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Supreme Court Decides Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, Prohibits Associational Retaliation The Supreme Court of the United States decided on January 24, 2011, that the anti-retaliation provision of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) prohibits employers from taking any adverse employment action which would dissuade a reasonable employee from engaging in protected activity, even where such adverse action is directed towards employees other than those engaging in the protected activity.
In February, 2003, Eric Thompson and his fiancée (now wife), Miriam Regalado, were employed by North American Stainless, LP (“North American”), at North American’s plant in Carroll County, Kentucky. That month, Regaldo filed a charge against North American with the EEOC alleging sex discrimination. Three weeks later, North American fired Thompson. Thereafter, Thompson filed a charge with the EEOC, claiming he was terminated by North American in retaliation for Regalado’s prior EEOC filing. When conciliation efforts failed, Thompson sued North American under Title VII in the Eastern District of Kentucky, claiming that North American unlawfully retaliated against him based on his fiancée’s protected activity. The district court granted North American summary judgment, finding that Title VII “does not permit third party retaliation claims.” After a panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed, the Sixth Circuit granted rehearing en banc and affirmed, reasoning that because Thompson did not engage in “any statutorily protected activity, either on his own behalf or on behalf of Miriam Regalado,” he was “not included in the class of persons for whom Congress created a retaliation cause of action.” The Supreme Court granted certiorari, and unanimously reversed the Sixth Circuit’s en banc decision. Justice Scalia, writing for the Court, framed the Court’s analysis by noting both that it was undisputed that Regalado’s filing of a charge with the EEOC was protected conduct under Title VII and that, in the procedural posture of the case, the Court was required to assume that North American fired Thompson to retaliate against Regalado for filing a charge of discrimination. The two questions before the Court, therefore, were (1) whether North American’s firing of Thompson constituted unlawful retaliation, and (2) if so, whether Thompson had standing to sue North American under Title VII for such retaliation. In finding that North American’s firing of Thompson constituted unlawful retaliation, the Court relied on its decision in Burlington Northern & Sante Fe Railway Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006), in which it found that Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision is worded broadly to prohibit any employer action that “might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Applying Burlington Northern, the Court reasoned that it was “obvious that a reasonable worker might be dissuaded from engaging in protected activity if she knew that her fiancé might be fired.” While the Court acknowleded that allowing third-party claims of retaliation might create difficult line-drawing problems concerning the types of relationships entitled to protection, it reiterated its statement in Burlington Northern that “the significance of any given act of retaliation will often depend upon the particular circumstances.” With regard to where that line might be drawn, the Court explained that “firing a close family member will almost always meet the Burlington Standard, and inflicting a milder reprisal on a mere acquaintance will almost never do so,” but was unwilling to generalize beyond those extremes. In deciding that Thompson was permitted to sue North American under Title VII for its unlawful retaliation, the Court held that the “persons claiming to be aggrieved” under Title VII include those plaintiffs “with an interest arguably sought to be protected by the statute,” while excluding plaintiffs whose interests are unrelated to the statutory prohibitions in Title VII. Applying that test, the Court held that Thompson was within the “zone of interests” sought to be protected by Title VII because the purpose of Title VII is to protect employees from their employers’ unlawful actions, Thompson was an employee of North American, and Thompson’s firing was the unlawful act by which North American punished Regalado. Accordingly, the Court held, Thompson was a person aggrieved with standing to sue under Title VII. The Court’s decision in Thompson clearly expands the circumstances under which an employee may be protected. Because the Court specifically declined to identify “a fixed class of relationships for which third-party reprisals are unlawful,” however, the precise lines defining this expansion will be drawn in future cases. Nevertheless, the Thompson decision highlights not only the fundamental precept that employers should in all cases be able to articulate legitimate, non-retaliatory reasons for their actions but also the importance of consulting with counsel where an employment action could be construed as retaliatory. © 2011 Kiesewetter Wise Kaplan Prather, PLC |
