This Discussion involves 4 small fact patterns that require your attention. Use your Research Posts to flush out more nuance and explore the creative space in any of the fact patterns of your liking. 1. At-Will Employment Jeremy Hoven was employed as a pharmacist by Walgreen Company (Walgreens). Hoven experienced an armed robbery at a Walgreens store during his first year of work. Hoven asked Walgreens to increase security systems, including adding a panic-button device, but Walgreens did not comply with his requests. Hoven subsequently obtained a permit to carry a concealed weapon, then purchased a handgun, which he brought to work, concealed in his pocket. During his fifth year of employment, two masked individuals with guns entered the store. One of the robbers pointed a gun at Hoven. Hoven backed away and fired his gun multiple times. No one was injured during the incident. Walgreens fired Hoven, asserting that he was an at-will employee that the company could fire at any time without cause. Hoven sued Walgreens, alleging that Walgreens violated public policy because it violated the right to bear arms language of the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Q1: Did Walgreens violate public policy when it terminated Hoven as an employee? Explain.

2. Fair Labor Standards Act Integrity Staffing Solutions, Inc. (Integrity) provides warehouse staffing to Amazon.com throughout the United States. Integrity warehouse employees retrieve products from shelves and package those products for delivery to Amazon customers. Integrity requires its employees to undergo an after-work antitheft security screening before leaving the warehouse at the end of each day. During this screening, employees remove items such as wallets, keys, and belts from their persons and pass through metal detectors. This process takes about 25 minutes. Jesse Busk and Laurie Castro, who worked as hourly employees of Integrity in Nevada warehouses, brought a class-action lawsuit alleging that Integrity violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) by not paying workers for this time and therefore owed them pay for the time spent during the security screenings.

Q2: Is the time spent waiting for and undergoing the security screenings compensable under the FLSA? Explain.

3. Overtime Pay Congress enacted an exemption to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) overtime pay requirements that specifically applies to businesses engaged in selling vehicles or implements to consumers. The exemption provides that the FLSA overtime pay rules do not apply to any salesman, partsman, or mechanic primarily engaged in selling or servicing automobiles, trucks, or farm implements if he is employed by a nonmanufacturing establishment primarily engaged in the business of selling such vehicles or implements to ultimate purchasers. Hector Navarro worked as a service advisor for Encino Motorcars, LLC (Encino) in a Mercedes-Benz dealership in California. Service advisors interact with customers and sell them services for their vehicles; suggest repair and maintenance services; follow up with customers as the services are performed; and explain the repair and maintenance work when customers return for their vehicles. Navarro and other service advisors sued Encino for back pay, alleging that Encino had violated the FLSA by failing to pay them overtime. Encino defended, asserting that service advisors are exempt from overtime pay.

Q3: Are service advisors exempt employees, for the purpose of overtime pay? Explain.

4. Workers Compensation Abigail Caudle was a 26-year-old apprentice electrician who worked for Raven Electric, Inc. (Raven). Raven was hired to complete the electrical work in remodeling a building in Anchorage, Alaska, where the electricians were to tear out old light fixtures. Raven did have temporary lights set up at the job site, so the light switches Caudle was working on were turned off, but no one had turned off the power at the electrical panel or otherwise disconnected power to the lights. Caudle began to remove the wire nuts from a light fixture and was electrocuted. Caudle was pronounced dead at the hospital less than an hour later. Raven carried workers compensation insurance. Because Caudle was unmarried and had no dependents at the time of her death, the Alaska Workers Compensation Act limited Ravens liability to $10,000 in funeral expenses and the payment of $10,000. Marianne Burke, Caudles nondependent mother, filed a workers compensation claim seeking death benefits as a dependent, claiming that in the future she could have been dependent on her daughter.

Q4: Is Burke entitled to workers compensation death benefits for her daughters death? Explain.