The Supreme Court today issued an opinion in the case of Thompson v. North American Stainless that expands the universe of individuals who may sue for workplace retaliation. 

Eric Thompson and his fiancée, Miriam Regalado, were employees of North American Stainless (NAS). In February 2003, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) notified NAS that Regalado had filed a charge alleging sex discrimination. Three weeks later, NAS fired her fiancé, Thompson.

In response, Thompson filed his own charge with the EEOC, and later brought a lawsuit against NAS claiming that NAS had fired him in order to retaliate against Regalado.  Both the District Court and the Court of Appeals dismissed Thompson’s lawsuit, concluding that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the primary federal law prohibiting discrimination in the workplace, “does not permit third party retaliation claims.”  The Supreme Court, in an opinion by Justice Scalia, overturned that decision and reinstated Thompson’s retaliation lawsuit.

The Court first concluded that if the facts as alleged by Thompson are true, then NAS’s firing of Thompson violated Title VII because Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision should be construed to cover a broad range of employer conduct.  “Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision prohibits any employer action that well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.”   Because a reasonable worker might be dissuaded from filing a charge of discrimination with the EEOC if she knew that her fiancé would be fired, Thompson’s claim is covered.

The Supreme Court declined to identify a fixed class of relationships for which third-party reprisals are unlawful. It suggested that “firing a close family member” will almost always constitute retaliation, while “inflicting a milder reprisal on a mere acquaintance will almost never do so,” but beyond that “the significance of any given act of retaliation will often depend upon the particular circumstances.  Given the broad statutory text and the variety of workplace contexts in which retaliation may occur, Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision is simply not reducible to a comprehensive set of clear rules.”

The Court’s second question involved a more narrow legal question:  did Thompson have “standing” to sue NAS under Title VII.  After reviewing earlier cases on the topic, the Court concluded that an individual may sue as long as he falls within the “zone of interests” protected by the statutory provision whose violation forms the legal basis for his complaint.  Put another way, an individual does not have standing and may not sue if his interests “are so marginally related to or inconsistent with the purposes implicit in the statute that it cannot reasonably be assumed that Congress intended to permit the suit.”  Thus, the Court concluded, Thompson falls within the zone of interests protected by Title VII because he was an employee of NAS, and the purpose of Title VII is to protect employees from their employers’ unlawful actions. Moreover, accepting the facts as alleged, Thompson was not an accidental victim of the retaliation—collateral damage, so to speak, of the employer’s unlawful act. To the contrary, injuring him was the employer’s intended means of harming Regalado. Hurting him was the unlawful act by which the employer punished her. In those circumstances, Thompson was well within the zone of interests sought to be protected by Title VII.

Bottom line:  this decision will not unleash a flood of new discrimination lawsuits, but employers should carefully consider any adverse action proposed against a family member or friend of a another employee who has previously asserted his or her rights.