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- Supreme Court Allows Third-Party Retaliation Claims Under Title VII
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Supreme Court Allows Third-Party Retaliation Claims Under Title VII
The Supreme Court has opened the gates to third-party retaliation claims under Title VII. In a unanimous decision issued on January 24, 2011, which reversed an en banc decision of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, the Supreme Court decided that an employee who was fired after his fiancée filed an EEOC charge against their employer had standing to file a Title VII retaliation lawsuit. (Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, No. 09-291, Jan. 24, 2011, Scalia, J.)
In Thompson, the plaintiff and his fiancée both worked for the employer when the fiancée filed an EEOC charge alleging sex discrimination. Three weeks after the employer received notice of the charge, the plaintiff was terminated for alleged poor performance. He subsequently filed an EEOC charge claiming retaliation based on his fiancée’s charge and then filed suit. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of the employer, and after a Sixth Circuit panel reversal, the full en banc court affirmed the district court’s ruling, holding that Title VII did not permit a third-party retaliation claim.
The Supreme Court reversed. First, the Supreme Court decided that the plaintiff’s termination was actionable under Title VII. The Court found “it obvious that a reasonable worker might be dissuaded from engaging in protected activity if she knew that her fiancé would be fired.” The Court rejected the employer’s argument that such a conclusion would cause “difficult line-drawing problems concerning the types of relationships entitled to protection.” The Court wrote: “We expect that firing a close family member will almost always meet the . . . standard, and inflicting a milder reprisal on a mere acquaintance will almost never do so, but beyond that we are reluctant to generalize.”
Next, the Supreme Court decided that the plaintiff could sue the employer for this Title VII violation as an “aggrieved” person. The Court held that the plaintiff had standing to sue under Title VII because the plaintiff fell within the “zone of interests” protected by Title VII. He was an employee “and the purpose of Title VII is to protect employees from their employer’s unlawful actions.” Additionally, the Court noted that the employee “is not an accidental victim of the retaliation–collateral damage, so to speak, of the employer’s unlawful act. To the contrary, injuring him was the employer’s intended means of harming [the fiancée].”
Justice Ginsburg concurred in the Court’s opinion, with Justice Breyer joining her, to emphasize the point that the Court’s decision is in accord with “longstanding views” of the EEOC.
The Bottom Line for Employers:
Based on this decision, employers can expect to see an increasing number of third-party retaliation claims under Title VII, which will attempt to push the envelope on the required relationship between the employees. If a fiancé can succeed, what about a girlfriend or a companion? Employers should recognize this risk where an adverse employment action is taken against an employee who has a connection to another employee with a pending or recent EEOC charge.