Supreme Court: Section 1981 allows employees to sue over retaliation
The Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that employees are protected from retaliation when they complain about discrimination in the workplace, adopting a broad interpretation of workers’ rights under two federal civil rights laws. By decisions of 7 to 2 in one case and 6 to 3 in the other, the court found that the two statutes afford protection from retaliation even though Congress did not explicitly say so. The new rulings were in distinct contrast to one of the signature decisions of the last term, a 5-to-4 decision that placed tight time limits on plaintiffs seeking to file pay-discrimination cases. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., who wrote the majority opinion almost exactly a year ago in that case, Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, wrote one of the two majority opinions. Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote the other. One of the cases began as a lawsuit by a clerk for the United States Postal Service in Puerto Rico. The other case was brought by a former assistant manager of a Cracker Barrel restaurant, a black man named Hedrick G. Humphries. Mr. Humphries had complained that a white assistant manager had been motivated by racial discrimination in dismissing a black employee. In his lawsuit, Mr. Humphries claimed that he then lost his own job in retaliation for his complaint.
Retaliation complaints are a growing subset of workplace discrimination cases, because it is often easier for employees to demonstrate that they were retaliated against than that they were victims of discrimination in the first place. Retaliation complaints filed annually with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission doubled in the last 15 years to 22,000 from 11,000. Congress has provided explicit protection against retaliation in two major federal statutes. One is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits employment discrimination on the basis of race and sex. The other is the provision of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) that applies in the private sector. However, there is no such explicit protection in the portion of the age-discrimination law that applies to federal government workers. Nor is there explicit language in a post-Civil War-era statute that gives “all persons” the same right “as is enjoyed by white citizens” when it comes to making and enforcing contracts, such as contracts of employment. Those were the two statutes that the court interpreted. In both decisions, the majority relied heavily on precedent, reasoning by analogy from recent cases that dealt with claims of retaliation under other statutes. The most recent such case was a ruling issued in 2005, before either Justice Alito or Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. joined the court. By a vote of 5 to 4, the court held then that a law known as Title IX, which bars sex discrimination in schools and colleges that receive federal money, also prohibits school officials from retaliating against those who bring sex-discrimination complaints. The statute itself does not mention retaliation. Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas were the only dissenters in Mr. Humphries’s case, CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries, No. 06-1431, which held that Congress intended to cover retaliation claims brought under the provision of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 that is usually referred to as Section 1981.
Source: Lakeland (FL) Ledger, 5/28/08, By Linda Greenhouse
[Editor’s Note: The Court’s opinions are below. The case concerning ADEA claims by federal employees was Gómez-Pérez v. Potter, No. 06-1321. The full article excerpted above includes a useful discussion of the significance of these somewhat unexpected rulings as to the direction of the Court. Information on the Ledbetter decision and the Title IX case, Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ., also is below. Jackson itself was, at the time, a surprising ruling given the Court’s recent rulings requiring that Congress be very clear in its statutory language.]
Gómez-Pérez v. Potter
CBOCS West, Inc. v. Humphries
NSBA School Law pages on Ledbetter legislation
NSBA School Law pages on Jackson v. Birmingham Bd. of Educ.