Skip to main content

A Requested Transfer May Establish an Adverse Employment Action



Deleon v. Kalamazoo County Road Commission - Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals 

Facts:  On November 13, 2008, plaintiff Deleon applied for the position of "Equipment and Facilities Superintendent."  Deleon testified that if he had he been offered the job, he would have asked for a $10,000 raise to compensate for the poor working conditions, described as "in a garage where there is exposure to loud noises and diesel fumes."  The commission initially hired another candidate, who soon quit.  An external candidate was then offered the job, who declined.

In 2009, Deleon was transferred to the position without a raise and was not offered a choice on the transfer.  Notably, Deleon moved from an office environment to a "facility with running trucks and equipment that resulted in constant exposure to diesel fumes."  He offered testimony that he was the only Area Superintendent position subject to these conditions and developed bronchitis, in addition to a cough and sinus headaches, from the diesel fumes.  Deleon was eventually terminated after taking an extended FMLA leave.  He subsequently brought suit against Kalamazoo and alleged violation of the Equal Protection Clause and discrimination claims.

Kalamazoo moved for summary judgment against Deleon's suit and the District Court granted the motion.  The District Court held the actions complained of by Deleon failed to amount to an "adverse" employment action.

Holding:  The Sixth Circuit reversed the District Court and held that while lateral transfers that do not affect pay, title or work hours are often not deemed "adverse," a transfer without such tangible changes" may be an adverse employment action if it constitutes a demotion evidenced by a "less distinguished title, a material loss of benefits, significantly diminished material responsibilities, or other indices that might be unique to a particular situation."  As well, the Court cited caselaw which held that whether a particular reassignment is materially adverse depends upon the circumstances of the particular case and should be judged from the perspective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff's position, considering all the circumstances.

Consequently, the Court held that based upon the testimony and evidence that Deleon had presented to the District Court, there was sufficient evidence to present a material issue of fact to defeat Kalamazoo's motion for summary judgment. 

Judgment:  The Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the District Court's ruling and remanded the case for further proceedings. 

Majority Opinion Judge:  Judge Keith 

Date:  January 14, 2014 

Opinion:  http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/14a0012p-06.pdf

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

NLRB: Discussion Among Employees About Tip Pooling is Protected Concerted Activity

  This Advice Memorandum from the National Labor Relations Board’s Associate General Counsel, Jayme Sophir, addressed whether employees which discussed and complained about tip pooling at work constituted protected concerted activity. In relevant part, an employer in New York operated a chain of steakhouses.  While tip pooling was in place at these steakhouses, some of the employees objected to it on the grounds that it was not transparent and improperly divided tips among the workers.  Employees were told not to complain or talk to each other about the tip pool and were told that doing so would endanger their jobs.  Despite the employer later attempting to provide some clarity as to how the tips were being divided, rancor still existed among some employees.  At one point, the employees were told by a general manager that some employees that had been talking about the tip pool were “cleared out” and the employer would continue to do so. In the Advice Memorandum, it was noted that emplo
Post a Comment
Read more

What I’ve Been Reading This Week

A few years ago, I remember when the “Fight for $15” movement was taking off around the country.  Lo and behold, it appears that a $15/hour minimum wage is not the stopping point, which should be no surprise.  As the below article notes, New York is aggressively moving to ramp up hourly wage rates even higher.  While all the  below articles are worth a read, I called particular attention to that one. As always, below are a couple article that caught my eye this week. Disney World Workers Reject Latest Contract Offer Late last week, it was announced that workers at Disney World had rejected the most recent contract offer from the company, calling on their employer to do better.  As Brooks Barnes at The New York Times writes, the unions that represent about 32,000 workers at Disney World reported their members resoundingly rejected the 5 year contract offer which would have seen workers receive a 10% raise and retroactive increased back pay.  While Disney’s offer would have increased pa
Post a Comment
Read more

Utah Non-Compete Bill Falters in House

Last month, a non-compete bill sponsored by Representative Brian Greene (Republican from Pleasant Grove) & up for vote in the Utah House failed to make it through the Legislature.  The bill sought to ban enforcement of non-competes if they came after a worker was already employed, given no compensation (such as a bonus or promotion) for signing the non-compete, and laid off within six months.  However, by a 22 - 49 vote, the bill was resoundingly defeated after some business groups lobbied to kill the non-compete bill.  One group in particular, The Free Enterprise Utah coalition, argued that the Utah State Legislature should hold off on any changes to non compete laws in the state until a survey about non competes was done among Utah businesses.  Representative Greene had countered this claim and argued that a survey was not needed to show that the current non compete laws in the states allowed many businesses, including some small high tech companies in the state, to per
Post a Comment
Read more