Case Name: Jennifer SHARKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., Joe Kenney, in his individual and official capacities, Adam Green, in his individual and official capacities, LESLIE LASSITER, in her individual and official capacities. Defendants-Appellees
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 2014-10-09
Citations: 580 F. App'x 28
Docket Number: No. 13-4741-cv
Parties: Jennifer SHARKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., Joe Ken-ney, in his individual and official capacities, Adam Green, in his individual and official capacities, LESLIE LASSITER, in her individual and official capacities. Defendants-Appel-lees.
Judges: 
Reporter: West's Federal Appendix
Volume: 580
Pages: 28–29

Head Matter:
Jennifer SHARKEY, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. J.P. MORGAN CHASE & CO., Joe Ken-ney, in his individual and official capacities, Adam Green, in his individual and official capacities, LESLIE LASSITER, in her individual and official capacities. Defendants-Appel-lees.
No. 13-4741-cv.
United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
Oct. 9, 2014.
Lawrence M. Pearson (Douglas H. Wig-dor, Michael J. Willemin, on the brief), Wigdor LLP, New York, NY, for Appellant.
Michael D. Schissel, Arnold & Porter LLP, NY, NY, for Appellee.
Present: ROSEMARY S. POOLER, REENA RAGGI, PETER W. HALL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion:
SUMMARY ORDER
Plaintiff-appellant Jennifer Sharkey appeals from the December 12, 2018 order of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Sweet, J.), granting defendants-appellees' motion for summary judgment. We assume the parties' familiarity with the underlying facts, procedural history, and specification of issues for review.
In concluding that Sharkey failed to engage in protected activity pursuant to Section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, 18 U.S.C. § 1514A, the district court required Sharkey to show that her complaints "definitively and specifically" related to one of the six enumerated categories of misconduct identified in Section 806. In the time since the district court issued its opinion, we have discarded this standard as too strict. See Nielsen v. AECOM Tech. Corp., 762 F.3d 214, 221-22 (2d Cir. 2014) (rejecting the "definitively and specifically" requirement). In Nielsen, we held that Section 806 "extends whistle-blower protection to information provided by an employee regarding any conduct which the employee reasonably believes constitutes a violation of the enumerated federal provisions." Id. at 221 (emphasis added and internal quotation marks omitted). In light of this intervening shift in standard, we vacate the district court's grant of summary judgment and remand to the district court to assess in the first instance whether Sharkey engaged in Section 806 protected activity under the standard set out in Nielsen.
Should the district court conclude that Sharkey engaged in any identifiable protected activity under the more lenient Nielsen standard, it should reassess, in the context of this finding, whether the identified protected activity "was a contributing factor in the unfavorable action," Bechtel v. Admin. Review Bd., 710 F.3d 443, 451 (2d Cir.2013), and if so, whether defendants have proven "with clear and convincing evidence that [they] would have taken the same unfavorable personnel action in the absence of [that] protected behavior," id.
Accordingly, the judgment of the district court hereby is VACATED and this case is REMANDED for further proceedings consistent with this order.