Categories: Retail

Our colleague Amy B. Messigian at Epstein Becker Green recently posted “Supreme Court Decision Sets High Bar for Establishing Retaliation Claims Under Title VII” on the Health Employment and Labor blog, and we think retail employers will be interested.

Following is an excerpt:

In University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, one of two employment-related opinions issued on Monday by the Supreme Court, a narrow majority held that a retaliation claim brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 must be proved according to a strict but for causation standard. Under such a standard, a plaintiff must present proof that “the unlawful retaliation would not have occurred in the absence of the alleged wrongful action or actions of the employer.”

The underlying facts of the Nassar case are somewhat complicated. The plaintiff, a medical doctor employed as a faculty member of the defendant medical center and staff physician for its affiliated hospital entity, resigned from the faculty claiming that the chief of infectious disease medicine at the medical center was biased against individuals of Middle Eastern heritage such as plaintiff. The hospital entity offered the plaintiff a full time position as staff physician, but later rescinded the offer after plaintiff’s former supervisor protested the job offer. The plaintiff sued, alleging that the medical center retaliated against him for his discrimination complaints by encouraging the hospital to rescind its job offer. A jury returned a verdict in the plaintiff’s favor and awarded more than $3 million in damages.

Read the full post here.

Back to Workforce Bulletin Blog

Search This Blog

Blog Editors

Related Services

Topics

Archives

Jump to Page

Subscribe

Sign up to receive an email notification when new Workforce Bulletin posts are published:

Privacy Preference Center

When you visit any website, it may store or retrieve information on your browser, mostly in the form of cookies. This information might be about you, your preferences or your device and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to. The information does not usually directly identify you, but it can give you a more personalized web experience. Because we respect your right to privacy, you can choose not to allow some types of cookies. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings. However, blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

These cookies are necessary for the website to function and cannot be switched off in our systems. They are usually only set in response to actions made by you which amount to a request for services, such as setting your privacy preferences, logging in or filling in forms. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not then work. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable information.

Performance Cookies

These cookies allow us to count visits and traffic sources so we can measure and improve the performance of our site. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. All information these cookies collect is aggregated and therefore anonymous. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance.