- April 8, 2016
Partner Jordan A. Thomas will serve as a panelist in a session titled, “Recent Developments And Current Trends In Retaliation Law.” Below is a description of the panel.
Recent Developments and Current Trends in Retaliation Law
The U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Burlington Northern R.R. v. White and Thompson v. North American Stainless adopted less restrictive requirements for what potentially constitutes an “adverse action” and who qualifies as a protected person for purposes of applying the anti-retaliation provisions of Title VII. Those encouraging decisions were tempered by the Court’s 2013 ruling in University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, which held that retaliation claims must satisfy a higher causation standard than discrimination claims brought under Title VII. In addition to reviewing the effects that Nassar has had on the success of retaliation claims in the years since it was decided, our panelists will provide an overview of recent developments in retaliation law and discuss other emerging trends, such as the implications of recent rulings in the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Circuit Courts of Appeals rejecting the so-called “H.R. manager exception/exemption.” They will also discuss ways in which both new and existing whistleblower protection programs may be leveraged to help advocates more effectively pursue traditional retaliation claims on behalf of their clients, and vice versa.
