In 18 years on the federal bench, President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee Judge Sonia Sotomayor has authored a number of published opinions in employment and labor cases.  In addition to the usual range of Title VII discrimination lawsuits, as a district court judge for the Southern District of New York, Sotomayor handled FLSA class actions, Equal Pay Act claims, and a variety of traditional labor cases involving strikes, grievance-arbitration procedures, collective bargaining, and pre-emption. Perhaps her most famous decision in the labor arena occurred in Silverman v. MLBPRC, whereshe issued an injunction sending the parties back to the bargaining table and ending the Major League baseball strike that had caused the cancellation of the playoffs and World Series in 1994.  As an appellate judge on the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, Sotomayor sat on the three-judge panel that heard Ricci v. DeStefano, currently under review by the U.S. Supreme Court, and affirmed the district court’s ruling that the City of New Haven, Connecticut, properly threw out the results of a promotional exam on the grounds that the exam had a disproportionately negative impact on African-American firefighters.

Some patterns emerge from Sotomayor’s decisions. For example, while she regularly granted summary judgment in favor of the employer in race and age discrimination cases, she ruled in favor of the employee in the four disability discrimination cases and the two sexual harassment cases she considered while on the Court of Appeals.  And, while she ruled against management in the Silverman case, more of her labor decisions have favored the company, including decisions upholding arbitration provisions and management’s right to bargain for restraints on trade.  Given her broad experience in this area of the law, it seems likely that Judge Sotomayor will play a key role in future employment and labor decisions should she be confirmed.