Thread: U.S. Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Mohawk Case

MONDAY, JANUARY 26, 2009 10:00:00 AM

U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Mohawk case
BY CHRIS RIZO

WASHINGTON (Legal Newsline)- The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider an appeal by Mohawk Industries Inc., which wants kept secret its communications with a lawyer who investigated an employee complaint the company was hiring undocumented workers.

The employee who made the complaint -- a shift supervisor at its Union Grove, Ga., manufacturing facility, Norman Carpenter -- says he was fired after making the allegations, court papers say.

He sued the floor covering manufacturer, saying Mohawk threatened and fired him for testifying in a separate class action lawsuit that alleged Mohawk conspired to hire undocumented workers in an effort to cut costs and depress the wages of Mohawk's legal employees.

At trial, Carpenter tried to obtain information from the Mohawk lawyer's investigation of his complaint. But the Calhoun-Ga.-based company said it had a right to keep the internal probe under wraps because the information was protected by the attorney-client privilege.

U.S. District Court Judge Harold Murphy disagreed, saying the company had waived its confidentiality right in an earlier proceeding. Mohawk sought to appeal the ruling, but the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the company could not do so.

The company appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The case is Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter, 08-678.

http://www.legalnewsline.com/news/21877 ... ohawk-case

So Mohawk wants to sweep the the communications under the rug

So this must be a separate case and not the same one from a couple of years ago when a group of Americans sued because they were fired from Mohawk for no reason and replaced with illegal aliens??? Anyone know the outcome of that case, if any??

Originally Posted by florgal

So this must be a separate case and not the same one from a couple of years ago when a group of Americans sued because they were fired from Mohawk for no reason and replaced with illegal aliens??? Anyone know the outcome of that case, if any??

found this in Alipac search http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-130497-0.html

This may be the case http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-46781-0.html

Originally Posted by jimpasz

This may be the case http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-46781-0.html

Yep, that's it! Thanks jimpasz!