Littler Lightbulb – January 2026 Appellate Roundup

Ninth Circuit Reverses District Court and Finds Production Company Not Liable Under the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act 

Nev. Resort Ass'n Int'l All. of Theatrical Stage Emps. v. JB Viva Vegas, LP, __ F.4th __ (9th Cir. Jan. 6, 2026),¹ involved a question of exemption for a theatrical production company from the Multiemployer Pension Plan Amendments Act (MPPAA), which imposes liability on employers that withdraw from multiemployer pension plans. The MPPAA provides an exemption from withdrawal liability if, among other things, “the plan primarily covers employees in the entertainment industry.” The plaintiff in the case, an employee pension fund, claimed that over 50 percent of an individual’s work must be in the entertainment industry for the individual to be an “employee[] in the entertainment industry.” The production company argued that the statute did not require minimum employee entertainment work to satisfy the exemption. The district court granted summary judgment for the pension fund, and the production company appealed to the Ninth Circuit. 

Examining the text of the statute, the Ninth Circuit held that the entertainment industry exemption “unambiguously covers individuals performing any amount of entertainment work,” stating, “[t]he text does not say that an individual’s work must be ‘substantially’ or ‘primarily’ in the entertainment industry to qualify—any amount of entertainment work suffices.” Moreover, even if the statute was ambiguous, based on Supreme Court and Ninth Circuit precedent, “when one part of a statute contains limiting language and another part does not, we read the latter’s omission as ‘evidence of Congress’s expressed intent not to impose’ any limitation.” Here, as the court pointed out, other parts of the MPPAA, such the exemption for employers in the construction industry, apply only if “substantially all” of the employees work in the construction industry. In contrast, the Ninth Circuit stated, “the phrase ‘employees in the entertainment industry’ does not include any limiting language.” Based on all of these factors, the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court.

Fifth Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment for Employer in Age Discrimination and Retaliation Suit 

The plaintiff in Awe v. Harris Health Sys., __ F.4th __ (5th Cir. Jan 12, 2026), a former employee of a healthcare system, made several complaints that he and others in his job category were underpaid. After leaving his employment, the plaintiff reapplied for a job a year later. When he was not selected for the position, he filed suit alleging age discrimination and retaliation in violation of the ADEA and Title VII. The district court granted summary judgment for the employer and the plaintiff appealed to the Fifth Circuit. 

Affirming summary judgment for the employer on the plaintiff’s age discrimination claims, the Fifth Circuit held that the plaintiff failed to establish a prima facie case of age discrimination because, although two of the individuals hired for the position were younger than the plaintiff, one was older. As to the plaintiff’s ADEA retaliation claim, the Fifth Circuit found that the plaintiff failed to allege that he was retaliated against because of age-related activities. Instead, the plaintiff’s retaliation claim was based on his underpayment claim, which was unrelated to his age.

The Fifth Circuit also affirmed summary judgment for the employer on the plaintiff’s Title VII retaliation claim because the plaintiff could not establish that the employer’s non-discriminatory reason for not hiring him – a preference for internal candidates – was a pretext for retaliation. Moreover, quoting prior Fifth Circuit precedent, the court stated the plaintiff was “not ‘clearly better qualified’ than other hired or rejected candidates such that ‘no reasonable person’ would have hired him instead of the candidates that were hired.”

Fourth Circuit Affirms Dismissal of Wage and Hour Case 

Figueroa v. Butterball, LLC, __ F.4th __ (4th Cir. Jan 13, 2026) involved claims for overtime pay and hourly wages under the North Carolina Wage and Hour Act (NCWHA) and the FLSA. The district court dismissed both claims and the plaintiff appealed to the Fourth Circuit. 

On appeal, the plaintiff argued that he was entitled to overtime pay under that FLSA and that he could pursue that claim through the NCWHA, which he contended provided prejudgment interest not available under the FLSA. Rejecting this argument, the Fourth Circuit pointed to the NCWHA’s exemption of individuals covered by the FLSA from its overtime provisions. The court also cited Fourth Circuit precedent holding that “Congress prescribed exclusive remedies in the FLSA for violations of its mandates.” Thus, the Fourth Circuit held, as to the plaintiff’s overtime claims under the NCWHA, his “recourse is to the FLSA,” not the NCWHA.

As to the plaintiff’s hourly pay rate claim, the Fourth Circuit concluded that the plaintiff was a piece-rate employee, not an hourly employee, based on the terms in his signed offer letter, his pay stubs, and the testimony of other similarly situated employees. Online job postings and handbook provisions regarding hourly pay, the Fourth Circuit held, were “unpersuasive” and did not overcome the signed contract and pay stub evidence. Moreover, the Fourth Circuit agreed with the district court that there was a lack of “evidence that any plaintiff understood himself to be an hourly employee because of the job description or handbook.”

Because the plaintiff was a piece-rate employee, the Fourth Circuit assessed the employer’s calculation of the plaintiff’s overtime pay in accordance with the FLSA provisions regarding overtime pay for piece-rate employees and concluded that the plaintiff had been properly paid overtime. The Fourth Circuit also rejected the plaintiff’s claim that his employer failed to compensate him for pre-shift duties because there was no evidence that the plaintiff regularly performed such duties.

Plaintiff’s last claim was that the piece-rate compensation system did not properly compensate him for all hours worked, and he should have been compensated at the rate of time-and-a-half for overtime worked under 29 C.F.R. § 778.318(c), which provides that “it is permissible for the parties to agree that the pay the employees will earn at piece rates is intended to compensate them for all hours worked, the productive as well as the nonproductive hours.” Plaintiff contended that there was no such agreement. However, the Fourth Circuit noted, pursuant to a wage and hour opinion letter, the agreement “need not be in writing, but rather, may be inferred from the parties’ conduct.” In this case, the Fourth Circuit stated, the plaintiff was not arguing that he was compensated less for the non-productive hours he worked but rather was claiming that he was not properly compensated for overtime, and there was no evidence that the piece-rate compensation was not intended to cover all hours worked. For these reasons, the Fourth Circuit held, 29 C.F.R. § 778.318(c) did not apply.

Fourth Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment for Employer in ADA Suit

The plaintiff in Haggins v. Wilson Air Center, LLC, __ F.4th __ (4th Cir. Jan. 14, 2026) was an accounting assistant whose job included handling invoices, preparing paper checks, and filing documents. After the plaintiff was diagnosed with breast cancer, the employer allowed her to work a hybrid remote and in-person schedule, but after several months she worked only remotely due to constant medical treatments, and her supervisor assumed her in-person work. When the workload increased, the company asked the plaintiff to return to work in the office, four to five hours per day, and she agreed. However, the plaintiff continued to work remotely and complained to the HR manager about being required to work partly in person. After investigating the plaintiff’s work duties and learning how many of them needed to be performed in person, as well as the lack of other employees to fill in for her, the HR manager told the plaintiff that she needed to report to work in person. After working two partial days in person, the plaintiff had surgery, was absent from work for approximately three weeks, and failed to contact HR, as requested, regarding her return to work. She also failed to return to work on the date her doctor said she would be able to do so. Accordingly, the plaintiff was discharged from employment for “job abandonment.”

The plaintiff filed suit under the ADA alleging failure to make reasonable accommodations, discrimination because of breast cancer, and retaliation for complaining to human resources. The district court granted summary judgment for the employer and the plaintiff appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which affirmed summary judgment. Assessing the plaintiff’s claim that her employer failed to provide “the reasonable accommodation of a hybrid schedule that it had promised,” the Fourth Circuit pointed out that it was the plaintiff, not the employer, that reneged on the agreed upon hybrid schedule. Reviewing all the facts, the Fourth Circuit found that the employer in this case “went beyond the ADA’s baseline in trying to accommodate [the plaintiff],” concluding that “[e]ven with the reasonable accommodation of a hybrid schedule, [the plaintiff] could not show up to work to perform her position’s essential functions, or at least timely notify [the employer] whenever she would be out of the office. That means she is not a qualified individual, rendering the ADA’s protections inapplicable.” For the same reasons, the Fourth Circuit also rejected the plaintiff’s discrimination complaint.

As to plaintiff’s retaliation claim, the Fourth Circuit found that the plaintiff failed to establish the required “causal connection” between the plaintiff’s complaint to human resources about returning to hybrid work and her discharge one month later. Although “a particularly close proximity can suffice for a prima facie case of retaliation in some cases,” the court stated, in this case the employer’s efforts at accommodation continued after the plaintiff complained to human resources, eliminating even an inference of retaliation.

First Circuit Affirms Summary Judgment for Employer on Title VII Retaliation Claims

In Doe v. City of Boston, __ F.4th __ (1st Cir. Jan. 27, 2026), the plaintiff, a former police officer, alleged retaliation under Title VII for disclosure of her employment records and employment information. The plaintiff’s records disclosed that she was disciplined for violating several police department rules, including lack of truthfulness in reporting she had been raped by another police officer, as well as for filing several unsubstantiated complaints against numerous other police leaders and officers, claiming they had committed criminal acts, such as a conspiracy to cover up the alleged rape. After the police department determined the plaintiff should be terminated from employment, and before a decision on her appeal was issued, the plaintiff resigned. Her resignation was classified as a “resignation with charges pending by the [police department].”

Although the plaintiff had signed authorizations for disclosure of her employment information, the plaintiff’s first claim was that the information the police department disclosed to prospective employers, which included her disciplinary record, that the charges against her were sustained by an investigation, and her resignation with charges pending, was retaliatory and caused her job applications to be rejected. Next the plaintiff claimed the police department retaliated against her by disclosing the same information to the Washington Post in response to a public records request by the newspaper, although the plaintiff’s name did not appear in the resulting newspaper article. The federal district court granted summary judgment to the police department on both claims and the plaintiff appealed to the First Circuit.

Stating that the plaintiff in a Title VII retaliation case “must show that [an employer’s] ‘desire to retaliate was the but-for cause of the challenged employment action,’” the First Circuit held that the plaintiff in the case failed to do so. In assessing the plaintiff’s claim regarding the disclosure of information to prospective employers, the First Circuit rejected the plaintiff’s assertion that the police department deviated from its rule that “only the personnel records held by HR should be sent, unless the disciplinary file was specifically requested by a hiring agency.” Four of the five prospective employers to whom information was disclosed explicitly sought “discipline” or “disciplinary” information, the First Circuit found. Moreover, the court held, there was no evidence that the individuals who handled the prospective employer requests had a retaliatory motive for providing information in response to the requests. Similarly, there was no evidence that “retaliation was the but-for cause of [the police department’s] response to the Washington Post’s request for information.” For all these reasons, the First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for the police department on the plaintiff’s claims.

First Circuit Affirms Dismissal After Plaintiff’s Efforts to Back Out of Settlement Agreement

After reaching an oral settlement agreement before a magistrate judge in an FLSA case, the material terms of which were recited and audio recorded by the magistrate judge, the plaintiff in Maccarone v. Siemens Indus., Inc., __ F.4th __ (1st Cir. Jan. 29, 2026) refused to sign the agreement.² The district court advised the company to file a motion to enforce the settlement, which it did, and the court granted the motion finding that the written settlement documents accurately reflected the parties’ agreement. The plaintiff filed a motion for reconsideration, which the court denied, ultimately granting the company’s motion to dismiss the case.

The plaintiff appealed to the First Circuit. Reviewing the standards to be applied in determining the enforceability of a settlement agreement, the court stated: “[O]ral settlement agreements are enforceable as long as the parties have mutually assented to all of their material terms.” In this case, the court found the magistrate judge recited the terms of the settlement agreement on the record at the settlement conference, and neither the plaintiff, who was present on Zoom, nor her counsel objected to any of the terms. The plaintiff’s objections as to alleged ambiguities and tax consequences surfaced “only after the agreement had been reached and were properly rejected by the district court as insufficient, to undermine the parties” objective manifestation of assent. “These very same arguments now raised on appeal are meritless, to say the least,” the First Circuit concluded.

The First Circuit also rejected the plaintiff’s argument that the district court abused its discretion in denying her motion for reconsideration by declining to hold an evidentiary hearing at which she could testify that she was incapacitated or unduly influenced at the time of the settlement. “Where there is no genuine dispute of material fact as to the existence or terms of a settlement agreement, a court need not hold an evidentiary hearing,” the First Circuit stated. The First Circuit found that the plaintiff failed to present any facts supporting her allegations of undue influence. Accordingly, based on the law and the facts, the First Circuit affirmed the district court’s dismissal of the case and awarded costs and attorney fees to the company.