Staub v. Proctor Hospital Extending the Cats Paw
| Publication year | 2011 |
| Pages | 4 |
Vol. 24, No. 4. Staub v. Proctor Hospital Extending the Cats Paw
Volume 24 No. 4
July/August 2011
In March 2011, the United States Supreme Court resolved a circuit split regarding employer liability for the discriminatory acts of a supervisor who influences, but does not make, a challenged employment decision. In Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 131ÃSS.Ct. 1186 (2011), the Supreme Court held that an employer is liable for the discriminatory acts of a supervisor who does not make the final employment decision if the acts of the supervisor are intended to cause an adverse employment action and are a proximate cause, in the traditional tort-law sense, of the adverse action. See id. at 1191-94.
Staub v. Proctor Hospital
Vincent Staub (Staub), a member of the United States Army reserve, was employed at Proctor Hospital (Proctor). See id. at 1189. He claimed that he was fired by Proctors vice president of human resources after his supervisors falsely reported that he had violated hospital rules. See id. at 1189-90. Staub sued Proctor, claiming that his supervisors hostility toward his military reserve obligations was a motivating factor in his firing, a violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA). See id. Staub did not claim that the vice president of human resources who had made the decision to fire him was hostile toward his military obligations. See id. at 1190. Rather, Staub invoked the cats paw theory of employer liability, claiming that the decision to fire him was based on his supervisors discriminatory actions. See id. As the Supreme Court explained in Staub:
Id. at 1190 n.1The term cats paw derives from a fable conceived by Aesop, put into verse by La Fontaine in 1679, and injected into United States employment discrimination law by Posner in 1990. See Shager v. Upjohn Co., 913 F.2d 398, 405(CA7). In the fable, a monkey induces a cat by flattery to extract roasting chestnuts from the fire. After the cat has done so, burning its paws in the process, the monkey makes off with the chestnuts and leaves the cat with nothing. A coda to the fable (relevant only marginally, if at all, to employment law) observes that the cat is similar to princes who, flattered by the king, perform services on the kings behalf and receive no reward.
Under a cats paw discrimination claim...
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