To Block Covid-19 Charges, Amazon Sues New York's Attorney General (usnews.com) 66
The Associated Press reports:
Amazon is suing the attorney general of New York in a bid to stop her from suing the company over its coronavirus safety protocols and the firing of one of its outspoken workers.
In the lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, Amazon said Attorney General Letitia James overstepped her authority by trying to regulate coronavirus safety protocols at its warehouse in New York's Staten Island borough. The company said James threatened to sue if Amazon didn't agree to her list of demands, including rehiring the worker, Christian Smalls, and paying him and another fired worker large sums of money.
James said Friday that she will continue to review her legal options. In a statement, she called Amazon's lawsuit "a sad attempt to distract from the facts and shirk accountability for its failures to protect hardworking employees from a deadly virus..."
The company argued in court documents that only the federal government can mandate COVID-19 safety protocols and that the attorney general's office doesn't have the legal authority "it purports to wield against Amazon." Seattle-based Amazon is asking the court to stop James from pursuing any action against the company, and to declare that she doesn't have authority on COVID-19 safety measures or to regulate claims that a worker was retaliated against.
In the lawsuit filed Friday in Brooklyn federal court, Amazon said Attorney General Letitia James overstepped her authority by trying to regulate coronavirus safety protocols at its warehouse in New York's Staten Island borough. The company said James threatened to sue if Amazon didn't agree to her list of demands, including rehiring the worker, Christian Smalls, and paying him and another fired worker large sums of money.
James said Friday that she will continue to review her legal options. In a statement, she called Amazon's lawsuit "a sad attempt to distract from the facts and shirk accountability for its failures to protect hardworking employees from a deadly virus..."
The company argued in court documents that only the federal government can mandate COVID-19 safety protocols and that the attorney general's office doesn't have the legal authority "it purports to wield against Amazon." Seattle-based Amazon is asking the court to stop James from pursuing any action against the company, and to declare that she doesn't have authority on COVID-19 safety measures or to regulate claims that a worker was retaliated against.
Not a leg to stand on (Score:5, Insightful)
IANAL, but this
The company argued in court documents that only the federal government can mandate COVID-19 safety protocols
is a complete non-starter. If anything, the states have more authority in this area than the federal govenment.
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Re:Not a leg to stand on (Score:4, Insightful)
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They fired someone who tested positive for COVID, was told to go home (with pay) for two weeks, and came back anyway to interact with co-workers, maskless, and refused to leave when told. When fired for breaking the company's rules and putting all their co-workers at risk they sued to get their job back. They absolutely should have been canned, and if he had been an employee of Target or Walmart we would never have heard of this and the Attorney General would never have been involved.
Amazon has spent ove
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https://www.bizjournals.com/bi... [bizjournals.com]
Amazon to spend $800M on worker safety during pandemic
That was in April, they had spent that much by the end of May.
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Female? Sorry then, I've confused two different cases.
Article I, Section 8 and Article VI, Clause 2 (Score:2)
The Constitution specifies a list of powers the federal government has (article I, section 8) and then says, twice, that all other powers are reserved to the states and people.
Then in Article VI, Clause 2 it says that federal law and Constitution pre-empt state law.
Putting those two together, that means the federal government can regulate only certain things; those things cannot be regulated by the states. Unless the federal law authorizes the states to set the specifics locally, which makes sense in some
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> They're the ones enforcing OSHA regulations, and like literally every other federal regulation
They can do that.
> the states are free to impose more restrictive standards if they so choose.
Article VI disagrees with you. ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
"the Laws of the United States
Quoting the SCOTUS ruling in Gibbons v Ogden:
such acts of the State legisl
Re: Article I, Section 8 and Article VI, Clause 2 (Score:2)
OSHA sets a regulatory floor. States can impose more restrictive requirements, but they cannot be more lax than requirements set by OSHA - https://www.oshamanual.com/com... [oshamanual.com]
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Where does the Federal Government get the authority to impose those regulations?
Here in Canada, this is purely a Provincial responsibility in general. The Feds can create guidelines and they're in charge of some things, their property, ocean going vessels, railroads and such.
Here, in BC, it is the equivalent of workers comp that is enforcing the pandemic rules in workplaces and they have quite a bit of power to force workplaces to conform or shut them down. Also the Provincial Health Officer, after the Prov
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> Where does the Federal Government get the authority to impose those regulations?
See subject line.
Does the federal government sometimes stretch section 8 to ridiculous extremes? Sure. See the wheat cases. That's a different discussion than what's being argued in this case, however. Nobody is making the argument that OSHA is unconstitutional. You might be able to make that argument, but the parties aren't.
The parties are arguing over article vi, which says that when the federal government does regul
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OK, I guess the question I had was the Constitutionality of the Feds having those laws. If everyone agrees they do, I guess they do, even if the Constitution doesn't clearly give them that power.
It's interesting how the two countries have developed. America was designed to have a weak Federal government that has only got more powerful. Canada was designed, after watching your civil war, to have a strong Federal government and since the Provinces have become more powerful, due to court rulings etc.
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> I guess the question I had was the Constitutionality of the Feds having those laws. If everyone agrees they do, I guess they do, even if the Constitution doesn't clearly give them that power.
That pretty well sums up my own thoughts on the matter.
Personally, I think we should follow the laws we write.
If we need to change the laws, we should change that.
The Constitution says the federal government can do only those listed things. It says it twice, just in case some power-hungry politician didn't get it
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...injury, disease, or death...
So unless COVID ISN'T a disease or nobody working for Amazon got COVID, it looks like the state may have something to say about it.
Of course, OSHA is just workplace specific safety. It doesn't override general safety concerns. For example, murder in the workplace is still under the state's jurisdiction. So if the state had a general rule for safety wherever people might congregate and Amazon ignored that, then the state has plenty of jurisdiction.
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The first sentence of your post is a perfectly reasonable argument.
The second sentence shows the problem with the first sentence. OSHA is mostly workplace safety standards.
As you said, OSHA primarily regulates workplace safety standards.
There is a separate section of the act that addresses dealing with actual injury. That second section says you can sue under state law if you get injured or sick. It specifically leaves out "you can sue if you're not happy with the safety standards and want to change them
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The rules are pretty clear. COVID is a disease and Amazon workers contracted it. Further, the States did have generally applicable laws regarding groups of people during the pandemic. Amazon gathered groups of people in that state and so must obey those laws as well.
There is nothing there that suggests the state wouldn't have jurisdiction.
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Yes, this clown contracted it, was sent home with pay and told not to come back, and came back anyway to interact with his co-workers, putting them all at risk. He was canned when he refused to leave. There's nothing to suggest to me that the state should be involved at all, he was fired for cause.
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That is a separate issue to jurisdiction. Once jurisdiction is settled, they can get down to the trial where if the employee did what you clam, it will all come out.
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California laws supersede US Federal Law in a number of areas without suffering any consequences.
If fact, all other states do suffer because California will enforce stricter standards. (Eg., we all drive California-compliant cars now.)
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California laws supersede US Federal Law in a number of areas without suffering any consequences.
If fact, all other states do suffer because California will enforce stricter standards. (Eg., we all drive California-compliant cars now.)
That's not quite correct, is it? California is entitled to mandate stronger standards on pollution within California. However, car manufacturers aren't legally bound to respect those standards elsewere - there is no superseding of federal law outside California.
Manufacturers could choose to build their cars only at federally mandated standards - and they'll be able to sell them everywhere but in California. Or, they could build a special model for sale only in CA. However, California is one of the largest m
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Only where the federal law specifically allows states to change / add to the federal law, because of the supremacy clause.
US Constitution Article VI: ... shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
"the Laws of the United States
Notice that "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.". Where the federal government regulates something, tho
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California laws supersede US Federal Law in a number of areas
Not many. As a general rule, state laws only prevail when they provide more protection/benefit than federal law. Minimum wage laws are a good example.
If fact, all other states do suffer because California will enforce stricter standards. (Eg., we all drive California-compliant cars now.)
Bad example. Only 14 other states and DC follow California standards, the rest follow federal standards which are not as stringent as California's. [nap.edu]
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State does have authority over that warehouse that is within their state fore sure but i think its little suspect to try to demand amazon rehire a person they fired.
New York Labor Law 740 [findlaw.com] says otherwise.
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The state probably does have a great deal of authority to impose whatever regulation they want however that doesn't mean the regulation is something the attorney general can just make up and impose he would probably have anyway leeway he wants to impose and enforce restrictions imposed by the governor or the state senate or whoever makes the laws and safety regulations here but it is not his in his office to create them.
And any company will fire someone who spoke to the media without authorization. The comp
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He didn't create them. He's enforcing them.
The
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The Attorney General of New York is Letitia James, who identifies as a woman. Saying "he" trumpets your ignorance and your sexism. Thanks for self-identifying as oppressors. And as people who cite dismissed cases [justia.com].
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The grandparent post wrote "he," and I followed. The sex of the NYAG is immaterial to the point. Of course, you are free to chastise the original poster for this point if you feel so strongly.
The state probably does have a great deal of authority to impose whatever regulation they want however that doesn't mean the regulation is something the attorney general can just make up a
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I did not miss a thing. The case was dismissed. I get that you feel defensive about citing a complaint that wasn't worth the paper it was printed on, but that is not excuse to be an asshole about it.
You mention the part that was dismissed without prejudice on jurisdictional grounds, but neglect the part that was dismissed with prejudice. Now, the facts that the plaintiff lost half his case almost immediately, and that his lawyer was too ignorant to know where to file the rest of the complaint, do not mea
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So yes, you missed it. "Wasn't worth the paper that it was printed on" is a bit different than "must be filed with OSHA."
The wage claim? How is that related to your blather about COVID safety violations?
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Make up your mind.
"While we continue to investigate, the information so far available to us raises concerns that Amazon's health and safety measures taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic are so inadequate that they may violate several provisions of the Occupational Safety and Health Act" and other feder
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States have a general police power, but lose authority where federal law preempts state law or state jurisdiction, which is what Amazon argues happens with the OSH Act and OSHA. Amazon also argues that the AG's asserted public health concerns are a pretense, and also that they are hypocritical because the AG has defended less comprehensive safety protocols in higher-risk situations -- specifically, those adopted by New York State Courts.
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What's OSHA's federal standard for communicable diseases? Respiratory viruses? Cite them. Because otherwise you're out of luck. [core.ac.uk] "The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1971 ('OSHA') represents an intermediate preemption regime.... Federal administrative standards divest the states of authority over safety issues covered by the fe
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Would you like to make an actual argument, or are you JAQing off?
I don't pretend to know whether Amazon is right on the merits, but TFA and the comment I replied to both misrepresented Amazon's core claims about authority and jurisdiction. If you are going to cite unspecified "violations and state standards for COVID safety", maybe you should have imitated Amazon and quoted the NYC Sheriff's Office's report of a surprise inspection of that warehouse:
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And here I thought that I did by answering the specific preclusion issue that you brought up with actual authority.
Perhaps you should answer the questions that I askled..
No they didn't. "The states have more authority in this area than the federal government." That's liter
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No, you simply hand-waved at a general principle. You did not even try to say where the safety rules in this case fell, much less back that up with a relevant authority. (Pro tip: An article from 1993 is unlikely to address regulations responsive to a pandemic in 2020.)
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Actually, I cited a law review article specifically discussing occupational safety law and federal preclusion of state regulation under OSHA, and quoted from it both for the specific discussion and to allow people to locate the statements. In the absence of an amendment to OSHA, the date of the article is irrelevant to that point. The article does not need to address "regulations responsive to the pandemic in 2020" because 1. OSHA must have promulgated a fe
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And the other shoe drops [state.ny.us].
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That's not a shoe dropping, that's a link that does not work for 99.998% of the world. That fraction would be higher if New York State didn't have such an infestation of (too-often stupid) lawyers -- but in that case, whatever you were trying to point to probably would not exist in the first place.
Re: Not a leg to stand on (Score:3)
OSHA allows states to develop their own plans and requirements for such things as exposure limits as long as they are not more lax than federal requirements. OSHA sets a regulatory floor, and states may do more. See https://www.osha.gov/stateplan... [osha.gov]
State Plans have their own penalty reduction policies and procedures that may differ from OSHA's but must be deemed at least as effective. All State Plan policies and procedures related to penalties must be submitted and reviewed by OSHA. State Plans also have th
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States have a general police power, but lose authority where federal law preempts state law or state jurisdiction, which is what Amazon argues happens with the OSH Act and OSHA.
22 states or territories have OSHA-approved state programs [wikipedia.org] which cover employees of private enterprises, but New York is not one of them. Their OSHA plan only covers state and local government workers [osha.gov]. I'm not sure how relevant the state's own OSHA plan is, though. Is there any reason that a state can't or shouldn't be able to provide workers with additional protections beyond the federal standard?
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No, and Amazon does not claim that. What they claim is that the relevant New York state law about workplace safety can be enforced by the federal OSHA, or by private lawsuits, but not by the state Attorney General:
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Union issue an workplace can't stop worker from (Score:2)
Union issue an workplace can't stop workers from organizing.
So State have no rights (Score:3)
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Now it is all lawyers all the time - and nothing actually gets fixed.
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Re:So State have no rights (Score:5, Informative)
In the old days those warehouses would be subjected to sudden surprise safety inspections and forced to cease operations until whatever they find is fixed, or until further review is scheduled, usually not until shortly after the original complaint is satisfied.
From TFA:
Amazon released COVID numbers last October showing their workers are less likely than the general population to become infected with COVID. AFAICT, that hasn't changed. Seems to me this NY AG is playing politics.
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Those days are long gone. And thanks to that, we have more clinics being built up around me because of the massive influx of injuries happening. It's a good thing, right? More jobs for medical careers!
Meanwhile, OSHA continues to harass me since I have zero accidents and zero complaints, while the guy across the street from me has ancient machines, punch presses with no safeties or estops, injuries at least once a month (I see an ambulance there all the time) and massive complaints and bad reviews on indee
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Amazon's complaint [vox-cdn.com] says that the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act preempts the AG's attempt to use state law to regulate Amazon's workplace safety program, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is in charge of the process:
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Correction: Palmer was apparently never fired, he was only given a final warning about violating safety policies. Even though he sued his employer, and the court threw it out [businessinsurance.com], he apparently still works there.
Re: So State have no rights (Score:2)
Right. There are three parties here, and each one talks past the other in favor of their own points. Each is taking a different approach in the hopes it becomes the narrative, since their own arguments supported their own ways.
The whistle-blower who organized the protests wanted better protection for workers, and now wants compensation for exercising legally protected speech. These are discussions focused on worker's rights and labor unions which terrify Amazon.
The government is wanting health precautions,
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The most fucked-up thing is ... (Score:1, Troll)
Notice how the discussion doesn't even revolve around Amazon's blatant and open disregard for the lives of its almost-slaves anymore.
Like that is merely a given. A "freedom". A "normal" thing to do. Like eating babies "because I was hungry, what's your problem?", to use an exaggeration for the purpose of highlighting the point.
I always say Amazon are psychopaths, but they literally actually are literal psychopaths, medical definition!
If corporations "are" people, then this "guy" needs the straightjacket, a
Only in a corporate oligarchy (Score:3)
When I was youngster this kind of corporate sovereignty B.S. stuff was a feature of dystopian futurism sci-fi.
Now it is modern America.
Only fools believe such leftist propaganda (Score:1)
How many times does the left need to get caught is such lies, before you learn?
The Russia collusion hoax went on for years. All the while the left knew that the hoax was specifically concocted to distract from Hillary's very real crimes.
Then there was the "fine people" hoax, that also went on for years.
Then the "babies ripped from their mother's arms" hoax.
There was the "Trump threatened Ukraine" hoax, used to distract from Biden's very real threatening of Ukraine. This led to the first sham impeachment.