The Lex Machina team is excited to announce its Employment Practice Area now encompasses state law claims in federal court. Previously, the Employment Practice Area required claims to be based in federal employment law, but now includes cases with state law claims which are designated by a new “State Employment Claim” case tag. The expansion also features a new “State Statutory Penalties” damage type and 14 new findings encompassing various state law claims
The expansion further enhanced cases already in the Employment Practice Area and added new cases to the practice area that were previously listed as “Remaining Federal” on the platform. These newly enhanced cases include over 150,000 cases that have both federal and state law employment claims, as well as nearly 24,000 cases that contain only state law employment claims but no corresponding federal employment claim. This brings Lex Machina’s Employment Practice area to over 325,000 cases.
Analytics insights from the new dataset include:
- More employment cases contained state law employment claims than cases with only federal claims (over 175,000 vs. nearly 150,000)
- Looking at the top districts in overall employment cases compared to those with state law claims, the Central District of California jumped from sixth to second place as 89% of employment cases filed there contained state law claims. On the other hand, the Southern District of Florida dropped from first to fifth place as only 41% of employment cases filed there contained state law claims.
- Nearly $64 million in state statutory penalties have been awarded in cases filed 2010 or later.
- As with federal claims, courts ruled in favor of employers far more often than employees on state law employment claims. For example, courts found that there was no discrimination under state law 19 times more often than there was discrimination under state law, most often at summary judgment.
While the majority of employment cases in federal court have both state law and federal law claims, a large number of cases with only state law employment claims are filed in or removed to federal court. Now, users can find out how often a court remands these cases back to state court and other important case strategy information before filing a notice of removal.
Lex Machina used a combination of machine learning and attorney review to develop additional practice-specific case tags and filters. The new tags, findings, and damage awards sharpen the ability of legal professionals to quickly locate the critical information most relevant to their own cases. Legal Analytics illuminates the track records of opposing counsel and parties, the experience and behaviors of judges, case timing, resolutions, remedies, damages, and injunctions. These data-driven insights can play a critical role in helping legal professionals plan the most effective case strategy for their clients.
Depending on your subscription, users can access state law employment claims now.
To learn more, contact our sales team.