Opinion ID: 2795700
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retaliation Instructions

Text: New Breed challenges the retaliation instructions on three grounds: 1) the instructions failed to require but-for causation; 2) the instructions permitted the jury to find causation based on temporal proximity alone; and 3) the instructions stated that complaints to a harassing supervisor constitute protected activity and are sufficient to impute knowledge to the employer.
We will address grounds one and two together since they both address causation. New Breed first contends that the retaliation instructions were erroneous because the district court informed the jury that, in order to find New Breed liable for retaliation, the EEOC only had to show “that there was a causal connection between the claimant’s protected activity and the adverse employment action.” New Breed contends that this instruction required something less than but-for causation under Nassar. We disagree. The district court’s retaliation instruction further informed the jury that: “To recover on its retaliation claims against the defendant, the plaintiff . . . must establish that [the claimants] were subjected to adverse employment actions by the defendant because of their internal complaints about alleged sex discrimination.” R. 265 at 121, Page ID# 6331. The phrase “because of” denotes a but-for causation relationship. See Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176 (2009). Thus, although the Supreme Court had not yet decided Nassar, the retaliation instruction nonetheless articulated a but-for causation standard. No. 13-6250 EEOC v. New Breed Logistics Page 23 New Breed also contends that the retaliation instructions were erroneous because they informed the jury that it could find causation based on temporal proximity alone. New Breed reiterates its argument that temporal proximity alone is no longer sufficient under Nassar. Even assuming that this is the case, the instant jury instructions were not erroneous. The retaliation instructions informed the jury that “[c]lose timing between the claimant’s protected activity and an adverse action against the clamant may provide the causal connection needed to make out a prima facie case of retaliation.” R. 265 at 121, Page ID# 6331 (emphasis added). The instructions then went on to state: “However, you should be mindful that the fact that an adverse employment action occurred close in time to a protected activity does not always mean that one caused the other.” Id. Following this statement, the instructions made clear that the EEOC could only establish its retaliation claim if it showed that the claimants were subjected to adverse employment actions “because of” their protected activity. Id. As just noted, the “because of” language embodies a but-for causation standard. Therefore, the jury instructions did not mislead or confuse the jury into thinking that it only had to find close temporal proximity between the protected activity and the adverse employment actions to find retaliation.
New Breed contends that the district court erred in instructing the jury as to the protected activity and employer knowledge prongs of the prima facie case. New Breed first asserts that the district court abused its discretion in instructing the jury that complaints to a harassing supervisor constitute protected activity. Because we have already affirmed the district court’s conclusion in this regard, we will move to New Breed’s challenge to the employer-knowledge instruction. New Breed next argues that the district court erroneously informed the jury that “[a]n employer is deemed to have notice of harassment reported to any supervisor or department head who has been authorized or is reasonably believed by a complaining employee to have been authorized to receive and respond to or forward such complaints to management.” R. 265 at 120– 21, Page ID# 6330–31 (emphasis added). New Breed contends that this instruction is inconsistent with the requirement that the relevant decision maker must have knowledge of the protected activity. No. 13-6250 EEOC v. New Breed Logistics Page 24 We find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in instructing the jury on the issue of employer knowledge. New Breed’s objection is unavailing as to Hines. Calhoun knew of Hines’s protected conduct because she communicated her complaints about the harassment directly to him before he terminated her employment. New Breed’s objection is similarly unavailing as to Pete, Pearson, and Partee. As noted previously, New Breed’s liability for Pete’s, Pearson’s, and Partee’s terminations is premised on a theory a cat’s paw liability—that the relevant decision makers were conduits of Calhoun’s retaliatory animus. See Madden, 549 F.3d at 678; Roberts, 283 F. App’x at 333. To prevail on this theory, the EEOC only had to show that the retaliatory animus of the biased supervisor influenced the decision maker. Goodsite v. Norfolk S. Ry. Co., 573 F. App’x 572, 586 (6th Cir. 2014). Therefore, the retaliation instructions did not have to instruct the jury that the decision makers had to possess knowledge of the protected activity in order to find that the adverse employment actions were occasioned by Calhoun’s retaliatory animus. Accordingly, the district court’s retaliation instructions were not an abuse of discretion under the circumstances of this case.