WORKPLACE LAW - Employer in Santa Cruz
Question:
I heard there is a new United States Supreme Court ruling that establishes a broad scope of employer liability for employee retaliation claims. What is this new legal standard?
Answer:
On June 22, 2006, the United States Supreme Court established this new legal standard in the case of Burlington Northern and Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White. With this decision, the United States Supreme Court has for the first time defined the scope of employer liability for retaliatory acts based upon an employee’s complaint of unlawful discrimination or participation in the complaint process. Prior to this ruling, lower courts had reached different conclusions about whether the alleged retaliatory action has to be employment or workplace related, and about how harmful the action must be to constitute retaliation. California courts have previously articulated a broad standard in defining what constitutes retaliatory action. In order to resolve this unsettled area of the law, the Court addressed these matters in Burlington Northern.
In Burlington Northern, an employee complained to her employer, a railway company, that her supervisor had sexually harassed her. As a result, her supervisor was disciplined for sexual harassment; however, the employee was reassigned from her forklift duties to less desirable track laborer tasks. Based upon this reassignment of duties, the employee filed a retaliation complaint against her employer with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Thereafter, the employee was suspended without pay for 37 days, based upon alleged insubordination. The employer eventually reinstated the employee after an investigation cleared the employee of insubordination, and the employee was given back pay for the 37 days she was suspended. The employee filed another retaliation charge with the EEOC based on this suspension action. The issue before the United States Supreme Court was whether the employee’s claim that her employer had engaged in unlawful retaliation by changing her job responsibilities and suspending her for 37 days was a violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Title VII forbids retaliatory actions by an employer against an employee (or job applicant) because the employee has opposed a practice that Title VII forbids, or has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in a Title VII investigation, proceeding or hearing. The Court in Burlington Northern stated that Title VII is not limited to protecting employees only against retaliatory actions that are employment related, as some lower courts had previously held. Instead, the Court established a broader scope of protection for employees, and stated that employees are also protected under Title VII from retaliatory actions that are not directly related to employment, or that cause the employee harm outside of the workplace. The Court provided specific examples of the foregoing: 1) FBI retaliation against an employee in the form of the FBI’s refusal, contrary to policy, to investigate death threats by a federal prisoner against an employee and his wife; and 2) an employer filing false criminal charges against a former employee who complained about discrimination.
The Court also stated that an employee must show, using an objective standard, that another individual would have found the alleged retaliatory action “materially adverse.” This means that the retaliatory action would have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. The Court emphasized that this standard would screen out trivial conduct (i.e., petty slights, minor annoyances, lack of good manners) while effectively preventing significantly harmful actions that are likely to dissuade employees from complaining or assisting in complaints of discrimination.
Based upon this newly articulated standard, the Court found there was sufficient evidence to support the employee’s retaliation claim. The Court determined that the reassignment of the employee’s job duties could have been materially adverse to a reasonable employee since the reassigned duties were less desirable. The Court also found that even though the employer reinstated the employee following her 37-day suspension and provided her with back pay, the suspension without pay was materially adverse in and of itself.
In light of this new court ruling, employers should continue to be very cautious regarding what actions they take regarding an employee who, for example, has filed a discrimination complaint. This is because Burlington Northern clearly establishes that employers are potentially liable for actions that are not directly related to employment, or that cause the employee harm outside of the workplace.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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