Opinion ID: 2783919
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: URS E&C assumed, for purposes of its summary

Text: judgment motion, that Tamosaitis engaged in protected activity and was retaliated against because of that conduct. The company moved for summary judgment only on the ground that it was not responsible for the retaliation. The district court agreed, holding that “Tamosaitis has not presented evidence raising a genuine issue of material fact that his employer, URS E&C, ‘took adverse action because of his conduct,’” and that Bechtel was “solely responsible” for Tamosaitis’s “removal from the WTP project.” We hold that Tamosaitis introduced evidence sufficient to create a triable issue as to whether his whistleblowing activity was a contributing factor in the adverse employment action URS E&C took against him. Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary judgment to URS E&C. TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. 23 To establish a prima facie case of ERA retaliation, an employee must show: (1) he “engaged in a protected activity”; (2) “the respondent knew or suspected . . . that the employee engaged in the protected activity”; (3) “[t]he employee suffered an adverse action”; and (4) “[t]he circumstances were sufficient to raise the inference that the protected activity was a contributing factor in the adverse action.” 29 C.F.R. § 24.104(f)(2); cf. Coppinger-Martin v. Solis, 627 F.3d 745, 750 (9th Cir. 2010) (interpreting the similarly structured whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act); Araujo v. N.J. Transit Rail Operations, Inc., 708 F.3d 152, 157 (3d Cir. 2013) (interpreting the Federal Railroad Safety Act whistleblower statute). Under the ERA’s burden-shifting approach to retaliation claims, if an employee shows that his participation in protected activity “was a contributing factor in the unfavorable personnel action alleged,” the burden shifts to the employer. 42 U.S.C. § 5851(b)(3)(C); see also Williams v. Admin. Rev. Bd., 376 F.3d 471, 476 (5th Cir. 2004). The employer may then rebut the employee’s prima facie case by introducing “clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the same unfavorable personnel action in the absence of [the employee’s participation in] such behavior.” 42 U.S.C. § 5851(b)(3)(D).7 Applying this statutory scheme to this case, we note, first, that there is plenty of evidence that Bechtel encouraged URS E&C to remove Tamosaitis from the WTP site because of his whistleblowing, that URS E&C knew that Tamosaitis’s 7 The 1992 amendments to the ERA added a burden-shifting procedure distinct from that established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 800–05 (1973). See Trimmer v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 174 F.3d 1098, 1101 (10th Cir. 1999). 24 TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. whistleblowing motivated Bechtel, and that URS E&C carried out the removal. Frank Russo, the Project Director for WTP and a Bechtel employee, forwarded URS E&C manager Gay an email from DOE personnel regarding Tamosaitis’s email about the M3 closure, which read: “If this shows up in the press we will be sticking to our previous comment. Walt [Tamosaitis] does not speak for DOE . . . . Please use this message as you see fit to accelerate staffing changes . . . .” Introducing this string of emails, Russo wrote Gay: “Walt is killing us. Get him in your corporate office today.” Gay replied: “Dennis [Hayes] has called. He will be gone tomorrow.” The email is dated July 1, 2010, the day before Hayes, a URS E&C employee, removed Tamosaitis from the Hanford site. Another email dated July 1 from Russo, introducing the same email chain but sent to a DOE official, said that Russo was “livid about the string of emails Walt has sent in the last 2 days,” and that “[t]oday I told Gay that Walt will no longer be paid by WTP.” The thrust of the email chains are assuredly that Bechtel, and DOE, were extremely unhappy with Tamosaitis’s participation in protected activity and wanted him off the project.8 A reasonable factfinder could infer not only that the retaliatory motive of URS E&C’s customer, Bechtel, spurred URS E&C’s actions against Tamosaitis, but also that URS E&C knowingly acquiesced in or ratified Bechtel’s retaliation. A reasonable factfinder could also conclude that 8 We decline URS E&C’s invitation to apply judicial estoppel in this case. For the reasons explained, Tamosaitis’s insistence in state court that Bechtel “was behind the decision to remove” him from the WTP is not “clearly inconsistent” with the argument that URS E&C retaliated against Tamosaitis by carrying out Bechtel’s request. See Baughman v. Walt Disney World Co., 685 F.3d 1131, 1133 (9th Cir. 2012). TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. 25 there is not clear and convincing evidence that URS E&C would have taken the same action had Tamosaitis not engaged in protected activity. Under the ERA’s whistleblower protection provision, such showings, if established at trial, are sufficient to make URS E&C liable for retaliatory discrimination against Tamosaitis. The ERA forbids an employer from discriminating against an employee based on the employee’s whistleblowing activities even if the adverse action is taken to maintain an advantageous business relationship. Cf. Gerdom v. Cont’l Airlines, Inc., 692 F.2d 602, 609 (9th Cir. 1982); Fernandez v. Wynn Oil Co., 653 F.2d 1273, 1276–77 (9th Cir. 1981). The purpose of the ERA’s anti-retaliation provision is to root out retaliation against whistleblowers, for the benefit of both the public and the employee. “It would be totally anomolous if we were to allow the preferences . . . of [a] customer[ ] to determine whether the . . . discrimination was valid.” Gerdom, 692 F.2d at 609 (quoting Diaz v. Pan Am. World Airways, Inc., 442 F.2d 385, 389 (5th Cir. 1971)). We hold that where an employer takes an adverse employment action to satisfy a customer with a retaliatory motive of which the employer is aware, retaliation is a “contributing factor,” 42 U.S.C. § 5851(b)(3)(C), in the employer’s decision to take that action. Under this framework, the presence of an employer’s subjective retaliatory animus is irrelevant. All a plaintiff must show is that his “protected activity was a contributing factor in the adverse [employment] action.” 29 C.F.R. § 24.104(f)(1). The relevant causal connection is not between retaliatory animus and personnel action, but rather between protected activity and personnel action. As a result, there is no meaningful distinction between an employer who takes 26 TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. action based on its own retaliatory animus and one that acts to placate the retaliatory animus of a customer. Either way, the fact that the employee engaged in protected activity is the cause of the action taken against him. In the analogous context of Title VII actions, we have long held that a customer’s discriminatory preference does not justify an employer’s discriminatory practice unless — for those protected categories for which the defense is available under Title VII — the discriminatory requirement amounts to a bona fide occupational qualification. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(e); Gerdom, 692 F.2d at 609; Fernandez, 653 F.2d at 1276–77. Implicit in such holdings is the commonsense conclusion that when a known or attributed discriminatory customer preference motivates an adverse employment action, the discriminatory preference is a cause of the employment action. Since Tamosaitis has shown that his protected activity was a “contributing factor” in the adverse employment action he suffered, he has met his burden for establishing a prima facie case of retaliation under the ERA. The ERA contains no bona fide occupational qualification defense. Instead, where retaliation is a contributing factor to an employer’s adverse action, the statute requires that the employer demonstrate by clear and convincing evidence that it would have taken the adverse action even if the employee had not participated in the protected activity. 42 U.S.C. § 5851(b)(3)(D). On the present record, URS E&C has made no such showing. The only relevant argument URS E&C makes is that it had no choice under its contract with Bechtel to continue to employ someone on the Hanford project if TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. 27 Bechtel demanded that that person be removed, regardless of the reason for the request. But this suggestion is unavailing. A trier of fact could conclude that URS E&C’s contract with Bechtel did not require URS E&C to transfer an employee if requested to do so for a known retaliatory reason. The contract provides that, “All work under this contract shall be performed in a skillful and workmanlike manner. The Contracting Officer may require, in writing, that the Contractor remove from the work any employee the Contracting Officer deems incompetent, careless or otherwise objectionable.” No one contends that Tamosaitis was “incompetent” or “careless.” Thus the question is whether the term “otherwise objectionable” is broad enough to encompass unlawful, retaliatory objections. As “a general phrase at the end of a list is limited to the same type of things (the generic category) . . . found in the specific list,” Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 203 (2012) (quoting William D. Popkin, A Dictionary of Statutory Interpretation 74 (2007)), “otherwise objectionable,” read in light of the preceding criteria, best refers to concerns regarding an employee’s work quality and productivity, not to an employee’s protected airing of public safety concerns. See also Los Angeles News Serv. v. CBS Broad., Inc., 305 F.3d 924, 933 (9th Cir.) as amended by 313 F.3d 1093 (9th Cir. 2002). For example, if Bechtel viewed disabled or female employees as undesirable, the “otherwise objectionable” language would not confer the right to order such employees discharged without regard to their productivity, on-the-job honesty, or other criteria related to their ability to perform their jobs. Supporting this reading of “otherwise objectionable” as not reaching retaliation or other proscribed reasons is the 28 TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. consideration that a contract requiring compliance with a transfer or discharge demand triggered by a known retaliatory reason could be void or unenforceable as against public policy. See Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 178 (1981); W.R. Grace & Co. v. Local Union 759, Int'l Union of United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum & Plastic Workers of Am., 461 U.S. 757, 766 (1983) (a court may not enforce a discriminatory contract contrary to public policy). Reading “otherwise objectionable” as not encompassing impermissible motivations avoids that possibility. Cf. Restatement (Second) of Contracts § 207 (1981) (ambiguous contracts are to be read consistently with the public interest). Moreover, an employer may be liable for the retaliatory conduct of another entity “where the employer either ratifies or acquiesces” in the retaliation “by not taking immediate and/or corrective actions when it knew or should have known of the conduct.” Folkerson v. Circus Circus Enters., Inc., 107 F.3d 754, 756 (9th Cir. 1997). Viewing the record in the light most favorable to the non-movant, Tamosaitis, as we must on summary judgment, Nolan v. Heald College, 551 F.3d 1148, 1154 (9th Cir. 2009), it supports the reasonable inference that URS E&C ratified Bechtel’s retaliation by transferring Tamosaitis, despite knowledge of Bechtel’s retaliatory motive. Equally supported is the reasonable inference that URS E&C could have refused to carry out Tamosaitis’s removal but failed to do so. URS E&C supervisor Bill Gay acknowledged that if Bechtel ordered him to transfer a woman and he knew the request was motivated by sexual animus, he would not immediately cede to the request, and would instead take the issue to his corporate headquarters in protest. A jury could view this evidence as supporting the reasonable inference that TAMOSAITIS V. URS, INC. 29 URS E&C retained some control over staffing decisions at the Hanford site. See 42 U.S.C. § 5851(b)(3)(C) (protected activity need only be a “contributing factor in unfavorable personnel action alleged”).