Jury Sides With Employee In Supreme Court Retaliation Case

(Published February 8, 2010)

 

A little over a year ago in Crawford v. Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, the U.S. Supreme Court breathed new life into an employee's Title VII retaliation claim.  A jury recently awarded her $1.5 million in compensatory damages, back pay, and future lost wages.

 

The U.S. Supreme Court held that Title VII's anti-retaliation provision protects employees who speak out about discrimination while cooperating with their employer's internal investigation.  "Nothing in the statute requires a freakish rule protecting an employee who reports discrimination on her own initiative, but not one who reports the same discrimination in the same words when asked a question." 

 

The lower courts had ruled that since the employee never filed a formal complaint, she didn't have anti-retaliation protections.  The employee was a willing participant in an internal investigation into the alleged sexual harassment of the organization's employee relations director, in which she described several instances of sexually harassing behavior.  Shortly thereafter, she was fired.