Court sides with former employer on retaliation claim
| Date | 01 July 2020 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1002/nba.30806 |
| Published date | 01 July 2020 |
NONPROFIT BUSINESS ADVISOR JULY 2020
10 © 2020 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved
DOI: 10.1002/nba
Employment Law
Here’s a look at several recent notable lawsuits involving nonprots. Nonprots should regularly review
employment laws and their compliance efforts to avert similar issues.
Retaliation
Court sides with former employer
on retaliation claim
The plaintiff was a Maryland Transportation
Authority revenue agent who made a complaint to
management in March 2017 that another employee
was sexually harassing him.
When upper management started an investigation,
a supervisor allegedly expressed anger at the plaintiff
because she felt that he had improperly gone outside
her department with the sexual harassment complaint.
According to the plaintiff, that supervisor then
embarked on a retaliatory campaign against him by:
(1) issuing a reprimand to him in April for the stated
reason that he had mishandled funds in March, (2)
accusing him two days later of making an unspecied
“threatening statement” and (3) accusing him on May
1 of making a serious accounting error.
The plaintiff led an unspecied discrimination
charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission on May 8, 2017.
A few days later, the authority required him to
submit to a tness-for-duty psychiatric evaluation.
When the plaintiff attended that evaluation on
June 8 as directed, the psychiatrist purportedly rec-
ommended that he take some time off.
The plaintiff then took medical leave for a couple
of weeks.
When he sought to return on June 30, the authority
allegedly required him to choose between: (1) return-
ing with a demotion, (2) applying for retirement or
(3) resigning.
Claiming he had been effectively discharged, the
plaintiff led a suit claiming a violation of Mary-
land’s version of Title VII. One of his allegations was
that the supervisor had caused him to have a “mental
breakdown.”
The authority led a motion to dismiss, claiming
that the plaintiff had quit for health reasons. It argued
that because of the plaintiff ’s choice: (1) he hadn’t
suffered the requisite “adverse employment action”
and (2) the allegations didn’t establish any causal
connection between the alleged harassment and the
plaintiff leaving work.
EMPLOYEE WINS ➔ The district court judge
ruled: (1) both the sexual harassment complaint and
the EEOC discrimination charge were protected activi-
ties, (2) the plaintiff had successfully alleged retaliation
by a supervisor, (3) the allegations didn’t show that
the plaintiff chose to quit and (4) the resulting “Hob-
son’s Choice” consisting of three repugnant options
amounted to the requisite adverse employment action.
The judge also ruled the plaintiff had established
a causal connection between his protected activities
and those repugnant choices because of the short
periods of time that had passed between: (1) his
sexual harassment complaint, (2) the supervisor’s
alleged harassment, (3) his EEOC charge and (4) his
separation from employment.
She explained that a plaintiff claiming retaliation
in violation of either Title VII or Maryland’s ver-
sion of the statute wasn’t required to plead that an
improper response to protected activity was the only
cause of termination.
The judge refused to dismiss the claim, ruling it was
foreseeable that the supervisor’s alleged retaliatory
campaign could trigger an employee’s medical leave
because of a mental health crisis, and his eventual
termination.
Compton v. State of Maryland, et al., U.S. District
Court for the District of Maryland, No. ELH-19-804
(12/05/2019).
Employment discrimination
Judge rules against the VA
The plaintiff was over 50 and the only white reg-
istered nurse out of the 12 staff nurses at the Central
Alabama Veteran Affairs Healthcare System.
She transferred to the VA call center in December
2016 after being a staff nurse for about a year.
While in her new position, the plaintiff led a
suit claiming: (1) racial discrimination in violation
of Title VII, (2) a hostile work environment, (3) age
discrimination and (4) retaliation for engaging in
protected activity.
The plaintiff alleged that the black supervisors
treated her worse than the other nurses during 2016
by: (1) intimidating her, (2) belittling her in front of
co-workers and patients, (3) making race-related com-
ments to her such as “you’re the minority here,” (4)
subjecting her to more scrutiny than her co-workers,
(5) refusing to honor her scheduling requests while
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