Category Archives: Retaliation claims

Legislative Update: Insurance industry seeks amendment to West Virginia Human Rights Act

Insur­ance com­pa­nies have been urg­ing the West Vir­ginia Leg­is­la­ture to pass leg­is­la­tion to over­turn the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court’s deci­sion in Michael v. Appalachi­an Heat­ing, LLC, 701 S.E.2d 116 (June 11, 2010). In Michael, the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court held that the West Vir­ginia Human Rights Act pro­hib­it­ed dis­crim­i­na­tion by an insur­ance com­pa­ny in set­tling claims cov­ered by an insur­ance policy.

The Michael Decision

Gen­er­al­ly, the Human Rights Act pro­hibits dis­crim­i­na­tion (1) in the work­place, (2) in places of pub­lic accom­mo­da­tion (like hotels, shop­ping cen­ters), and (3) in con­nec­tion with trans­ac­tions involv­ing hous­ing and real estate (like rent­ing apart­ments and buy­ing houses).

But at issue in Michael was sec­tion 5–11‑9(7) of the Human Rights Act, which was not lim­it­ed to those three cat­e­gories of activ­i­ty. Here is the rel­e­vant lan­guage in sec­tion 5–11‑9(7)(A);

It shall be an unlaw­ful dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tice [based on race, reli­gion, col­or, nation­al ori­gin, ances­try, sex, age, and disability] …

(7) For any per­son, employ­er, employ­ment agency, labor orga­ni­za­tion, own­er, real estate bro­ker, real estate sales­man or finan­cial insti­tu­tion to:

(A) Engage in [1] any form of threats or reprisal, or to [2] engage in, or hire, or con­spire with oth­ers to com­mit acts or activ­i­ties of any nature, the pur­pose of which is to harass, degrade, embar­rass or cause phys­i­cal harm or eco­nom­ic loss or [3] to aid, abet, incite, com­pel or coerce any per­son to engage in any of the unlaw­ful dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices defined in this section .…

In sub­part (7)(A) above I have brack­et­ed the three spe­cif­ic caus­es of action (legal the­o­ries) which the Supreme Court said are dis­cernible in sub­part (7)(A). I have also bold­ed the sec­ond cause of action, which was the key cause of action at issue in the Michael case.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Leg­isla­tive Update: Insur­ance indus­try seeks amend­ment to West Vir­ginia Human Rights Act

The disastrous consequences of the N‑word in the workplace. Just ask Dr. Laura!

Okay, this arti­cle has noth­ing to do with Dr. Lau­ra Sch­lessinger and her “rant” in which she used the N‑word repeat­ed­ly on her radio pro­gram when respond­ing to an African-Amer­i­can caller. But the ensu­ing con­tro­ver­sy (see arti­cles for and against Dr. Lau­ra), and her deci­sion to end her long-run­ning radio pro­gram, high­light the extra­or­di­nary sig­nif­i­cance of the N‑word term in Amer­i­can society.

The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court recent­ly dealt with the N‑word in a case that high­lights the great risks for employ­ers when that word enters the workplace.

In PAR Elec­tri­cal Con­trac­tors, Inc. v. Bev­elle , 225 W. Va. 624, 695 S.E.2d 854, 2010 WL 2244096 (June 3, 2010) (per curi­am), the West Vir­ginia Supreme Court dealt with a claim of a racial­ly based hos­tile work envi­ron­ment under the West Vir­ginia Human Rights Act, and con­clud­ed that the West Vir­ginia Human Rights Com­mis­sion was jus­ti­fied in find­ing for the employ­ee. The deci­sion was unan­i­mous. Click here for the WV Human Rights Com­mis­sion’s deci­sion which was affirmed by the WV Supreme Court.

A Single Day, With the N‑Word Again and Again

PAR Elec­tri­cal was build­ing “giant tow­ers” for a high volt­age elec­tri­cal trans­mis­sion line. Richard Wayne Bev­elle was hired by PAR Elec­tri­cal on March 22, 2005, and, after work­ing as a “ground­man” assem­bling the tow­er bases, was assigned to load heli­copters with parts to con­struct the tow­ers (this heli­copter job was described as a “gravy job” by the Human Rights Com­mis­sion). Mr. Bev­elle is African-American.

Con­tin­ue read­ing The dis­as­trous con­se­quences of the N‑word in the work­place. Just ask Dr. Lau­ra!

Drew Capuder will be speaking on retaliation law on Oct 29–30, 2010 at Oglebay Park in Wheeling

I will be speak­ing (and pre­sent­ing on arti­cle) on recent devel­op­ments in retal­i­a­tion under fed­er­al and West Vir­ginia employ­ment law on either Octo­ber 29 or 30, 2010 at the annu­al con­fer­ence of the West Vir­ginia Employ­ment Lawyers Asso­ci­a­tion. The con­fer­ence will be at Ogle­bay Resort and Con­fer­ence Cen­ter in Wheel­ing, West Vir­ginia. The final sched­ule is not out yet, so I don’t know whether my speech with be on Octo­ber 29 or 30.

Retal­i­a­tion law in recent years has been one of those devel­op­ing areas, and much more often than not the move­ment in the case law has been in the direc­tion of expand­ing pro­tec­tions for employ­ees against retal­i­a­tion. The US Supreme Court espe­cial­ly has focused on retal­i­a­tion law, and has “plugged gaps” in the law for fed­er­al employ­ees to include pro­tec­tion for retal­i­a­tion claims, has low­ered the thresh­old for what is action­able retal­i­a­tion, and has broad­ened the def­i­n­i­tion of “oppo­si­tion” which enti­tles employ­ees to protection.

One of the dan­gers for employ­ers from retal­i­a­tion claims is that, after an employ­ee com­plains about alleged dis­crim­i­na­tion, the employ­er may be guilty of retal­i­a­tion even if a jury decides there was no dis­crim­i­na­tion to sup­port the employee’s orig­i­nal com­plaint. An employ­ee may suc­ceed in a retal­i­a­tion claim as long as his com­plaint was made in good faith, even if the employ­ee was wrong about the com­plaint of discrimination.

In the pri­or 2 years at the annu­al con­fer­ence for WVELA, I spoke and wrote arti­cles on awards of attor­neys’ fees under employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion laws, and on age dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Sorry boss, I didn’t know you were having sex in the office!!

The West Vir­ginia Supreme Court recent­ly issued an opin­ion deal­ing with one of those stereo­typ­i­cal­ly awk­ward sit­u­a­tions, where an employ­ee alleged­ly stum­bles into a room where the boss is hav­ing sex with a co-work­er. The deci­sion was  Roth v. DeFe­lice­Care, Inc., 226 W. Va. 214, 700 S.E.2d 183 (June 8, 2010) (per curi­am). It was a 3–2 deci­sion, in which the 3‑vote major­i­ty con­sist­ed of Jus­tices Robin Davis, Mar­garet Work­man, and  Thomas McHugh. Jus­tices Menis Ketchum and Brent Ben­jamin dis­sent­ed, and Jus­tice Ketchum wrote a dis­sent­ing opinion.

The Facts–Sex at Work

These are the facts accord­ing to the com­plaint in the law­suit: Tri­cia Roth was a res­pi­ra­to­ry ther­a­pist work­ing at DeFe­lice­Care, Inc. in Ohio Coun­ty, West Vir­ginia, and she was about to go on vaca­tion. She was direct­ed by Leslie DeFe­lice (the male boss/owner) to come to work some­time dur­ing the week­end pre­ced­ing her vaca­tion in June 2006. She was not told a spe­cif­ic time to come to work dur­ing that week­end. When she came to work as ordered, she “observed Defen­dant [Leslie] DeFe­lice and/or Michelle Kel­ly par­tial­ly clothed and in a com­pro­mis­ing posi­tion”. Mr. DeFe­lice instruct­ed Ms. Roth to go into a con­fer­ence room and wait–meanwhile Mr. DeFe­lice and the oth­er employ­ee got all their clothes back on. Mr. DeFe­lice then talked to Ms. Roth and told her to for­get about what she had just seen, and threat­ened Ms. Ross with the loss of her res­pi­ra­to­ry ther­a­py license and the loss of her employment.

Ms. Roth then went on vaca­tion. When she got back from vaca­tion and returned to work, she had a meet­ing with Mr. DeFe­lice that did­n’t go well. Ms. Roth told Mr. DeFe­lice that she had­n’t told any­one about his sex­u­al encounter at work. Mr. DeFe­lice pro­ceed­ed to fire Ms. Roth because “he did not like how she was dressed” and “he did not like the style[/]color of her hair”.

Ms. Roth Files Suit–Case Dismissed

Ms. Roth then filed suit on legal the­o­ries cen­ter­ing around sex dis­crim­i­na­tion and sex­u­al harass­ment, and–bada bing!–the case prompt­ly got dismissed.

Ms. Roth’s com­plaint (the doc­u­ment which starts the law­suit and describes the plain­tiff’s alle­ga­tions) focused on the sex­u­al inci­dent I have described above, but also made alle­ga­tions about oth­er sex­u­al harassment–I will dis­cuss those details below.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Sor­ry boss, I didn’t know you were hav­ing sex in the office!!

Analysis: The “No Blood No Foul” Rule. When is an Employer’s Conduct Severe Enough to Constitute Retaliation?

I pre­vi­ous­ly wrote about the Supreme Court’s retal­i­a­tion deci­sion in Burling­ton North­ern & Sante Fe Rail­way Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006) (“Burling­ton North­ern v. White”), in which the US Supreme Court sub­stan­tial­ly broad­ened the abil­i­ty of employ­ees to file retal­i­a­tion claims under Title VII of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964. It was a unan­i­mous (9–0) decision.

National Basketball Association I want­ed to set out some addi­tion­al thoughts about Burling­ton North­ern, because it address­es an issue that has trou­bled the courts in inter­pret­ing the fed­er­al anti-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws: When is an employ­er’s con­duct seri­ous enough in dis­ad­van­tag­ing an employ­ee so that the employ­ee has a claim under the employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion laws? The answer is easy when the employ­er’s deci­sion affects the employ­ee’s pock­et book, like with ter­mi­na­tion, fail­ure to hire, demo­tions, and the like. The answer has been much hard­er when the employ­er’s con­duct did­n’t direct­ly affect the employ­ee’s pock­et book.

NBA ref­er­ees strug­gle with a sim­i­lar issue: where is there enough phys­i­cal con­tact on the court to jus­ti­fy call­ing a foul on a play­er. So let’s explore some par­al­lels between these employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion issues and the NBA’s “no blood no foul” rule.

The NBA’s “No Blood No Foul” Rule

If you watch Nation­al Bas­ket­ball Asso­ci­a­tion games, you might be struck by how much phys­i­cal con­tact there is on the court and how rarely the ref­er­ees call per­son­al fouls over that phys­i­cal con­tact. Fans of the NBA have only a par­tial­ly kid­ding way to refer to the “stan­dard” by which the ref­er­ees decide how much con­tact will result in a per­son­al foul being called. It’s the “no blood no foul” rule. In oth­er words, the ref­er­ees will allow a lot of phys­i­cal con­tact, and will only call a foul when some­one gets blood­ied as a result of the con­tact.

Let’s assume, with our tongues in our cheeks, that there is such a rule (no blood no foul) that NBA ref­er­ees apply, regard­less of what is writ­ten in the Offi­cial Rules. The idea behind the “no blood no foul” rule is this: there is so much fast-paced hur­ley-burly con­tact on the bas­ket­ball court, much of which makes it more excit­ing for the fans, that call­ing a foul for any phys­i­cal con­tact (or a low­er defined lev­el of phys­i­cal con­tact) would slow down the game for fans and make the game less enjoy­able, unrea­son­ably impede the skill of the play­ers, and makes it impos­si­bly hard for offi­cials to iden­ti­fy “con­tact”. So the appear­ance of blood is a more “objec­tive” indi­ca­tion that the con­tact real­ly mat­tered and real­ly con­sti­tut­ed an unfair inter­fer­ence with the oth­er player.

The Supreme Court Struggles With “When is There a Foul”?

Courts for years have strug­gled with the employ­ment dis­crim­i­na­tion equiv­a­lent of the “no blood no foul” rule. For the courts, assum­ing unlaw­ful dis­crim­i­na­tion occurred: when is the con­se­quence of the dis­crim­i­na­tion seri­ous enough and objec­tive­ly dis­cernible so that courts will rec­og­nize a claim and inter­vene by acti­vat­ing the court’s process and poten­tial­ly award­ing damages.

Except for sit­u­a­tions involv­ing hos­tile work envi­ron­ment, the courts have trans­lat­ed the NBA’s blood require­ment into a tan­gi­ble eco­nom­ic con­se­quence. Thus, much in the spir­it of the NBA, the courts have said eco­nom­ic harm must be demon­stra­ble as a result of dis­crim­i­na­tion, or else the courts won’t enter­tain the claim no eco­nom­ic con­se­quence, no legal vio­la­tion, case dismissed.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Analy­sis: The “No Blood No Foul” Rule. When is an Employer’s Con­duct Severe Enough to Con­sti­tute Retal­i­a­tion?

US Supreme Court Broadens Definition of “Opposition”; for Retaliation Claims; Crawford v Metropolitan Government of Nashville, 1–26-09

1/26/09: In Craw­ford v. Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment of Nashville and David­son Coun­ty, Ten­nessee, 129 S. Ct. 846 (2009), the US Supreme Court unan­i­mous­ly ruled that an employ­ee engaged in pro­tect­ed activ­i­ty under Title VII’s retal­i­a­tion pro­vi­sion by answer­ing an employ­er’s ques­tions in con­nec­tion with a sex­u­al harass­ment inves­ti­ga­tion start­ed by com­pa­ny rumors about a male super­vi­sor. Jus­tice Souter wrote the major­i­ty opin­ion, joined by Roberts, Stevens, Scalia, Kennedy, Gins­burg, and Brey­er. Jus­tice Ali­to wrote an opin­ion, con­cur­ring in the judg­ment, joined by Jus­tice Thomas.

Ms. Crawford Responds to an Investigation into Sexual Harassment

USSupremeCourt Here is what hap­pened: Rumors start­ed cir­cu­lat­ing about sex­u­al­ly inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior by a male super­vi­sor, Gene Hugh­es, at “Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment of Nashville and David­son Coun­ty” (“Metro”). A human resources employ­ee start­ed inves­ti­gat­ing, and asked Vicky Craw­ford whether she had seen any inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior by Mr. Hugh­es. Craw­ford respond­ed yes, and described sev­er­al instances of sex­u­al­ly inap­pro­pri­ate behav­ior. For exam­ple, Ms. Craw­ford had asked Mr. Hugh­es “what’s up”, and he respond­ed by grab­bing his crotch and say­ing “you know what’s up”. On anoth­er occa­sion, Mr. Hugh­es grabbed Ms. Craw­ford’s head and pulled it toward his crotch. The human resources employ­ee talked to two oth­er employ­ees who sim­i­lar­ly report­ed sex­u­al­ly harass­ing behav­ior from Mr. Hughes.

Con­tin­ue read­ing US Supreme Court Broad­ens Def­i­n­i­tion of “Oppo­si­tion”; for Retal­i­a­tion Claims; Craw­ford v Met­ro­pol­i­tan Gov­ern­ment of Nashville, 1–26–09

Supreme Court “fills in the blank” to recognize retaliation claims for federal employees under ADEA; Gomez-Perez v. Potter, 2008

USPS Logo 5–27-08: The US Supreme Court in Gomez-Perez v. Pot­ter, 128 S. Ct. 1931 (2008) ruled that the Age Dis­crim­i­na­tion in Employ­ment Act of 1967, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq., pro­hib­it­ed retal­i­a­tion against fed­er­al employ­ees who had com­plained about age dis­crim­i­na­tion, even though the fed­er­al employ­ee sec­tion of the ADEA did not express­ly pro­hib­it retal­i­a­tion. This was a 6–3 deci­sion. The major­i­ty opin­ion was writ­ten by Jus­tice Ali­to, in which Jus­tices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Gins­burg, and Brey­er joined. Jus­tices Roberts, Scalia, and Thomas dis­sent­ed, with dis­sent­ing opin­ions being writ­ten by Jus­tices Roberts and Thomas.

The Gap in the Federal Employee Section of the ADEA

This was the prob­lem under the ADEA: The ADEA’s main sec­tion, in pro­hibit­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion against employ­ees 40 and old­er, only deals with pri­vate indus­try employ­ees and state gov­ern­ment employ­ees. I will call this sec­tion of the ADEA, the “pri­vate and state employ­ee sections”.

Con­tin­ue read­ing Supreme Court “fills in the blank” to rec­og­nize retal­i­a­tion claims for fed­er­al employ­ees under ADEA; Gomez-Perez v. Pot­ter, 2008

US Supreme Court Makes it Easier to Prove Retaliation Claims, in Burlington Northern v. White, 2006

June 22, 2006: In Burling­ton North­ern & Sante Fe Rail­way Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006) (“Burling­ton North­ern v. White”), the US Supreme Court sub­stan­tial­ly broad­ened the abil­i­ty of employ­ees to file retal­i­a­tion claims under Title VII of the Civ­il Rights Act of 1964. It was a unan­i­mous (9–0) decision.

US Supreme Court The Supreme Court broad­ened retal­i­a­tion claims in 2 ways:

First: Retal­ia­to­ry con­duct is not lim­it­ed to employ­er’s action at the work­place, and it is not lim­it­ed to action tak­en while the plain­tiff is still work­ing for the employer.

Sec­ond: Action by the employ­er may vio­late the anti-retal­i­a­tion pro­vi­sion even if it does not cause a tan­gi­ble loss, such as pay, for the plain­tiff. The con­duct may vio­late the law if it is “mate­ri­al­ly adverse” (as opposed to “triv­ial”) to the employ­ee, and might dis­suade a “rea­son­able work­er” from “mak­ing or sup­port­ing a charge of dis­crim­i­na­tion”. So, for exam­ple, trans­fers to dif­fer­ent posi­tions, even though they involve no loss in pay or ben­e­fits or pro­mo­tion­al oppor­tu­ni­ties, might con­sti­tute unlaw­ful action because, if the trans­fer is to what a rea­son­able work­er would view as a less attrac­tive job, that might dis­suade a rea­son­able work­er from com­plain­ing of discrimination.