Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, SUPREME COURT NEWS—High Court denies cert in handful of employment cases as new term kicks off, (Oct 7, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

Among them are cases involving collective bargaining, the EFAA, and travel time compensation.

In an order list issued on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court, beginning its 2025-26 term, denied certiorari to an array of labor and employment cases.

In Nursing Home Care Management v. Chavez-DeRemer, No. 24-1171, the Court was asked to consider whether a prior interaction between an employer and the Department of Labor put the employer on notice sufficient to justify a willfulness finding for future violations and whether under the FLSA and Portal-to-Portal Act private employers must pay employees (in this case home health aides) for time spent traveling between client homes. Below, the Third Circuit had found that the employer willfully violated the FLSA by failing to pay its home health aides for time spent traveling between client homes and had also determined “Travel time is compensable when an employee lacks the time to go off duty.”

In Wells v. Texas Tech University, No. 24-1239, the Court was asked to consider whether an unpaid position qualified someone to be an “employee” under Title VII in a case involving a former student and researcher at Texas Tech University. Below, the Fifth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, had rejected the researcher’s Title VII and other claims, among other things concluding that the researcher was not an “employee” for purposes of Title VII while serving as an unpaid mentor in a university program in 2022. Without direct financial benefits or significant indirect benefits beyond those “purely incidental to her volunteer service,” the court below had concluded no plausible employment relationship existed.

In Cornelius v. CVS Pharmacy, Inc., No. 25-139, the Court was asked to consider whether under the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act of 2021 (EFAA), which is “applicable with respect to any dispute or claim that arises or accrues on or after Mar. 3, 2022,” the term “any dispute” means any dispute arising between the parties or just the first dispute arising between the parties. Below, the Third Circuit found that a former CVS supervisor’s gender-based hostile work environment claims—concerning alleged sex-based harassment by her male manager that began in 2018—were not covered by the EFAA because the “dispute” in the case “arose” long before the EFAA’s March 3, 2022, effective date.

In Cestaro v. Rodriguez, No. 24-1274, the Court was asked to consider the parameters of the affirmative defense it recognized in 1977 in Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle—that the government employer would have taken the same action anyway for reasons other than an employee’s Constitutionally protected speech. Below, in an unpublished order, the Second Circuit had affirmed a district court decision granting summary judgment in favor of the employer (supervisors) of an Administrative Law Judge for the New York State Workers’ Compensation Board in a case in which the ALJ alleged his supervisors violated his First Amendment rights by rescinding his promotion to a senior position after viewing a TikTok video depicting him arguing with a transit employee about the requirement that he cover his mouth and nose with a mask while on a train.

In Hood River Distillers, Inc. v. NLRB, No. 25-118, the Court was asked to consider the parameters of the impasse exception to the bar against unilateral changes by an employer during bargaining by reviewing a ruling by the D.C. Circuit upholding an NLRB decision finding that a liquor distillery had violated the NLRA by unilaterally changing the employment terms of its unionized employees.

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