Huhmann v. Federal Express Corp., No. 15-56744 (9th Cir. 2017)
Annotate this CasePlaintiff filed suit under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA), 38 U.S.C. 4311(a), arguing that when he returned from service in the U.S. Air Force, FedEx improperly paid him a $7,400 bonus instead of the $17,700 bonus he would have earned had he not served. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the district court's decision awarding plaintiff the higher signing bonus and attorney's fees. The panel held that arbitration was not required in this case; the district court properly used the reasonable certainty test to determine that plaintiff showed by a preponderance of the evidence that his military service was a "substantial or motivating factor" to cause an adverse employment action; the district court properly relied on the the escalator principle, which provides that a returning service member should not be removed from the progress of his career trajectory; the district court did not clearly err in finding that plaintiff was reasonably certain to have achieved the higher bonus status had he not left for his military service; the district court correctly concluded that plaintiff's bonus was, in part, a seniority-based benefit; and even if the signing bonus were not a seniority-based benefit, Section 4316 still would not bar plaintiff's claim.
Court Description: Labor Law The panel affirmed the district court’s judgment, after a bench trial, in favor of the plaintiff, who alleged that upon his return from military service, he was entitled to a higher signing bonus from his employer under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. The panel held that arbitration was not required because the right awarded by USERRA neither arose out of nor relied on an interpretation of the parties’ collective bargaining agreement, and so the parties’ dispute was not a “minor dispute” under the Railway Labor Act. The panel held that in analyzing the plaintiff’s USERRA claim, the district court correctly considered first, whether the plaintiff had established that his military service was a “substantial or motivating factor” to cause an adverse employment action, and second, whether the defendant employer had established an affirmative defense that it would have taken the same action without regard to the military service. The panel held that the district court properly used the reasonable certainty test, asking whether it was reasonably certain that the plaintiff would have qualified for a higher bonus had he not left for military service, as an aid to the burden-shifting analysis. The district court also properly relied on the escalator principle, which provides that a returning service member should not be removed from
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