Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, WAGE-HOUR—D. Md.: Nuclear power employees sent back to drawing board on wage-fixing claims, (Aug 10, 2026)

By Justin Marcus Smith, J.D.

The central problem was the complaint mainly alleged normal business activity, and rule-of-reason claims were time-barred.

Employees failed to plead a viable Sherman Act class action complaint against nuclear power generation defendants in connection with allegations of wage fixing, held the federal district court in Baltimore, Maryland. The employees did not allege facts amounting to direct evidence of an agreement to fix or suppress wages. Their allegations fell short of stating a claim based on circumstantial evidence of such an agreement because they did not establish parallel conduct, plus factors, or other circumstantial evidence of a wage-fixing agreement. Accordingly, the per se count failed to state a claim on which relief could be granted. As for the rule-of-reason claim, the court did not need to assess the parties’ various arguments about the relevant product and geographic markets because the named employee plaintiffs alleged no acts or resultant injuries personal to them during the four-year statutory period. The continuing violation doctrine did not apply, and the employees did not plead plausible fraudulent concealment, so their claims as pleaded were timed-out under the four-year limitations period of the Sherman Act. Dismissal of the first amended complaint was without prejudice because curative amendment seemed possible. The Tennessee Valley Authority lacked sovereign immunity and was a “person” for Sherman Act purposes, but the court dismissed the per se claim as barred under the doctrine of antitrust immunity. The court mostly denied other motions to dismiss as moot (Dorrell v. Constellation Energy Corp., No. 1:25-cv-02251-ABA (D. Md. Aug. 5, 2026)).

Background. Three nuclear power employees brought a putative class action accusing the U.S. nuclear power generation industry (power companies) of conspiring to suppress wages. Among other things, the complaint described the Nuclear Human Resources Group (NHRG), a trade association of all U.S. and Canadian commercial nuclear power entities, as a central figure in the alleged conspiracy. According to the complaint, the power companies discussed compensation; exchanged collective bargaining agreements (CBAs); reviewed compensation surveys; and coordinated approaches to compensation and labor issues at both the general NHRG conference and project meetings.

The employees asserted two claims under the Sherman Antitrust Act: (1) a claim that the power companies engaged in per se horizontal price fixing; and (2) a rule of reason claim that they agreed to share competitively sensitive, non-public compensation information. The employees sought to represent nearly every individual employed in nuclear power generation since 2003.

The power company defendants filed a joint omnibus motion to dismiss both counts for failure to state a claim and for expiration of the four-year Sherman Act limitations period. Discrete defendants or groups of defendants, including the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), filed other motions to dismiss for lack of subject matter or personal jurisdiction or for more specific failures to state a claim.

Per se claim. Witness statements and other facts alleged in the complaint did not sufficiently constitute direct evidence of a horizontal wage-fixing agreement to support the per se count, albeit they could be circumstantial evidence.

The power companies argued that certain putative witness statements about information did not rise to the level of direct evidence of an agreement to fix wages. Specifically, they argued that none of the witness statements specifically alleged an agreement to fix compensation, or to use benchmarking data at all. They added there was little to show witness tenure to prove a 23-year conspiracy period.

The plaintiffs responded that the witness statements were direct evidence of an anticompetitive agreement as the statements unequivocally stated a collaboration to “align” certain aspects of compensation.

The court found the witness statements potentially showed a pattern or practice among some power companies to share information, and to collaborate, and that some power companies may have been trying to avoid “outrageous salaries.” However, none of these things were direct evidence of a wage-fixing agreement.

The parties disagreed on how to assess the evidence circumstantially. The power companies urged that the complaint did not allege the parallel conduct and plus factors necessary to infer a plausible agreement. The employees said they only needed to plead the “who, what, when and where” of alleged antitrust misconduct and that they did not need to allege parallel conduct at all to show circumstantial evidence of a per se antitrust claim.

The court found the comparative wage rates the employees cited were not enough to show parallel conduct. They related to different employee tenures, without clear alignment of job responsibilities, and pay rates for positions did not align in the other years included in the CBAs. As for pay increases, isolation of one-fourth of the defendants with increases tracking the rate of inflation were not enough to allege parallel conduct amounting to a horizontal wage-fixing agreement. The conduct merely related to exchange and individualized use of information.

As to plus factors, the employees sufficiently asserted a power generation labor market with very high barriers to entry and susceptibility to wage push. The employees got close to the mark about action against self-interest except that much of the information from CBAs and surveys showing aggregated value was public. Assertions about industry conferences and certain statements were not enough to suggest cartel behavior at the pleading stage.

On the whole, the circumstantial allegations did not plausibly suggest an agreement about how much to fix wages. Information exchange alone was not enough. As already explained, the employees also failed to answer the “what” of the alleged conspiracy because it was not clear that there was more involved than haphazard individual use of shared information. Even if parallel conduct were not required, the allegations would have still failed to adequately allege circumstantial evidence of an agreement to fix or suppress wages.

Rule-of-reason claim. The court concluded it did not need to address the parties’ various arguments about the adequacy of the pleadings on substantive questions because the employees claims were time-barred. The court said it would consider whether the rule-of-reason claim failed to state a claim for relief only after potential amendment.

The power companies did not appear to dispute that there was an agreement to exchange information. They only challenged that the employees failed to an allege an unlawful agreement. To that end, they contended the relevant market was implausibly broad given overinclusion of unrelated roles and failure to distinguish between employment elasticity for different roles and distinct job markets within the twenty-eight different states implicated. They also argued the amended complaint failed to show anticompetitive effects because it did not allege that the information exchanged would tend to suppress wages or that wages were in fact suppressed.

The employees argued they properly limited the relevant market to nuclear power generation jobs, which often involve special degrees and licenses, in an interconnected nationwide market. They also contended they directly pleaded anticompetitive effects based on alleged compensation suppression with indirect pleading of anticompetitive effects based on market concentration and exchange of current and future as well as disaggregated compensation data.

The problem for now was about the limitations period. The named plaintiff employees pleaded they were employed, indicating they were no longer employed, during a class period that extended back to 2003, without further qualification. The failure to plead employment on or after July 11, 2021, was a “fundamental flaw” that required dismissal of the amended complaint on limitations grounds. The complaint did not allege that any named plaintiff suffered harm as a result of competitive acts that took place after July 2021. As for the continuing violation doctrine after July 2021, the named plaintiffs did not have timely claims personal to them.

As for fraudulent concealment, the employees alleged the power companies maintained, in some instances, compensation groups separate from the rest of their human resources (HR) departments; used passwords to protect CBA repository and compensation comparison reports (CCRs) on a “give-to-get” basis; exchanged information in secret “closed door” sessions during NHRG conferences, related meetings, and direct phone conversations; and made allegedly false website statements about “competitive pay and benefits.” The employees said they were not aware of such things until after July 11, 2021.

Even if that were all facially so, the court concluded the complaint did not allege intent to conceal an antitrust conspiracy through fraud. The alleged exchange of compensation information for benchmarking purposes was not obviously unlawful. Allegations about secretive meetings did not make them seem more secretive than ordinary trade association breakout sessions and did not show intent to avoid detection of an unlawful antitrust scheme. Mere phone calls were not enough to infer fraudulent intent in light of significant distribution of written CBA and CCR communications.

TVA motion. The court concluded TVA lacked sovereign immunity and was a “person” for Sherman Act purposes. The court also found no conflict between the TVA Act and the allegations of the per se claim. However, the court dismissed the per se claim as barred under the doctrine of antitrust immunity.

As for sovereign immunity, TVA decisions about employee compensation were commercial, not governmental, in nature. Something any power company might do was not an exclusive or traditional governmental function.

As for putative antitrust immunity, there was only one case squarely on point, and it only considered conflict between the Sherman Act and the TVA Act. As for the per se claim, the TVA Act indeed required TVA to conduct an annual compensation survey, but doing so was a “far cry” from explicitly agreeing to fix and suppress wages. Nothing in the TVA Act required it to do that. As for the rule-of-reason claim, the court agreed to dismiss, with prejudice, because the bulk of the factual foundation consisted of conduct that TVA was statutorily required to undertake.

Nonresident companies. The court decided not to dismiss claims against the nonresident defendants with prejudice at this juncture based on conspiracy jurisdiction considerations and potential minimum contacts with Maryland. The court denied dismissal as moot without prejudice and with leave to raise the same arguments later.

Other motions. The court denied the FirstEnergy motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim as moot because it matched the arguments already made in the omnibus motion to dismiss. The court granted the Southern California Edison Company (SCE) motion to dismiss because the court already concluded that the employees failed to allege fraudulent concealment, but the dismissal was without prejudice. As for withdrawal as a complete defense, the court denied the SCE motion to dismiss with prejudice as moot because withdrawal is not a compete defense against all liability.

Bankruptcy defendants. The parties agreed that four bankruptcy defendants could not be liable for alleged antitrust activity that took place before their discharge dates. Conversely, they might be liable for later acts. Nothing here was substantively distinct from the other power companies. The court denied the bankruptcy defendants’ motion to dismiss with prejudice and otherwise denied dismissal as moot.

The Case is No. 1:25-cv-02251-ABA.

Judge: Abelson, A.

Attorneys: Matthew Keith Handley (Handley Farah & Anderson PLLC) for Leo Dorrell. Catie Ventura (Kirkland & Ellis LLP) for Constellation Energy Corp.

Companies: Constellation Energy Corp.

Cases: WageHour Procedure MarylandNews