This week's show considers two major cases of appellate importance, both yet to be decided. One is a California Supreme Court matter regarding take-home asbestos liability, which heard oral arguments on Wednesday, another awaits arguments in a few months before the U.S. Supreme Court, and considers the due process afforded non-citizens detained awaiting potential removal. We'll also hear briefly from our labor beat reporter, Matthew Blake, on a major ruling from this week out of the Ninth Circuit regarding Uber drivers and arbitration.
First, M.C. Sungaila (Haynes Boone) will discuss the consolidated appeal
Haver v. BNSF Railway, which was argued before the state's high court on Wednesday, and which asks the question whether employers in workplaces that contain toxic substances such as asbestos, owe a duty to workers' family members (OR others they contact) who are exposed to those toxic materials when they're conveyed home upon workers' clothing. The plaintiffs in both these matters contracted diseases after repeated contact with family members who were employed in workplaces where asbestos was present. One of the plaintiffs met a favorable result in the California First Appellate District, which found that the employer there did have a duty to that class of family-member plaintiffs; but in the companion case the Second Appellate District found no duty in very similar circumstances. The California Supreme Court is now set to weigh in, after having heard both sides on Wednesday.
Then, Anna-Rose Mathieson will return to the show to continue our summer SCOTUS preview series. Today, she'll discuss 'Rodriguez v. Jennings,' a significant immigration law case that regards the critical issue of what sorts of due process must be afforded detained non-citizens who await removal determinations. These detainees, though only subjects of civil removal proceedings, nonetheless are often held in conditions quite similar to those that typically attend criminal convictions, and have, in the past, not necessarily been entitled to judicial hearings to determine whether they could released from these oft-squalid confines to await a final determination as to whether they can or cannot remain in the country. The Ninth Circuit upheld a permanent injunction requiring that such detainees automatically receive regular hearings (once every six months) in which the government must prove, by clear and convincing evidence, that the risk of releasing detainees is high enough to justify the denial of bond. In its appeal to the US Supreme Court, the government contends this evidentiary standard represents too heavy a burden, and that repeated bond hearings, after the first one, are not constitutionally necessary.
At the top of the broadcast, we'll also hear from our intrepid labor reporter, Matt Blake, who will discuss briefly this week's Ninth Circuit ruling in
Mohamed v. Uber, which pertains to who righty determines issues of class certification in employment disputes, the court or the arbitrator.
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