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The Supreme
Court has affirmed a jury award for a
Tennessee forklift operator who was
transferred to a more physical job after she
filed a lawsuit accusing her employer of
sexual harassment.
By a 9-0
vote, justices said that Sheila White was
improperly punished with a suspension for 37
days over a Christmas holiday and a transfer
from operating the forklift to doing more
physical work as a yard worker.
Justice
Stephen Breyer wrote that White did receive
back pay. But he said she and her family had
to live 37 days without any income, not
knowing when or if she would return to work.
"Many
reasonable employees would find a month
without a paycheck to be a serious hardship,''
Breyer wrote, adding that "an indefinite
suspension without pay could well act as a
deterrent, even if the suspended employee
eventually received back pay.''
The high
court's ruling tilts the balance of power in
employment settings toward employees by
establishing a broader legal standard for
retaliation claims, an area of litigation that
has exploded in recent years.
Under the
high court's standard, employers are liable
for unlawful retaliation if their actions
"interfere with an employee's efforts''
to ensure that he or she is not discriminated
against in the workplace, Breyer wrote.
The
anti-retaliation provision of the 1964 Civil
Rights Act "seeks to prevent harm to
individuals based on what they do, i.e., their
conduct,'' such as filing a discrimination
complaint, Breyer said.
Breyer said
employees who complain of discrimination are
not immune from "those petty slights or
minor annoyances that often take place at work
and that all employees experience.''
He said trial
courts must determine on a case-by-case basis
whether "reasonable'' employees would be
intimidated by actions taken by employers
against them.
"Context
matters,'' Breyer wrote.
A schedule
change may not bother many workers, he said,
but it may matter greatly to a young mother
with small children. Or, Breyer said, a
supervisor's failure to invite a worker to
lunch would seem trivial unless the luncheon
was a weekly training session crucial to the
employee's advancement.
In a separate
opinion, Justice Samuel Alito agreed that
White was a victim of retaliation, but he
worried that the court has created a standard
so broad and confusing that it will
"leave juries hopelessly at sea.''
Retaliation
claims by workers have more than doubled over
the past decade, comprising more than 30
percent of the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission's caseload and costing more than
$130,000 each to resolve, according to
Burlington's court filings.
White was the
only woman working in the rail yard for the
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway in
Memphis, Tenn.
After she
accused her supervisor of sexually harassing
her, a company investigation led to the
foreman's suspension and enrollment in
sensitivity classes. But White also was
transferred to work as a regular track worker,
a more physically demanding job than operating
a forklift.
The railroad
eventually rescinded its decision to suspend
White — clearing her of insubordination
charges — and compensated her for back pay.
A jury
rejected her sex discrimination charge but
found in her favor on the retaliation claim,
awarding her $43,000.
The case is
Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway v. White,
05-259.
(Article from
Insurance
Journal)
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