Justices Back Worker In Retaliation Case.

[elleng]

Source: WaPo

'The Supreme Court unanimously ruled yesterday that a federal anti-discrimination law protects employees from retaliation when they cooperate with internal investigations of harassment.

The court sided with Vicky S. Crawford, who said she was fired from her longtime job in charge of payroll for the Nashville school system after she answered questions in an ongoing investigation into what the court termed the "louche goings-on" involving a supervisor. . .

The ruling was the latest case in which the court has sided with employees who sue for retaliation, a position somewhat at odds with the pro-business label the court has received under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.

Kevin Russell, a workplace rights lawyer who practices before the court, said it was notable that in all but one of those cases -- including the one involving Crawford -- the government sided with the plaintiffs.

"But it does tend to discredit the view that this is a reflexively pro-business or pro-employer court," Russell said.'



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/26/AR2009012601039.html?hpid=sec-nation

[voc]

1. I see the SCOTUS is flip-flopping...

Too bad they didn't uphold Ledbetter.

[elleng]

2. Not exactly flip-flopping,

but I see your point.

[happyslug]

3. Ledbetter is a completely different case

Ledbetter held that an employee can NOT claim discrimination, when the actual discrimination was beyond the Statute of limitation, but the affect of the discrimination was still ongoing (In Ledbtter;s case she did NOT file a discrimination case till after she was retired, for acts that occurred while she was working that affected her retirement pay. The court dismissed her concerns of retaliation, i.e. being fired, at the time of the actual act of discrimination, as NOT being addressed in the actual Stature being addressed.

In this case, all the victim did was fill out a form issued by her employer about possible discrimination act of a supervisor. The Victim did NOT allege any personal act of harassment (Which the court has long considered discrimination) but that she did she it done to others and herself (But never reported it, except as part of the investigation of other alleged act of harassment). After the investigation, the victim was terminated for an unrelated problem (Embezzlement) but then she filed her action saying she was fired for having reported truthfully to her employer in their investigation of the alleged sexual harassment. Thus there is NO Statute of Limitation issue here, as was the key in Ledbetter, but rather did the employer violate the Civil Rights Act protection of reporting acts of sexual discrimination to the employer, even if the report is NOT of personal discrimination but discrimination against another person. The Civil Rights Act has two classes covering such reports. The Court held that such reports are protected speech by an employee to an employer. In fact the Court ruled that the Act REQUIRES such reports thus to permit retaliation for making such reports would defeat the requirement of reporting. i.e. even if you yourself are NOT the person discriminated against, you have the right to report such discrimination (Including sexual harassment of others) to your employer and your employer can NOT retaliate against you for making such reports.

Now the Sixth Circuit had restricted this protection to those people who made a positive report, NOT people who filled out an internal report. The Sixth Circuit rationale was that the Act only protected people who made actual reports to their employers NOT people who just said it happened when the reports of others were investigated by the employer. The Supreme Court reversed the Sixth Circuit's holding saying the Act protects BOTH classes of employees, i.e. both those employees that report harassment AND those employees that tell the employee it happened when the employer investigate the allegation.

Ledbetter is not even cited in this case for it is a different subject matter under the Civil Rights Act (And hopefully the new Congress will change the law to make Ledbetter no longer good law).