Opinion ID: 785798
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Job Transfer

Text: 55 Next we consider whether the job transfer at issue in the present case was an adverse employment action. Burlington Northern appeals the district court's decision that transferring White from her forklift operator job to a standard track laborer job was an adverse employment action. We agree with the district court. 56 While the standard track laborer job paid the same as the forklift operator position, White's new position was by all accounts more arduous and dirtier. Furthermore, the forklift operator position required more qualifications, which is an indication of prestige. See Kocsis, 97 F.3d at 886-87 (finding that the plaintiff had failed to show an adverse employment action because, among other things, her job reassignment did not entail any loss in prestige). According to Burlington Northern's own witnesses, the transfer occurred because the forklift operator position was objectively considered a better job and the male employees resented White for occupying it. In essence, as the district court found, the reassignment was a demotion evidenced by indices ... unique to [the] particular situation. Kocsis, 97 F.3d at 886; see also Burlington Indus., Inc., 524 U.S. at 761, 118 S.Ct. 2257 (defining tangible employment action for purposes of Title VII liability as including a job reassignment with significantly different responsibilities); Mattei, 126 F.3d at 808 (stating that transferring an employee at the same salary to some wretched backwater is clearly actionable in a retaliation claim).