While perusing the legal network I came upon this case discussed by a Connecticut Law Firm and published in their Newsletter.
One of Aesop’s most memorable fables, “The Monkey and the Cat,” tells the story of a monkey who convinces a cat to pull roasting chestnuts from a fire. The cat retrieves the chestnuts, but in doing so, burns his paws. Meanwhile, the monkey scampers away with the chestnuts, leaving the cat with nothing.
So what do monkeys, cats, and white-hot chestnuts have to do with employer liability?
In Staub v. Proctor Hospital, the U.S. Supreme Court uses the term “cat’s paw” to describe an employment law situation where an employer unknowingly makes an adverse employment decision based on a supervisor’s unlawful animus. In such a scenario, the employer serves as the cat’s paw,” the instrument through which the monkey, (in this case, the supervisor), can exercise his animus without getting burned. In Staub, the plaintiff employee worked as an angiography technician for the hospital. The plaintiff was also a member of the United States Army Reserve, which required him to train one weekend a month, in addition to full-time training two to three weeks a year.
Two of hospital’s other employees, Staub’s supervisor’s “were hostile to Staub’s military obligations.” This hostility prompted the supervisors to issue Staub disciplinary warnings for violating nonexistent company rules, warnings that were placed in Staub’s personnel file, and used as a basis to terminate Staub’s employment with the hospital. Relying on these allegations, the hospital’s vice president of human resources, decided to fire Staub.
In response, Staub sued the hospital under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), claiming that his discharge was “motivated by hostility toward his obligations as a military reservist.” Yet, as the Court noted, Staub’s contention was not that “the HR Director had any such hostility, but that his supervisors did, and that their actions influenced the HR Director’s ultimate employment decision.”
Holding that a “cat’s paw” case could not “succeed unless the non-decision maker exercised such ‘singular influence’ over the decision maker that the decision to terminate was the product of ‘blind reliance,” the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of the hospital.
However, The Supreme Court, reversed this decision, holding that, if a supervisor performs an act motivated by antimilitary animus “that is intended to cause an adverse employment action, and if that is a proximate cause of the ultimate employment action, then the employer, then the employer is liable under USERRA.”
So how is this recent “cat’s paw” case going to affect employers like your fire department? First, the cat’s paw principle established in the Staub decision is likely to be applied to other, similar claims of animus. Second, it is clear that simply conducting an “independent investigation” is not sufficient to protect employers from such claims. It is imperative that employers have an employee handbook which addresses discipline and discharge policies also to include managing the time off of your reservist employees under USERRA. It is also important to understand that during termination events, if you are the “cat’s paw” please understand all of the background on a termination recommendation so you don’t get burned.
Source - Law of the Workplace - June 2011 SIEGEL, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL & BECK, P.C. Newsletter. Connecticut
One of Aesop’s most memorable fables, “The Monkey and the Cat,” tells the story of a monkey who convinces a cat to pull roasting chestnuts from a fire. The cat retrieves the chestnuts, but in doing so, burns his paws. Meanwhile, the monkey scampers away with the chestnuts, leaving the cat with nothing.
So what do monkeys, cats, and white-hot chestnuts have to do with employer liability?
In Staub v. Proctor Hospital, the U.S. Supreme Court uses the term “cat’s paw” to describe an employment law situation where an employer unknowingly makes an adverse employment decision based on a supervisor’s unlawful animus. In such a scenario, the employer serves as the cat’s paw,” the instrument through which the monkey, (in this case, the supervisor), can exercise his animus without getting burned. In Staub, the plaintiff employee worked as an angiography technician for the hospital. The plaintiff was also a member of the United States Army Reserve, which required him to train one weekend a month, in addition to full-time training two to three weeks a year.
Two of hospital’s other employees, Staub’s supervisor’s “were hostile to Staub’s military obligations.” This hostility prompted the supervisors to issue Staub disciplinary warnings for violating nonexistent company rules, warnings that were placed in Staub’s personnel file, and used as a basis to terminate Staub’s employment with the hospital. Relying on these allegations, the hospital’s vice president of human resources, decided to fire Staub.
In response, Staub sued the hospital under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA), claiming that his discharge was “motivated by hostility toward his obligations as a military reservist.” Yet, as the Court noted, Staub’s contention was not that “the HR Director had any such hostility, but that his supervisors did, and that their actions influenced the HR Director’s ultimate employment decision.”
Holding that a “cat’s paw” case could not “succeed unless the non-decision maker exercised such ‘singular influence’ over the decision maker that the decision to terminate was the product of ‘blind reliance,” the Seventh Circuit ruled in favor of the hospital.
However, The Supreme Court, reversed this decision, holding that, if a supervisor performs an act motivated by antimilitary animus “that is intended to cause an adverse employment action, and if that is a proximate cause of the ultimate employment action, then the employer, then the employer is liable under USERRA.”
So how is this recent “cat’s paw” case going to affect employers like your fire department? First, the cat’s paw principle established in the Staub decision is likely to be applied to other, similar claims of animus. Second, it is clear that simply conducting an “independent investigation” is not sufficient to protect employers from such claims. It is imperative that employers have an employee handbook which addresses discipline and discharge policies also to include managing the time off of your reservist employees under USERRA. It is also important to understand that during termination events, if you are the “cat’s paw” please understand all of the background on a termination recommendation so you don’t get burned.
Source - Law of the Workplace - June 2011 SIEGEL, O’CONNOR, O’DONNELL & BECK, P.C. Newsletter. Connecticut
