In mid-December, NAPE filed our response in Lancaster County District Court to the DHHS Lawsuit attempting to overturn an Arbitrator’s binding decision regarding the employee dress code. In our response, NAPE’s attorney briefly set forth our argument that under Nebraska law, the Arbitrator’s decision is final and binding. Additionally, NAPE is asking the judge to declare the DHHS lawsuit frivolous and order DHHS to pay our legal fees for having to defend the frivolous action. We expect the case to be set for a hearing sometime in the next few months.
In the meantime, our advice to members is to obey your supervisor if they require you to wear business casual clothing and allow the legal process to play out. We will ask the judge to allow the arbitrator’s decision to stand unless the judge overturns the decision.
While you could choose to ignore your supervisor, that is not our advice. If an employee were to be disciplined based on the dress code invalidated by the arbitrator, we would defend our members, however, we never advise our members to do something that might lead to discipline – even if we would prevail in the discipline process. We will continue to keep our members updated on the legal process.