Thompson v. North Am. Stainless is near and dear to my heart. This post marks the 8th I’ve written covering this important 6th Circuit retaliation case. Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral argument on the issue of whether Title VII prohibits an employer from retaliating by inflicting reprisals on a third party (such as a spouse, family member, or fiancé) closely associated with the employee who engaged in such protected activity but who engaged in no protected activity of his or her own. The oral argument transcript is available for download [pdf] from the Supreme Court’s website.
When the 6th Circuit originally recognized a cause of action for associational retaliation (before the en banc reversal that led to the Supreme Court appeal), I worried, “How close is close enough?”
In Thompson, the relationship was a fiancée. It is safe to assume liability will also extend to action taken against spouses. What about boyfriends and girlfriends? How long do you have to date to be protected from retaliation? The same protection also will probably extend to parents and children. What about siblings? Grandparents? Cousins? 3rd cousins twice removed? In-laws? Friends? Carpoolers? The people you share your lunch table with? The person you sat next to in 3rd grade? How close is close enough for an employer to intend for its actions to punish the exercise of protected activity? Do employers now have to ask for family trees and class pictures as part of the orientation process?
While I’m not so vain as to think that Justice Alito reads my blog (just in case, hello, Your Honor), the theme of the slippery slope resonated heavily in his questioning of Mr. Thompson’s attorney:
That’s what's troubling to me about – about the theory. Where it’s a fiancée, it’s – that’s a relatively strong case, but I can imagine a whole spectrum of cases in which there is a lesser relationship between those two persons, and if – if – if – unless there’s a clear line there someplace, this theory is rather troubling. …
Can you help – can you help provide where the clear line is? Does it go – does it include simply a good friend? Does it include somebody who just has lunch in the cafeteria every day with the person who engaged in the protected conduct? Somebody who once dated the person who engaged in the protected conduct? Are these all questions that have to go to a jury?
Justice Alito continued to hammer this theme when questioning the attorney arguing for the Justice Department:
Put yourself in the – in the shoes of an employer, and you – you think – you want to take an adverse employment action against employee A. You think you have good grounds for doing that, but you want – before you do it, you want to know whether you’re potentially opening yourself up to a retaliation claim.
Now, what is the employer supposed to do then? They say, … now we need to see whether this person who we’re thinking of taking the adverse employment action against has a … “close relationship” with any of those people. So what do you do? Do you call everybody in from the company and you say, now, is – you know, was – are these people dating? Did they once date? Are they good friends? What are you supposed to do?
Despite this Court’s perception as pro-business, it has proven itself to be a favorable venue for retaliation claims. This Court's pro-employee, anti-retaliation bent should hold form in this case. Notwithstanding Justice Alito’s (and my) concerns, reading the tea leaves I predict Thompson will be a victory for the employee. I cannot see this Court permitting an employer to fire an employee whose fiancée claims discrimination. There should be at least five Justices who will craft a standard workable enough to avoid Justice Alito’s slippery slope.
I don’t expect any bright lines to be drawn. Since Burlington Northern, it is clear that actionable retaliation includes any adverse action that is “harmful to the point that they could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” I expect the Court to conclude that this test encompasses associational retaliation; we will be litigating the degree of closeness and its impact on the “reasonable employee” in future retaliation cases.
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus. For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.