subject: Murrieta Business and Employment Litigation Lawyer Offers Business and Employment Case Study [print this page] Murrieta Business and Employment Litigation Lawyer Offers Business and Employment Case Study
U.S. Supreme Court Rules FLSA Anti-Retaliation Provision Covers Verbal Complaints to Employer - Pending before the U.S. Supreme Court is the case of Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 570 F.3d 834 (7th Cir. 2009), an action under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act ("FLSA"), which governs wages and working conditions. According to the employee plaintiff, the physical position of time clocks the employees used to clock in and out for shifts improperly prevented employees from being compensated for time spent putting on and removing their work clothing. The employee claimed that after he made oral complaints to the employer about the clocks, the employer terminated him.
At issue in the litigation was if the anti-retaliation provision of the FLSA covered the employee. That provision makes it improper for an employer "to discharge or in any other manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint related to this chapter." Specifically at issue was whether the words "filed any complaint" protects an employee's action of making a mere verbal grievance to his employer - all the plaintiff alleged he did - as opposed to submitting a written complaint.
The Supreme Court, in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 2011 U.S. LEXIS 2417 (Mar. 22, 2011), ruled that the employee's merely verbal complaints were covered by the anti-retaliation provision in question. The Court decided that the words "filed any complaint" itself does not specify the issue of whether the complaint should be written. As such, the Court referred to, among other things, the worker safeguard purpose of the FLSA; the usage by legislators, administrators and judges of the word "file" in conjunction with oral statements; and the broad construction of the anti-retaliation provision in the National Labor Relations Act. These considerations supported the conclusion that "filed any complaint" includes all oral complaints.
The employer in the case argued against ruling oral statements covered because an oral complaint may be short of ample clarity; it may not always be obvious to the employer that an employee is complaining of an FLSA violation. Thus, an employer may not receive proper notice of potential retaliation liability. While the Court recognized this concern, it declared that employers still have fair notice of potential retaliation liability because complaints must be amply recognizable to invoke the anti-retaliation provision: "a complaint must be sufficiently clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it, in light of both content and context, as an assertion of rights protected by the statute and a call for their protection."
In dissenting from the majority opinion, one Justice expressed his understanding of the anti-retaliation provision as non applicable to complaints made to the employer at all - whether oral or written. Instead, this Justice read the provision as including only complaints made to a court or agency. The majority expressed no opinion on this interpretation.
The Kasten case is one of many pro-employee decisions the U.S. Supreme Court has issued recently.
This article is intended to convey accurate general information concerning the subject matter covered, but should not be construed as legal advice, which would be dependent upon the specific circumstances of the client.
