Opinion ID: 6536577
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cat's Paw Under Oregon Law

Text: Although this court has not addressed the cat's paw doctrine with respect to Oregon statutory employment claims, with its decision in this case, the Court of Appeals has now issued three decisions accepting and applying the theory in both statutory employment discrimination and retaliation cases. See also La Manna , 276 Or. App. 149 , 366 P.3d 773 ; LaCasse , 278 Or. App. 24 , 373 P.3d 1178 . We agree with the Court of Appeals that the cat's paw doctrine is a viable theory for use in proving discriminatory or retaliatory motivation in Oregon statutory employment discrimination and retaliation cases. Our analysis begins with an examination of federal cat's paw cases. Although federal precedent has no binding authority on this court's interpretation of state law, this court  has looked to Title VII precedent for guidance in analyzing claims brought under analogous provisions of ORS chapter 659A. PSU Association of University Professors v. PSU , 352 Or. 697 , 711, 291 P.3d 658 (2012) (stating that federal precedent interpreting the antidiscrimination provisions of Title VII can provide useful additional context to aid our analysis of the meaning of ORS 659A.030(1)(f) (footnote omitted));  Vaughn v. Pacific Northwest Bell Telephone , 289 Or. 73 , 87, 611 P.2d 281 (1980) (recognizing similarity between statutory schemes in antidiscrimination provisions under ORS chapter 659, the precursor to ORS chapter 659A, and in Title VII). And a number of other Oregon statutes prohibiting employment discrimination expressly require that they be construed in a manner that is consistent with analogous federal statutes. See ORS 659A.139(1) (requiring that state provisions prohibiting unlawful discrimination against persons with disabilities be construed to the extent possible in a manner that is consistent with any similar provisions of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990); ORS 659A.186(2) (similarly requiring consistent construction between Oregon Family Leave Act and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993). In this case, part of plaintiff's action pertained to Nike's alleged violation of ORS 654.062(5) in the Oregon Safe Employment Act (OSEA). 2 That provision-which makes it an unlawful employment practice for any person to discharge from employment or otherwise discriminate against any employee who has [m]ade any complaint    under or related to the OSEA-has a federal counterpart in the Occupational Safety and Health Act. Under 29 USC section 660(c)(1), [n]o person shall discharge or in any manner discriminate against any employee because such employee has filed any complaint    under or related to this Act. Federal courts have adopted the same mode of analysis used in a wide variety of federal employment retaliation claims, including Title VII cases,  for retaliation cases brought under 29 USC section 660(c)(1). See, e.g. , Reich v. Hoy Shoe Co., Inc. , 32 F.3d 361 , 365 (8th Cir. 1994). In light of the same requirement for a plaintiff to prove discriminatory or retaliatory animus in both state and federal claims, an examination of the cat's paw theory under federal jurisprudence concerning statutes prohibiting discriminatory or retaliatory employment actions is instructive to our consideration of that theory's viability under similar Oregon statutes prohibiting discrimination and retaliation in employment. We begin with federal precedent because the cat's paw theory originated in federal court. The term cat's paw derives from an Aesop's fable popularized by Jean de La Fontaine about a monkey who induces an unwitting cat to pull roasting chestnuts from the fire. Staub v. Proctor Hospital , 562 U.S. 411 , 415 n. 1, 131 S. Ct. 1186 , 179 L. Ed. 2d 144 (2011). As the cat extracts the chestnuts, the monkey consumes them, leaving the cat with nothing but burnt paws. Id. In the general lexicon, cat's paw has come to refer to one used by another to accomplish [the other's] purposes. Webster's Third New Int'l Dictionary 354 (unabridged ed. 2002). Judge Posner imported the cat's paw doctrine into the employment law context in 1990 when he used the term to describe a neutral decision-maker acting as the conduit of a non-decision-maker's prejudice in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967. Shager v. Upjohn Co. , 913 F.2d 398 , 405 (7th Cir. 1990). In Shager , a supervisor who lacked decision-making authority recommended-allegedly due to age-based animus-that the committee with actual decision-making authority fire the plaintiff, and the committee acted on the tainted recommendation. Id. Writing for the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Judge Posner declared that the employer could not escape liability by relying on the decision-making committee's lack of bias if the committee acted as the biased supervisor's conduit or cat's paw without conducting an independent investigation. Id. The Shager court based its reasoning on agency principles: [A] supervisory employee who fires a subordinate is doing the kind of thing that he is authorized to do, and the wrongful intent with which he does it does not carry his behavior so far beyond the orbit  of his responsibilities as to excuse the employer. Id. (citing  Restatement (Second) of Agency § 228 (1958) ). The court added, however, that the concern is with confining the employer's or principal's liability to the general class of cases in which he has the practical ability to head off the injury to his employee's, or other agent's, victim. Id. Since Shager , all the other federal circuit courts of appeals have also adopted the cat's paw theory of imputed bias (although, in some instances, not the feline moniker) in employment discrimination and retaliation actions brought under a variety of federal statutes. 3 The federal courts, however, articulated the theory in almost as many ways as cats have lives; they often invoked the theory using recurring terminology but described it without regular consistency. See, e.g. , E.E.O.C. v. BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Co. , 450 F.3d 476 (10th Cir. 2006), cert. dismissed , 549 U.S. 1334 , 127 S.Ct. 1931 , 167 L.Ed.2d 583 (2007) (discussing that its sister circuits have divided over a lenient versus strict approach to the cat's paw theory, before formulating an intermediate standard for itself). In 2011, the United States Supreme Court finally joined the lower federal courts in adopting the cat's paw theory and clarified the kind of proof required for a plaintiff to present the theory to the factfinder. Staub , 562 U.S. at 411 , 131 S.Ct. 1186 , 179 L.Ed.2d 144 . The plaintiff in Staub claimed that his immediate supervisor and second-level supervisor were hostile toward and discriminated against him because of his military service obligations, in violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA). Id. at 415, 131 S. Ct. 1186 . The decision to fire the plaintiff, however, was made by a human resources vice president who had firing authority,  in reliance on a report from the second-level supervisor. Id. at 414-15 , 131 S. Ct. 1186 . In rejecting the employer's argument that an employer is not liable unless the de facto decisionmaker    is motivated by discriminatory animus[,] the Court recognized the cat's paw doctrine as a viable theory in employment discrimination cases. Id. at 419-20 , 131 S. Ct. 1186 . The Court explained that an employer's mere conduct of an independent investigation that does not sever the causal link between the biased motive of the supervisor and the employment decision will not relieve[ ] the employer of 'fault.'  Id. at 421 , 131 S. Ct. 1186 . The Court express[ed] no view as to whether the employer would be liable if a co-worker, rather than a supervisor, committed a discriminatory act that influenced the ultimate employment decision. Id. at 422 n. 4, 131 S. Ct. 1186 . 4 Since the Staub decision, the intermediate federal appellate courts have developed the cat's paw theory by explaining that the applicable standard of causation in an employment discrimination or retaliation case involving use of the theory depends on the law governing the claims at issue. In  Zamora v. City of Houston , 798 F.3d 326 (5th Cir. 2015), cert. den. , City of Houston v. Zamora , --- U.S. ----, 136 S. Ct. 2009 , 195 L.Ed.2d 215 (2016), for example, the Fifth Circuit addressed as a matter of first impression how the cat's paw analysis in Staub (a USERRA discrimination case) applies, if at all, in the Title VII retaliation context. The Fifth Circuit held that the cat's paw doctrine remains a viable theory but explained that Staub 's motivating-factor standard of causation needed to be replaced with the but-for standard of causation that applies to a Title VII retaliation claim. Id. at 331-33 . See also  Lockheed Martin Corp. v. Administrative Review Bd. , 717 F.3d 1121 , 1137 (10th Cir. 2013) (tailoring cat's paw theory to retaliation claim brought under Sarbanes-Oxley Act by requiring the less onerous contributing-factor causation); Sims v. MVM, Inc. , 704 F.3d 1327 , 1335-36 (11th Cir. 2013) (modifying theory in ADEA case to require but-for causation). As that overview reflects, the cat's paw doctrine is widely accepted as a viable theory in employment discrimination and retaliation cases for imputing bias to a manager with decision-making authority, and we join the above-mentioned courts in adopting it. With the cat's paw theory, a plaintiff is able to explain why an employer's theoretically neutral decision-maker does not insulate the employer from liability for an adverse employment decision that, in actuality, is based upon biased information or recommendations provided by biased supervisors. We hold that, in Oregon statutory employment discrimination and retaliation cases, a plaintiff may assert the cat's paw theory to impute the bias of a supervisor who lacks decision-making authority to the employer's manager and ultimate decision-maker, if the plaintiff can point to evidence that the non-decision-maker influenced or was involved in the adverse employment decision. Because the allegedly biased individuals in this case were plaintiff's immediate and second-level supervisors, who lacked firing authority, our holding addresses the imputation of the bias of a subordinate supervisor to an upper manager who served as the decision-maker, and we need not and do not express an opinion regarding whether the cat's paw theory under Oregon law extends to imputing the bias of others to the decision-maker. The cat's paw theory as we adopt it does not prescribe a particular level of control that a biased employee-in this case, a subordinate supervisor-must exert over the employment decision ( e.g. , that the employee must have reported the plaintiff or must have recommended the decision) before allowing the bias to be imputed to the decision-maker. We agree with the federal courts of appeals that have held that a biased supervisor's influence on or involvement in the decision or decision-making process is sufficient to allow a factfinder to impute bias. See Poland v. Chertoff , 494 F.3d 1174 , 1182-83 (9th Cir. 2007) (collecting cases for  proposition that a subordinate employee's retaliatory bias can be imputed to the employer if the plaintiff proves that the biased subordinate influenced or was involved in the decision or decision-making process). That approach is practical, considering a workplace reality: The employment setting often consists of multiple layers of networks and relationships; organizational models often do not reflect a simple vertical chain of command; and bias can enter the decision-making process through formal or less formal channels. See BCI , 450 F.3d at 486 (It should go without saying that a company's organizational chart does not always accurately reflect its decisionmaking process.). Thus, so long as a plaintiff can show that a biased supervisor influenced or was involved in the adverse employment decision, the plaintiff may establish the employer's unlawful bias based on the cat's paw theory. To require more-that, as a matter of law, a plaintiff must satisfy a preliminary causal threshold by showing that the biased supervisor influenced or was involved in the decision to a prespecified degree-would be to remove questions of fact from the jury. Requiring, as an initial matter, that there be certain acts to trigger imputation would artificially limit the circumstances to which the cat's paw theory might apply, based on preconceived notions of the ways in which unlawful animus manifests.  But imputation of bias works only to permit a factfinder to impute a supervisor's bias to a defendant employer. To prove the employer's liability for an unlawful employment practice, a plaintiff must also demonstrate the requisite causation-that the supervisor's unlawful bias caused the adverse employment action. As the federal courts have noted, the cat's paw theory does not displace the requirement that a plaintiff establish a causal nexus between the bias of the supervisor and the ultimate adverse employment action. See, e.g. , Zamora , 798 F.3d at 332 (distinguishing causation standard for proving a Title VII retaliation claim from whether a supervisor's unlawful animus may be imputed to the decisionmaker). The cat's paw theory provides only a pathway for satisfying the causation requirement of an employment discrimination or retaliation claim; it does not replace or eliminate the causation requirement  itself. An employer ultimately will be held liable only if the factfinder determines that the requisite causal connection exists between the supervisor's bias and the adverse employment action. As for the requisite level of causation, we join the federal circuit courts that have recognized that the plaintiff's required showing will vary depending upon the particular causal connection that the substantive law requires. See Zamora , 798 F.3d at 331-33 ; Lockheed Martin Corp. , 717 F.3d at 1137 ; Sims , 704 F.3d at 1335-36 . Finally, we agree with the Supreme Court that an employer's independent investigation, if it results in an adverse action for reasons unrelated to the supervisor's original biased action, could absolve the employer of liability. Staub , 562 U.S. at 421 , 131 S.Ct. 1186 . But a perfunctory or performative independent investigation will not suffice; an employer may still remain liable if the plaintiff can establish that the supervisor's bias caused the adverse action by the decision-maker. Were it otherwise, employers would be able to avoid liability on mere technicality by going through the motions of conducting an investigation. The Court of Appeals' earlier treatment of the cat's paw theory, in two cases on appeal from summary judgments for the defendants, is consistent with the rule that we adopt. The issue before the Court of Appeals in each case, and the only one that it addressed, was whether the facts engaged the cat's paw theory such that the theory was available to the plaintiff. In La Manna , the plaintiff, a 50-year-old gay man, sued the employer city government for age and sexual-orientation discrimination under various federal and state laws after the city manager pressured him to withdraw his job application. 276 Or. App. at 151-53 , 366 P.3d 773 . The plaintiff contended that the city manager had acted on information traceable to an officer who had commented on the plaintiff's age during the job interview, which served as evidence of age discrimination. Id. at 152, 154 , 366 P.3d 773 . The Court of Appeals agreed with the plaintiff, relying on a Ninth Circuit decision for the proposition that, even in a case involving an 'independent decision-maker,' conduct of a biased subordinate can prove pretext if 'the biased subordinate influenced or was involved in the decision  or decision-making process.'  La Manna , 276 Or. App. at 160 , 366 P.3d 773 (citing Poland , 494 F.3d at 1182 ). The Court of Appeals determined that the officer's comments contribute to an inference that the [city manager's] decision to require plaintiff to withdraw was based on his age. Id. Similarly, as to the sexual-orientation discrimination claim, the court stated that the plaintiff is not required to show that the person who made the [adverse employment] decision had the protected characteristic in mind if that person or the decision-making process was influenced by a subordinate who was biased against the plaintiff because of the protected characteristic. Id. at 165-66, 366 P.3d 773 . See also LaCasse , 278 Or. App. at 37 , 373 P.3d 1178 (stating, in a sexual harassment retaliation case, that a trier of fact could conclude that [the decision-maker's] decision was influenced by    an improperly motivated subordinate (citing La Manna )).