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Big Case #4 - Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp
August 17, 2006 by Ross Runkel at LawMemo
#4 in the Big Cases Series for 2006: Arbaugh v. Y&H Corp , 126 S.Ct. 1235 (US Supreme Court 02/22/2006)
Facts: Arbaugh sued her former employer under Title VII and related state law claims. A jury returned a verdict in her favor. After the trial court entered judgment on that verdict, Y&H moved to dismiss the entire action for want of federal subject-matter jurisdiction, asserting, for the first time, that it had fewer than 15 employees on its payroll and therefore was not amenable to suit under Title VII.
Held: Title VII’s numerical threshold does not circumscribe federal-court subject-matter jurisdiction. Instead, the employee-numerosity requirement relates to the substantive adequacy of Arbaugh’s Title VII claim, and therefore could not be raised defensively late in the lawsuit, i.e., after Y&H had failed to assert the objection prior to the close of trial on the merits.
Later cases: The same result under other statutes:
- Minard v. ITC Deltacom, 447 F.3d 352 (5th Cir 04/18/2006) (FMLA)
- Cobb v. Contract Transport, 452 F.3d 543 (6th Cir 06/28/2006) (FMLA)
- Fernandez v. Centerplate/NBSE, 441 F.3d 1006 (DC Cir 03/24/2006) (FLSA)
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