Retaliation

Laws that create substantive employment rights protect employees from retaliation when they exercise those rights. Employees exercise substantive rights when they oppose discriminatory employer conduct, usually by making a complaint, and when they participate in proceedings involving the law, like providing witness testimony in a sexual harasssment investigation or lawsuit.

When Employers get Mad and Get Even

Retaliation claims require proof that:

  1. An empployee engaged in protected conduct;
     
  2. The employer knew it and took an “adverse action” against the employee; and
     
  3. The adverse action and protected conduct are causally connected.

See, e.g., Adair v. Charter County of Wayne, 452 F.3d 482 (6th Cir. Mich. 2006) (citing Williams v. Gen. Motors Corp., 187 F.3d 553, 568 (6th Cir. 1999)) (FLSA claims).

Retaliation claims happen because, when people get mad, they get even. Employees run a risk of retaliation when, for example, they report unsafe work conditions to OSHA. To encourage employees to report unsafe conditions, and to protect them from retaliation, Section 11(c) of the Occupational Health and Safety Act prohibits retaliation.

Protected Activity Defined

Protected activity means employee conduct that the law specifically protects from retaliation. As a general rule, laws that create substantive rights, like the right to be free from discrimination, or the right to a minimum wage and overtime wage, also prohibit retaliation against employees who exercise those rights. The prohibition may not explicitly refer to retaliation, though. The United States Supreme Court found that Congress intended to prohibit retaliation for complaining about age discrimination in federal employment by its definition of "discrimination,” which did not mention retaliation, on the theory that Congress intended to prohibit discrimination against people who complained about discrimination.  

Protected conduct typically includes employee complaints or reports of unlawful conduct, as well as employee participation in proceedings involving the law. Complaints can include verbal statements made to management, so long as the verbal statement is sufficiently clear and detailed that a reasonable employer can understand it as an assertion of rights and a call for protection. Anti-retaliation laws also protect:

  1. employees who participate in proceedings involving the law, like witnesses in an investigation;
     
  2. employees who did not engage in protected conduct themselves, but are closely connected to someone who did; and
     
  3. potentially, former employees, when the employer retaliates against them for filing suit, by asserting frivolous counterclaims against the former employee who filed the suit.

Tangible Adverse Employment Actions

Employees cannot go to court for every adverse action that happens at work. Employment retaliation law requires a tangible adverse action, like something that hits the employee in the wallet. Terminations, demotions and suspensions without pay qualify as tangible, adverse actions. Verbal reprimands, by themselves, do not.

An adverse employment action becomes tangible when it would chill a reasonable employee from engaging in the protected conduct.  An employee's unpaid suspension was a tangible, adverse action, even after the employer changed the suspension to a paid suspension, since the message made by the unpaid suspension, which took place over the December holidays, was enough to chill other employees from engaging in protected conduct.

Reasonable, Good Faith Belief

When employees complain that someone within the employer's control violated their rights, they might be wrong. That does not, however, make them fair game for retaliation. As long as employees have a good faith, reasonable belief in their complaint, the law should protect them from retaliation.

A belief may fail the good faith, reasonable belief test even if sincerely held, where the employee lacks a sufficient factual basis for making the complaint. The United States Supreme Court once found that a woman who complained about her supervisor's comment on the breasts of an applicant for employment was not protected from retaliation because supervisor's comment could not, in the court's opinion, support a reasonable belief that such conduct amounted to sexual harassment.   

Employees who make false complaints of unlawful conduct, knowing they are false, deserve to get fired. The law allows it. Employees should also avoid the temptation to time good faith complaints for strategic advantage, like by waiting until their final attendance warning to complain about their supervisor's creepy behavior. Engaging in protected conduct does not save employees from termination. It only protects them from termination because they engaged in protected conduct. If the employer has a legitimate business reason to terminate the employee, like too many attendance points, it is free to terminate for that reason. Engagin in protected conduct will not save the employee, and it may hasten his or her demise by angering the employer.

Causal Connection and Timing

The sooner an adverse action follows protected conduct, the easier it is to believe that the protected conduct caused it. The opposite is true too. If the adverse action happens months or more after the employee engaged in protected conduct, the causal connection becomes difficult or impossible to prove

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U.S. Supreme Court Allows Lawsuit By Employee Who Claimed He Was Fired In Retaliation For His Fiancée's Discrimination Complaint

Police Disciplinary Board's Rubberstamp Does Not Break the Causation Chain of Supervisor's Retaliation, Third Circuit Rules

Is Causation A Jury Issue? Kentucky Court of Appeals Says No, Vacates $300,000+ Retaliation Verdict

Suits Against the State for FMLA Retaliation Based on Self Care Barred by Sovereign Immunity Says Supreme Court

Roberts Truck Centers Pays $300,000 To Settle Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Lawsuit

American Laser Centers Pays $125,000 To Settle Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Lawsuit

Nassau County Ordered to Pay $604,589 after Losing Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Lawsuit

Causation in Retaliation Case Demonstrated by Encouragement of Supervisor With Knowledge of Protected Activity, Second Circuit Rules

EEOC Wins Maryland Jury Verdict of $350,000 for Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Victims

Lori Adelson offers thoughts on rising retaliation against employees who report bad behavior at work

Retaliation Claim Allowed In Egan v. Freedom Bank Where Vice President Is Fired After Complaining About Sexual Harassment

Brief of Employment Law Professors As Amici Curiae in Support of Respondent in Nassar Title VII Retaliation Case

LawProf Call for Joining Amicus Brief in Southwest Medical Center v. Nassar Title VII Retaliation Case

The U.S. Supreme Court Holds That Unwritten, Oral Complaints Are Protected Activity Under The FLSA's Anti-Retaliation Provision

The Fourth Circuit Holds that Intra-Company Complaints Are Protected Activity Under the FLSA's Anti-Retaliation Provision

Supreme Court Agrees to Hear Cases Challenging Arizona Immigration Law, Third-Party Retaliation Claims

In a Win for Employers, the Supreme Court Adopts More Exacting Causation Standard in Title VII Retaliation Claims

Family Members and Others Closely Associated With Employee That Complains of Discrimination Are Protected From Retaliation, Supreme Court Rules Unanimously

The U.S. Supreme Court Grapples with Whether Internal Oral Complaints Are Protected Activity Under the FLSA's Anti-Retaliation Provision

The U.S. Supreme Court Grapples with Whether Internal Oral Complaints Are Protected Activity Under the FLSA's Anti-Retaliation Provision

Supreme Court To Decide Whether Retaliation Ban Applies to Family Members and Others Closely Assoiciated With An Employee that Complains of Discrimination

Pre-Eligibility Requests For Leave May Give Rise To Claims Of Retaliation in Pereda v. Brookdale Senior Living Cmtys. Inc.

Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Rules That Employee Terminated For Mediation Misconduct Did Not Face Retaliation in Benes v. AB Data, LTD

Retaliation for Filing a Class Action Warranted $6.6 Million Punitive Damages Award -- Marlo v. United Parcel Service

U.S. Supreme Court Holds that Anti-Retaliation Protection of Fair Labor Standards Act Applies to Informal Complaints

Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals Rules That Employee Terminated For Mediation Misconduct Did Not Face Retaliation in Benes v. AB Data, LTD

Supreme Court Increases Barriers To Retaliation Suits Under Title VII; University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar

Dellinger v. Science Applications International Determines Retaliation Provision Of Fair Labor Standards Act Applies To Current And Former Employees

Dellinger v. Science Applications International Determines Retaliation Provision Of Fair Labor Standards Act Applies To Current And Former Employees

NBA Security Director Files Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Suit in New York State Court Against U.S. Olympic Team Coach

MILITARY CONTRACTORS PAYS $110,000 IN GENDER AND RETALIATION CLAIM: CALL LOS ANGELES EMPLOYMENT LAWYERS IF YOU’VE BEEN A VICTIM

"Aren't You Being Discriminatory?": Protected Activity in Retaliation Cases

Employee Could Proceed with FMLA Retaliation Claim Even Though He Never Requested FMLA Leave

Riverside employment lawyers note retaliation complaints surpass race-based complaints in 2010

“Entitlement to FMLA leave” is not a prerequisite to an FMLA retaliation claim

Does FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision cover oral complaints? The Kasten v. Saint-Gobain oral argument

Bills Would Increase Federal Minimum Wage, Strengthen Non-Retaliation Provisions, Preserve Companionship Exemption, and Create New Exemption

McDonnell Douglas Burden-Shifting Framework Applicable to False Claims Act Retaliation Claims, First Circuit Rules

Woman With Thoughts About Killing Her Supervisor Can Maintain Race Discrimination, Sex Discrimination And Retaliation Claims Against Postal Service

FLSA Bills Would Increase Minimum Wage, Strengthen Non-Retaliation Provisions, Preserve Companionship Exemption, and Create New Exemption

How broad is potential liability for retaliation? THIS broad.

Time after time: temporal proximity and retaliation

Facebook Firings - Report Finds Dramatic Increase in NLRB Charge Filings Based on Facebook Retaliation Firings

U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals Upholds Dismissal of Retaliation Claim Made in Connection with "Paramour Preference" Claim

Time after time, time alone is not enough to prove retaliation

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