Employer Liability

August 9, 2011
4:08 pm

legalnewsnow

Employer Liability

/cdklawyers.com/Dallas Employment Lawyer – Attorney Keith Clouse/ 08/09/2011

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Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court held that an employer can be liable for a supervisor’s discrimination if such discrimination plays a role in a later adverse employment action. Staub v. Proctor Hospital. Staub, a member of the U.S. army reserve and an employee of Proctor, was discriminated against by two of his supervisors. The supervisors were hostile towards Staub’s military obligations and fabricated several accusations against Staub; claiming he violated rules that didn’t exist and complaining that he was frequently unavailable. As a result of theses accusations, Staub was fired by Buck, Proctor’s vice president, who was unaware of the supervisor’s discrimination.

Staub sued Proctor claiming his termination was discriminatory because Buck lacked any discriminatory animus towards him, and she based her termination on information from Staub’s supervisors, which was discriminatory. The Supreme Court agreed with Staub and held his termination was discriminatory. As a result, if an agent of an employer commits an action based on discriminatory animus, intending to and causing an adverse employment action, the employer will be liable regardless if the employer knew of discrimination at the time of termination.

To speak to a Dallas, Texas employment law attorney about workplace discrimination, contact the Dallas employment lawyers at Clouse Dunn LLP at [email protected].