Employment Law Updates
by Laura C. Mueller, Attorney
September 2011
I. The Summary Judgment Standard in Employment Discrimination Cases
Businesses and employers involved in litigation often have one primary question: how do we get out of this? One common method is called a summary judgment motion, which is a court filing submitted to judges asking to have a case dismissed or decided prior to trial. In submitting such a motion, a party claims that the absence of disputes of fact eliminates the need for trying the case to a jury. The moving party must show that there are no genuine issues as to any material facts and accordingly, that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. The purpose for summary judgment is to resolve suitable cases in advance of lengthy and expensive trials.
Historically, jurisprudence has held that summary judgment should seldom be utilized in employment discrimination cases because employment-based lawsuits are inherently fact-based (i.e., facts are presumptively in dispute). Courts intentionally applied a narrower standard to employment discrimination lawsuits in deciding summary judgment motions. This favored employees and former employees. Given that position, lawyers sometimes found themselves advising clients against incurring the significant amount of attorneys’ fees involved in preparing such motions.
Recently, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals (the federal appeals court governing Iowa, among other states) had the opportunity to revisit the summary judgment standard in the employment discrimination context. In Torgerson v. City of Rochester, 2011 WL 2135636 (8th Ct. App., June 1, 2011), two applicants to a fire department alleged discrimination as the basis for the decisions against hiring them, respectively on the bases of national origin and gender. In an unlikely turn of events, given the historical reticence on the parts of courts in connection to granting summary judgment for employers in discrimination cases, the United States District Court for the District of Minnesota granted summary judgment to the fire department, holding that the plaintiffs could not establish their cases at trial. The plaintiffs appealed their case, primarily relying on the line of cases discussed above. On review, the Eighth Circuit discounted earlier opinions that found that summary judgment should “seldom” or “sparingly” be granted in employment discrimination cases, holding that the U.S. Supreme Court has unequivocally found that “district courts should not ‘treat discrimination differently from other ultimate questions of fact.’” Id. at *8. (Internal quotations omitted.) Indeed, as acknowledged by the appellate court, the Supreme Court has held that, “[s]ummary judgment procedure is properly regarded not as a disfavored procedural shortcut, but rather as an integral part of the Federal Rules as a whole, which are designed ‘to secure the just, speedy, and inexpensive determination of every action.’” Id. (Internal quotations omitted). In closing, the Eighth Circuit confirmed that “[t]here is no ‘discrimination case exception’ to the application of summary judgment, which is a useful pretrial tool to determine whether any case, including one alleging discrimination, merits a trial.” Id.
II. Retaliation Causes of Action
In the employment context, the law on retaliation provides that “[i]t shall be an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any of his employees . . . because he has made a charge” of employment discrimination. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a). Retaliation claims have become the most common form of EEOC charges. In Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, 131 S. Ct. 863 (U.S. 2011), The Supreme Court was called upon to analyze the definition of retaliation. In Thompson, a man and a woman, who happened to be engaged, worked for the same company. The female filed a sex discrimination charge against the employer with the EEOC. The employer shortly thereafter terminated her fiancé, who in turn filed a civil rights charge claiming that the company unlawfully fired him in retaliation for his fiancé’s sex discrimination charge. The district court granted the employer’s summary judgment motion, finding that third party retaliation claims aren’t permitted by law. The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed, but the Supreme Court disagreed with the decisions of the lower courts.
In its review, the U.S. Supreme Court explained that the anti-retaliation provision at issue prohibits “an employer from ‘discriminat[ing] against any of his employees’” for engaging in protected conduct. Id. at 868. The Court went on to acknowledge that the anti-retaliation provision was designed to make illegal “any employer action that ‘well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’” Id. (Citations omitted.) Applying that standard to the facts at hand, the Court wrote, “[w]e think it obvious that a reasonable worker might be dissuaded from engaging in protected activity if she knew that her fiancé would be fired.” Id. Because Title VII, the employment discrimination statute in question, states that “a civil action may be brought . . . by the person claiming to be aggrieved,” the Court reversed the earlier decisions that found that the man who was fired because his fiancé filed a civil rights charge had no standing. The Court reached that result because it acknowledged that Eric Thompson, the individual who was fired, was not a mere accidental victim of retaliatory conduct, but instead, “injuring him was the employer’s intended means of harming [his fiancé].” Id. at 870.
Employers facing an employee who has made discrimination allegations should continue to use care in making disciplinary decisions regarding that employee or the employee’s family members or significant other.
Laura Mueller is available to answer your questions regarding employment-related issues. She can be reached at (319) 861-8721.