Opinion ID: 1608372
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: retaliatory claim

Text: A prima facie case of retaliatory discharge of an employee consists of a discharge following a protected activity of which the employer was aware. Harris v. Misty Lounge, Inc., 220 Neb. 678, 371 N.W.2d 688 (1985). The record shows that Wolfe was terminated after he filed an NEOC complaint, a complaint of which BD was admittedly aware. The question, then, is whether Wolfe's filing of this NEOC complaint was a protected activity. If it was not, as a matter of law, the summary judgment was not erroneous. If Wolfe's NEOC complaint was based upon actual, unlawful discrimination, the filing of that complaint would have been a protected activity. However, it was not so based. This court has not previously explained exactly what must be true of the discriminatory act underlying the retaliation claim. Other jurisdictions are not unanimous; some require actual proof of discrimination while others find even defamatory and malicious filings sufficient. But the vast majority of jurisdictions require a reasonable, good faith belief that the employer unlawfully discriminated. The U.S. Supreme Court has concluded that an unreasonable belief of unlawful acts cannot form the basis for title VII protection of a complaining employee against retaliation, but left unanswered whether a reasonable belief would suffice. Clark County School Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 121 S.Ct. 1508, 149 L.Ed.2d 509 (2001). The Court cited without explicitly endorsing the Ninth Circuit's doctrine that title VII can protect employee `oppos[ition]' not just to practices that are actually `made ... unlawful' by Title VII, but also to practices that the employee could reasonably believe were unlawful. 532 U.S. at 270, 121 S.Ct. 1508. The Court stated that it had no occasion to rule on the propriety of this interpretation, because even assuming it is correct, no one could reasonably believe that the incident recounted above violated Title VII. Id. The Court, then, at least adopted the interpretation that unreasonable beliefs cannot form the basis of the discrimination complaint underlying a retaliatory claim. What it left undecided was whether a reasonable, though incorrect, belief in unlawful discrimination could form the basis. All federal circuit courts have concluded that a belief must be reasonablebut need not necessarily be correctto form the underlying basis for a retaliation claim. See, e.g., Green v. Administrators of Tulane Educational Fund, 284 F.3d 642 (5th Cir.2002); Childress v. City of Richmond, Va., 120 F.3d 476 (4th Cir.1997); Wyatt v. City of Boston, 35 F.3d 13 (1st Cir.1994); Drinkwater v. Union Carbide Corp., 904 F.2d 853 (3d Cir.1990). Most circuit courts require that the belief be in good faith as well. Weeks v. Harden Mfg. Corp., 291 F.3d 1307 (11th Cir.2002); Little v. Windermere Relocation, Inc., 265 F.3d 903 (9th Cir.2001); Foster v. Time Warner Entertainment Co., L.P., 250 F.3d 1189 (8th Cir.2001); McMenemy v. City of Rochester, 241 F.3d 279 (2d Cir.2001); Hamner v. St. Vincent Hosp. and Health Care Center, 224 F.3d 701 (7th Cir.2000); Johnson v. University of Cincinnati, 215 F.3d 561 (6th Cir.2000); Parker v. Baltimore & O.R. Co., 652 F.2d 1012 (D.C.Cir. 1981). See, also, Selenke v. Medical Imaging of Colorado, 248 F.3d 1249 (10th Cir. 2001) (applying principle to Americans with Disabilities Act). Many state courts similarly interpret their fair employment practice acts to require a good faith, reasonable basis for the underlying discrimination claim. Viktron/Lika v. Labor Com'n, 38 P.3d 993 (Utah App.2001); Cox & Smith Inc. v. Cook, 974 S.W.2d 217 (Tex.App.1998); Sada v. Robert F. Kennedy Medical Center, 56 Cal.App.4th 138, 65 Cal.Rptr.2d 112 (1997); Conrad v. Szabo, 198 W.Va. 362, 480 S.E.2d 801 (1996); McCabe v. Board of Johnson County Comm'rs, 5 Kan.App.2d 232, 615 P.2d 780 (1980). But see Bordell v. General Elec. Co., 88 N.Y.2d 869, 667 N.E.2d 922, 644 N.Y.S.2d 912 (1996) (requiring that employee oppose actual violation of law before employee is protected from retaliation by employer). Solid public policy reasons also validate the propriety of requiring a reasonable, good faith belief while not requiring an actually unlawful practice. First, unless we interpret FEPA to require a reasonable, good faith belief, employees who fear dismissal could exploit FEPA by filing a frivolous claim and threatening their employer with a lengthy and costly retaliation suit. Conversely, were we to interpret FEPA to require that the act opposed actually be unlawful before FEPA protects the employee, employees would stop sincere, informal opposition to perceived illegality. The best rule is that an employee is protected by FEPA from employer retaliation for his or her opposition to an act of the employer only when the employee reasonably and in good faith believes the act to be unlawful. Under this rule, Wolfe needs a reasonable, good faith belief that BD broke the law when it subjected him to the disciplinary actions over his complaints about his coworkers using illegal drugs the basis for his original NEOC filing. If he can show this, he has shown a prima facie retaliation claim. In order for such a belief to be reasonable, the act believed to be unlawful must either in fact be unlawful or at least be of a type that is unlawful. The discrimination Wolfe alleges must be of a type which at some level is prohibited by law. As the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals stated in Hamner, supra, [i]f a plaintiff opposed conduct that was not proscribed by [law], no matter how frequent or severe, then his sincere belief that he opposed an unlawful practice cannot be reasonable. Id. at 707 (dismissing as unreasonable underlying claim of sexual orientation discrimination because such discrimination did not violate any federal employment law). See, also, Wimmer v. Suffolk County Police Dept., 176 F.3d 125 (2d Cir.1999) (holding that opposition to employees' racial discrimination against public cannot form basis of retaliation claim because that discrimination does not violate title VII). Since an employer breaks no law by leveling adverse employment ramifications against an employee who complained about the non-work-related unlawful actions of coworkers, Wolfe's opposition to the disciplinary actions cannot form a reasonable belief that he opposed an unlawful practice of the employer. Wolfe, therefore, fails in his second assignment of error. Wolfe's belief that the disciplinary actions were unlawful must not only be in good faith, it must also be reasonable. As a matter of law it was not. Therefore, no issue of material fact regarding Wolfe's retaliation claim exists. Finally, Wolfe's third assignment of error is without merit. The employer in an employment discrimination case does not need to proffer any reason for its actions until the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case that unlawful discrimination has occurred. Father Flanagan's Boys' Home v. Agnew, 256 Neb. 394, 590 N.W.2d 688 (1999); IBP, Inc. v. Sands, 252 Neb. 573, 563 N.W.2d 353 (1997). Since Wolfe never established that prima facie case, the district court never had need to inquire of BD's motives in dismissing Wolfe. The court did not make any findings in its summary judgment regarding BD's proffered reasons for dismissing Wolfe. This was not error.