In Brief

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Updated Jan 21, 2010

UPS’s termination of a part-time employee for undocumented absence did not violate the employee’s rights under the Family Medical Leave Act because the employee did not suffer a serious health condition within the meaning of the FMLA, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled. The employee, who had been hit by a car while riding his bicycle, suffered only contusions and mild-to-moderate back pain that continued because he did not fill a prescription. He did not provide sufficient evidence of a more serious condition, the court ruled.


Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration will require shippers of hazardous materials to include their name or contract number on shipping papers. PHMSA says the final rulemaking, published Oct. 19 in the Federal Register, will preserve the effectiveness of first responders in obtaining accurate and timely emergency response information about the hazardous material as needed. The rulemaking can be found at www.phmsa.dot.gov/hazmat/regs/rulemaking/final.


Pablo Morales, a former foreman for Adams Moving and Storage of Brooklyn, N.Y., pled guilty in U.S. District Court in New York City to a scheme of fraudulently inflating the cost of moving customers’ household goods. Morales helped provide AMS customers with lowball estimates, only to have the cost of the move increased – in some cases doubled or tripled – after the customers’ property was loaded on the moving truck, according to the Department of Transportation’s Office of the Inspector General; AMS would not release the customers’ goods until they agreed to pay the inflated rate.


California Air Resources Board fined Montebello-based waste hauler Key Disposal Inc. $500,000 for failing to adequately inspect its fleet and retrofit some of its vehicles with diesel filters.