The Supreme Court recently ruled on January 24, 2011, that the fiancé of a woman
who filed a charge of discrimination with the U.S. Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), was protected from retaliation by their
mutual employer and had standing to redress this illegal act. In a
unanimous opinion,
Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP,
No. 09-291, the Supreme Court held that long-standing EEOC
interpretations of the scope of the anti-retaliation provision of Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII) applied to an individual
harmed by retaliation, even if that person had not himself filed a
charge of discrimination.
In Thompson, Miriam Regalado filed a charge of
discrimination against her employer, North American Stainless (NAS).
Three weeks after receiving notice of the charge from the EEOC, NAS
fired Regalado’s fiancé, Eric Thompson, who also worked there. Thompson
then filed his own charge, claiming his termination was in retaliation
for Regalado’s initial charge. After the district court in Kentucky and
the entire Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Thompson could not
raise a retaliation claim because he himself had not filed a charge of
discrimination, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case and issued its
decision reversing the lower courts’ opinions.