Justia U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

A nurse filed suit under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), 29 U.S.C. 1059, claiming that her former employer had failed to maintain accurate records. She alleged that nurses were required to work certain hours for which they were not paid and should receive benefits for those hours. The district court dismissed. The Third Circuit affirmed. The employer had an obligation to keep records adequate to determine benefits due; what benefits are due depends on the language of the pension plan. The pension plans at issue tie benefits to compensation paid, not to what was earned, so the employer had no obligation to keep records of hours allegedly worked and not compensated. ERISA includes a provision for seeking benefits due on compensation wrongfully withheld; the nurse may file under that provision if she wins her state compensation claim.

Under Pennsylvania law, 53 Pa. Stat. 46190, police officers may not be suspended or terminated without just cause. An officer, who entered charges against other officers on the police network on behalf of another, but in violation of regulations governing use of the system, was suspended without a hearing. A union grievance resulted in an award of back-pay. A report by the Office of the Inspector General, issued months later, detailed the conduct at issue and gave notice of a hearing, after which the officer was terminated. The district court held that the post-deprivation union grievance proceeding cured the lack of pre-deprivation due process and that it was not necessary that the officer be notified of the exact rules he was charged with violating. The Third Circuit affirmed. The officer had a constitutionally protected interest, and, absent extraordinary circumstances, could not be suspended without a hearing. That right, however, was not clearly established at the time of the suspension, so the officers involved in the suspension were entitled to qualified immunity with respect to civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. 1983. The notice of termination hearing gave the officer adequate information about the conduct that was the basis for action.