response to the plaintiffs’ allegations that the defendant’s policies improperly required hourly employees to submit documentation to obtain military leave, leading to wrongful terminations, the court found no evidence to support the allegations, and that in reality, the defendant did not require the alleged documentation. The court also explained that the defendant’s policies complied with the USERRA requirements, and no consistent evidence showed that employees were treated differently based on their military leave. The court ruled that individualized questions, such as specific compensation and promotion considerations, would predominate over any class-wide inquiries, thereby preventing the predominance of common issues. The court concluded that a class action would not be the superior method of adjudication because of the significant individual claims and unique defenses. Accordingly, the court denied the plaintiffs’ motion for class certification. Conversely, the plaintiffs in Sambrano, et al. v. United Airlines, Inc. , 347 F.R.D. 155 (N.D. Tex. 2024), were awarded class certification after the court modified their originally requested class definitions. The plaintiffs filed suit against their employer alleging employment discrimination and retaliation. In August 2021, the defendant announced that all United States-based employees must be vaccinated against COVID-19, unless they received a religious or medical accommodation. Some unvaccinated employees were placed on unpaid leave, with the option to apply for alternative positions. Other unvaccinated employees were required to wear face masks and regularly submit COVID-19 test results. In their motion for class certification, the plaintiffs asked the court to certify one class comprised of all employees who requested an accommodation to the vaccine policy, and two sub-classes comprised of all employees put on unpaid leave and all employees who had to wear masks and submit regular test results. The court granted certification for a modified proposed sub-class of customer-facing employees who received an accommodation due to sincerely held religious beliefs and were put on unpaid leave. However, the court denied certification for two other classes due to lack of commonality. The plaintiffs argued that, irrespective of the fact that class members faced different alleged adverse actions, commonality was met because the harm faced by the employees derived from the same underlying policy. The court rejected this argument. It explained that commonality is met when “an issue that is central to the validity of each one of the class members’ claims can be resolved in one stroke ,” Id. at 168. Regarding the masking and testing sub- class, the court determined that masking and testing itself is not an adverse action, and further, that the putative sub-class members alleged that they suffered different harms. However, the court granted certification for the unpaid leave sub-class, holding that the employees within this sub-class suffered the same injury as a result of sincerely held religious beliefs. The court determined that the unpaid leave sub-class’s ADA claims alleging
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Duane Morris Discrimination Class Action Review – 2025
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