And the Supreme Court today only added to the stress level, as Marketplace's Washington editor John Dimsdale reports. Robinson then applied for a job with another company, and Shell gave his prospective boss a bad reference. Robinson took Shell to court again, arguing the negative reference was a vengeful act for his first lawsuit. The Civil Rights Act prevents employers from retaliating against workers who file discrimination cases . Today, the Supreme Court expanded that protection to former employees re-instating Charles Robinson's lawsuit against Shell.
Employers already have to be careful with how much they reveal about former workers.
In the interest of encouraging managers to be truthful, some states give them immunity from liability for defamation or invasion of privacy, when they are asked for employees references. But that doesn't apply in cases of racial discrimination. Lawyer Barry Goldman, who is researching employee discrimination lawsuits for a doctoral dissertation at the University of Maryland, say today's decision is likely to make employers ever more reluctant of offering forthright assessments of their former employees. I think we all want honest references to occur, but certainly because of the current state of the law and the decision today, there's more impetus to view references from a liability point of view. And the Supreme Court today made the fine line they walk a bit thinner.