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 hospitality 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 The hospital entity offered the plaintiff a full time position as staff physician, but later rescinded the offer after plaintiff’s former supervisor protested the job offer.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.