We last
wrote about Mitchell v. JCG Industries, No. 13-2115
(7th Cir. Mar. 18, 2014), in mid-March, when one judge on the
panel (all suspected Judge Posner) confirmed his
"intuition" that plaintiffs in a donning-and-doffing case
overstated the time that it took to don certain articles of
protective clothing by conducting an experiment in his chambers,
recording and timing his clerks as they put on the same articles
that the plaintiffs donned daily at their employer's
poultry-processing plant.
Yesterday the Seventh Circuit denied rehearing en banc in the case by a 6-4
vote. Judge Williams wrote an opinion dissenting from the denial,
joined by Chief Judge Wood (who dissented from the panel decision
too) and Judges Rovner and Hamilton. Judge Posner wrote an opinion
concurring in the denial–a move "virtually unheard
of"–where he admitted that he and his clerks conducted
the experiment (freeing Judge Kanne from any untoward suspicion)
and where he further defended the
