Supreme Court Lengthens Time for Employees to Sue for Hostile Environment Harassment
June 26, 2002
Todd D. Steenson- Chicago
In an important recent job discrimination ruling, the Supreme Court resolved a question that had spurred numerous different answers around the country: Can a job-bias claimant recover damages for discriminatory acts that occurred outside of the time limits for filing a discrimination charge under Title VII? The Court essentially answered “yes” for hostile environment harassment claims, but “no” for other discrimination claims. National Railroad Passenger Corporation v. Morgan, No. 00–1614 (June 10, 2002). Its decision creates a substantial potential for confusion and makes hostile environment harassment claims even more dangerous for employers.
Legal Background
Title VII requires that discrimination charges be filed within 180 days “after the alleged unlawful employment practice occurred” (or within 300 days in states that have agencies to address employment discrimination claims). Courts have struggled with how to determine when a charge must be filed when the plaintiff alleges a continuing pattern of discrimination that begins more than 300 days before a charge is filed. All courts have required the plaintiff to allege at least one act of discrimination within the charge-filing period to have a valid claim. Some courts have decided that a plaintiff cannot recover for allegedly discriminatory acts that occurred more than 300 days before a charge was filed if a reasonable person would have had enough information to file sooner. Other courts have ruled that the plaintiff may recover for conduct that would ordinarily be time barred as long as the untimely incidents are part of an ongoing, unlawful employment practice. The answer is important to both liability and damages, as it may affect whether an employee can prove a hostile environment at all, and what alleged events can give rise to damages.
Morgan’s Claims
Abner Morgan Jr., a black electrician, sued Amtrak in 1996 for race discrimination that allegedly occurred over a period of years. He made claims of discrimination, racially hostile environment and retaliation, each of which was based upon conduct that occurred both before and within the 300-day filing period. The District Court dismissed all claims relating to acts that occurred more than 300 days before Morgan filed his EEOC charge, ruling that “[b]ecause Morgan believed that he was being discriminated against at the time that all of these acts occurred, it would not be unreasonable to expect that Morgan should have filed an EEOC charge on these acts before the limitations period on these claims ran.” The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed, ruling that Morgan could recover for incidents occurring outside of the 300-day period under all three claims if those incidents were “sufficiently related” to acts occurring within the time period.
Supreme Court Creates Two New Tests
The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision delivered by Justice Clarence Thomas, rejected the tests applied by both lower courts, and offered different answers for the retaliation and discrimination claims and the racial harassment claim.
The majority ruled that discrete discriminatory acts, such as termination, failure to promote, refusal to hire and retaliation are easy to identify and “occur” on the day the decision is made. Therefore, the worker must file the charge within 180 or 300 days of such a discriminatory act or lose the ability to recover for it. As a result, Morgan could not recover for discrete acts of discrimination or retaliation that occurred more than 300 days before he filed his charge.
The Court applied a different rule for hostile environment harassment claims. It concluded that because multiple acts of harassment are usually required before harassment violates Title VII, an entire course of harassment is only one discriminatory act under Title VII. As a result, as long as any act in the same course of harassment occurs within 300 days before the charge is filed, an employee can recover for all the harassing conduct – even if it occurred more than 300 days before the charge was filed. “A court’s task is to determine whether the acts about which the employee complains are part of the same actionable hostile work environment practice, and, if so, whether any act falls within the statutory time period.”
The Court concluded that employers are not “defenseless” against “employees who bring hostile work environment claims that extend over long periods of time.” Rather, “employers have recourse when a plaintiff unreasonably delays filing a charge” and the delay prejudices the employer’s ability to defend itself. The Supreme Court did not address how much prejudice must be shown, but stated merely that “employers may raise various defenses in the face of unreasonable and prejudicial delay.”
Implications for Employers
The Supreme Court’s decision is a mixed bag for employers. On the one hand, it creates a clear and limiting rule regarding discrete acts of discrimination: absent exceptional circumstances, an employer will not be liable for discrete acts of discrimination that occurred more than 300 days before a charge is filed. This rule is more employer-friendly than the rule applied by many lower courts, and prevents employers from being held liable for stale claims. Employers should be aware, however, that time-barred discrete acts of discrimination are not necessarily irrelevant; rather, a plaintiff may be able to introduce them as background evidence to support a current claim.
On the other hand, the Court’s rule regarding hostile environment harassment claims is much more employee-friendly than the rule applied by many lower courts and creates a number of problems for employees. Allowing employees to recover for all harassing events that are part of the same “actionable hostile work environment practice” gives employees more time to aggregate sufficient events to demonstrate an actually hostile environment, and potentially forces the employer to defend stale claims after witnesses have left the workplace. The Court’s new test also complicates matters by requiring two new determinations: (1) whether the employee is complaining about a hostile environment or discrete acts of discrimination; and (2) whether the harassment allegations are part of the same “actionable hostile work environment practice.” In contrast, the “prejudice” defense the Court left employers is unlikely to help in all but the most egregious cases.
Given the two different tests, we are likely to see plaintiffs try to characterize their claims as hostile environment harassment claims. The Morgan decision creates yet another reason for employers to remind their employees about their policies against harassment.
For more information, contact Todd Steenson at 888-688-8500 or via e-mail by clicking on his name.