The plaintiff worked for a bank as a branch manager. After working at one branch for about a year, he was transferred to another branch. As a branch manager, he supervised the activities of other employees at the branch. When he arrived at the plaintiff's former branch, the new branch manager performed a cash audit and discovered $58,000 missing.
An investigation revealed numerous pictures of the plaintiff and his employees violating the bank's dual-control policy when they handled cash, especially cash in automatic teller machines (ATMs). In addition, current and former employees at the branch indicated the plaintiff had violated the dual-control policy.
As part of the investigation, the bank asked the plaintiff to take a lie-detector test. The plaintiff refused and was terminated. During the termination, the plaintiff's supervisor told the plaintiff that he was terminated because of his violations of the dual-control policy, not for refusing to take a lie-detector test.
In the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, the plaintiff sued the bank for violating the Employee Polygraph Protection Act (EPPA) and for violating the Consolidated Omnibus Reconciliation Act (COBRA). COBRA contains a provision that requires employers to notify employees of a right to continue their health-care coverage (continuation right). The district court granted a summary judgment to the defendant, and the plaintiff appealed to the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals.
The appeals court found that the district court was correct in awarding summary judgment on the EPPA claim, but wrong in awarding summary judgment for the COBRA claim.
Although EPPA generally prohibits employers from requiring, requesting, suggesting, or causing an employee to take a lie-detector test, employers can require a test if four conditions are met:
The appeals court found that the employer had met these conditions. 29 U.S.C. § 2002.
Under COBRA, an employer, through its health-care administrator, must notify an employee of his right to continue his health insurance after his termination. The employer must notify the health-care administrator of the employee's termination within 30 days. The administrator must notify the employee of his continuing right within 14 days. So after the plaintiff's termination on March 19, 2007, the employer had up to 44 days to notify the plaintiff of his continuation right—that is, until May 2, 2007. 29 U.S.C. §§ 1163 and 1166.
In this case, the plaintiff says—and the defendant doesn't dispute for appeal purposes—that he never received his COBRA notification. So the court's decision concerns whether the plaintiff's improper-notice claim was filed within the 1-year time limit required for filing the claim. In this case, the defendant maintained that statute of limitations began to run on the day after the employer had to notify the plaintiff of his continuation right (when the notification period expired)—that is, May 3, 2007. The plaintiff maintained that the statute of limitations began to run from the date on which he found out about his injury. The court of appeals adopted the plaintiff's point of view, reversing the district court's decision. The court of appeals noted that employees are not expected to instinctively know of their right to continue their health-care coverage. To start the limitations period when the notification period expires would create a situation where the limitations period could run out before the plaintiff even knew he was injured. See Cummings v. Washington Mutual, decided on August 22, 2011.
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