CLAIMS OF EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION
MAY BE BASED ON “ASSOCIATION”
By: John G. Kruchko and Kathleen A. Talty
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), as amended, prohibits employment discrimination on a number of grounds, such as, race, sex, national origin, and religion. It is generally viewed that the protections extended under Title VII are based on the intrinsic traits of the individual who is asserting the employment discrimination claim or, in the case of retaliation claims, in response to the specific actions of the individual employee who is alleging discrimination. Recently, however, several federal appellate and district courts have considered cases which tested the scope of Title VII’s protections and, in some cases, the federal courts ruled that a plaintiff could assert a viable claim under Title VII even when the basis for the claim is derived from the plaintiff’s association with another individual.
In one case, Holcomb v. Iona College, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, which is located in New York, held, in a case of first impression, that a white employee who alleged that his termination was motivated, in part, because he was married to an African-American woman stated a viable claim under Title VII. Specifically, the court stated that “an employer may violate Title VII if it takes action against an employee because of the employee’s association with a person of another race.”
In the Holcomb case, the college employed four male basketball coaches, three who were white and one who was black. One of the white coaches was married to an African-American woman. After experiencing a poor basketball season, the college assessed the coaching team and a number of recommendations were made. One recommendation included retaining the entire coaching team and placing them on notice that, if changes did not occur with the team’s playing, other personnel decisions would be made at a later date. Ultimately, the decision was made to terminate the one African-American coach and the one white coach who was married to an African-American woman. The other two white coaches were retained. The terminated white coach, Craig Holcomb, disputed the termination decision and brought a Title VII lawsuit, alleging that he was discriminated against, not solely because of his race, but as a result of his marriage to a black woman.
The Second Circuit found that Mr. Holcomb asserted a viable Title VII claim. The court stated: [W]here an employee is subjected to adverse action because an employer disapproves of interracial association, the employee suffers discrimination because of the employee’s own race.”
In another federal appellate court decision, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals heard a case that was brought by a discharged employee who contended that he was terminated after his wife filed a discrimination charge against their common employer. In Thompson v. North Am. Stainless LP, the appellate court was then asked to determine whether Title VII prohibits employers from taking retaliatory action against employees not directly involved in protected activity, but who are so closely related to or associated with those who are directly involved, that it is clear the protected activity motivated the employer’s action. The appellate court, contrary to the lower court, ruled that Title VII’s prohibitions did extend to such claims because such “conduct would undermine the purposes of Title VII.”
The defendant in the Thompson case argued that the plain language of the statute indicated that the only individual protected by Title VII’s anti-retaliation provisions is the person who engaged in the protected activity. The appellate court, however, held that it was well established that a court “should go beyond the literal language of a statute if reliance on that language would defeat the plain purpose of the statute.” Then, relying on a number of Supreme Court decisions which had held that remedial purposes of the anti-retaliation provisions of Title VII, included, among others, ensuring that a reasonable worker is not dissuaded from making or supporting a charge of discrimination because of the retaliatory employer action, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals held that “there is no doubt that employer’s retaliation against a family member after an employee files an EEOC charge would .... dissuade ‘reasonable workers’” from asserting such claims.
Attempts by other plaintiffs to stretch the “traditional” parameters of Title VII’s coverage were not met with similar success. For example, in Adamson v. Multi Community Diversified Services, the plaintiffs were a husband, wife and daughter, who had all been employed by the same organization. When the husband was terminated for alleged financial irregularities, the termination of the wife and the daughter quickly followed. Among the reasons cited by the employer for their terminations was the family’s employment relationship was ill-advised and contrary to the organization’s anti-nepotism policy.
In the subsequent lawsuit filed by the husband, wife and daughter, they alleged, among other claims, that their terminations pursuant to the anti-nepotism policy constituted unlawful sex-based discrimination against them because it was based on their “familial status” as husband, wife and daughter and that such discrimination was in violation of Title VII. While the district court initially accepted the plaintiffs’ “theory” of the basis for their Title VII claim, the district court ruled in favor of the employer.
The appellate court, however, stated at the outset of its decision that “Title VII protects neither the family unit nor individual family members from discrimination based on their ‘familial status’ alone.” Further, the court stated that “familial status is not a classification based on sex any more than is being a ‘sibling’ or ‘relative’ generally. It is, by definition, gender neutral.” Therefore, the appellate court ruled that assertions that an employer discriminated against an individual on the basis of his or her “familial status” alone states no cognizable claim under Title VII.
The appellate court, though, did consider the claims of the wife and daughter within the context of a sex-based claim to determine whether the application of the anti-nepotism policy represented a discriminatory discharge. In that regard, the court found that the evidence did not support their claim of sex discrimination.
In a non-Title VII case, the federal court in the Middle District of Pennsylvania considered a claim that was based upon the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which contains a provision which prohibits disability discrimination based on association. However, the plaintiff in Barthalow v. David H. Martin Excavating Inc., who was not disabled, but whose wife was, argued that his employer’s failure to reasonably accommodate his frequent absences that were related to his wife’s disability constituted a violation of the ADA. While the district court noted that the ADA prohibits the denial of employment or benefits to a qualified disabled individual because of that individual’s relationship or association with a disabled person, the court held that the right to reasonable accommodation does not extend to non-disabled individuals who are associated with a disabled individual. To the contrary, the court stated that the reasonable accommodation requirements under the ADA extend only to the disabled individual.
These recent federal appellate and district court cases illustrate, in some ways, the expanded nature of Title VII claims and, in other ways, the narrower construction that is extended to claims brought under the employment discrimination laws.
John G. Kruchko is a Partner with the Management Labor & Employment Law Firm of Kruchko & Fries in McLean, Virginia; Kathleen Talty is an Associate with the Firm. For more information, please contact Mr. Kruchko @ (703) 734-0554, or Ms. Talty at (410) 321-7310; jkruchko@kruchkoandfries.com or ktalty@kruchkoandfries.com. This article is published for general information and does not constitute legal advice.