The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in 2017 decided a landmark civil rights case over a citizen's ability to record police officers in public, a decision that was immediately propelled to the forefront of the most significant legal rulings in the region.

In July, the Third Circuit joined a growing list of federal courts that have said the recording of police officers in public is protected by the First Amendment.

The July 7 ruling in the combined cases of Fields v. City of Philadelphia and Geraci v. City of Philadelphia came amid growing calls for police accountability and transparency in the wake of numerous high-profile police-involved shootings. These calls have led police departments to use body cameras and enhanced conflict resolution training for officers. With the Fields decision, civil rights advocates in the circuit, which covers Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware, scored a significant victory with the court's decision.

“We ask much of our police,” Third Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro wrote in the court's opinion. “They can be our shelter from the storm. Yet officers are public officials carrying out public functions, and the First Amendment requires them to bear bystanders recording their actions. This is vital to promote the access that fosters free discussion of governmental actions, especially when that discussion benefits not only citizens but the officers themselves.”

The ruling covers photographing, filming and audio recording, but there are limits to when recording can be done.

“We do not say that all recording is protected or desirable. The right to record police is not absolute,” Ambro added, noting that there are restrictions if, for example, the recording interferes with an investigation or exposes a confidential informant.

The decision stemmed from the combined cases of Amanda Geraci, a police watchdog group member, and Richard Fields, a Temple University student, who claimed Philadelphia police officers retaliated against them for filming officers in public.

On Break, but on the Clock

This year the court was also busy in the realm of employment law. One of its bigger decisions in the field was its ruling mandating employers to pay workers for short breaks of 20 minutes or less under the Fair Labor Standards Act

The court affirmed a district judge's ruling granting the secretary of the U.S. Department of Labor's motion for partial summary judgment on its claims that Progressive Business Publications failed to pay a minimum wage.

According to Third Circuit Judge Theodore McKee's opinion, Progressive's hourly employees were only paid so long as they were logged into their computers. While the company had eliminated paid 15-minute breaks, it allowed its employees to log off of their computers at any time, which Progressive calls “flexible time.”

Progressive stopped paying employees after they were logged off for more than 90 seconds. Employees were required to log off to get coffee and use the bathroom. The company argued on appeal that the time spent logged off does not constitute “work” under the FLSA.

“The policy that Progressive refers to as 'flexible time' forces employees to choose between such basic necessities as going to the bathroom or getting paid unless the employee can sprint from computer to bathroom, relieve him or herself while there, and then sprint back to his or her computer in less than 90 seconds,” McKee said.

He continued, “If the employee can somehow manage to do that, he or she will be paid for the intervening period. If the employee requires more than 90 seconds to get to the bathroom and back, the employee will not be paid for the period logged off of, and away from, the employee's computer. That result is absolutely contrary to the FLSA.”

Employment lawyers on both plaintiff and defense side said that while the decision offered a clear, bright-line rule that employees must be paid for breaks of 20 minutes or less, private suits on that issue have been few, and appear poised to remain so.

Joshua Vaughn, an associate in the Pittsburgh office of employment firm Littler Mendelson representing employers in wage-and-hour matters, said the paid breaks issue “is not a hot-button issue in private litigation,” and Progressive is “certainly not a wave-of-litigation case.”

“The primary reason is, the regulation is relatively clear,” Vaughn said. “Most employers know the 20-minute rule, and they're certainly not going to creatively argue [that it's not clear].”

$36M Asbestos Judgment Tossed

In April, the court ruled that an exclusion in Travelers insurance company's policy with a company hit with asbestos claims shields the insurer from paying $36 million to cover multiple settlements.

The appeals court overturned then-U.S. District Judge Luis Felipe Restrepo's holding that the language of the asbestos claim exclusion was ambiguous, leaving Travelers on the hook to cover the settlements. Restrepo is currently a Third Circuit judge.

The main dispute in the case was whether the policy exclusion dating back to 1978, which said coverage would not be extended for “claims arising out of asbestos,” was ambiguous and did not exclude coverage for “asbestos-containing products,” as plaintiff General Refractories Co. argued.

In the Third Circuit's opinion, Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie wrote that the exclusion's meaning was clear.

“While the district court engaged in a thorough analysis of the breadth of the term 'asbestos,' its focus was misplaced,” Vanaskie said. “The rest of the language at issue—'arising out of'—has an unambiguous legal meaning that renders any uncertainty concerning the meaning of the word 'asbestos' immaterial.”