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An employer’s decision to fire an employee is rarely rooted in a singular motivation. The bases that fuel a firing may be a mixture of valid reasons and inappropriate ones. So, what happens if the employer states a legitimate reason for its termination decision that was undisputedly true? Is the worker’s case automatically dead at that point? The answer is a resounding “no.” Workers facing that type of circumstance potentially can still pursue their gender discrimination case with the right evidence that the employer was motivated by both the (stated) legitimate reason and by (unspoken) discriminatory factors. An experienced New York gender discrimination lawyer can help you develop and present the evidence of discrimination needed for success.
A recent gender discrimination ruling from the federal appeals court whose decisions control federal lawsuits in New York, Connecticut, and Vermont, reinforces the viability of these cases and shows what workers must demonstrate to the court.
The worker who sued, E.B., was a female supermarket manager. In 2017, the employer transferred her to its store in Oxford, Conn. Allegedly, the manager’s supervisor at the Oxford store made numerous misogynistic comments, including that the manager job was “too stressful” for women and that women were “too sensitive to be managers.”
In the summer of 2018, the employer fired E.B. She sued in 2020, alleging that her termination was the result of illegal gender discrimination in violation of Title VII.
The Three-Part Burden-Shifting Test
In a federal Title VII gender discrimination case, the employee must clear several hurdles. Generally, the standard for what the worker must show is the burden-shifting test outlined in the U.S. Supreme Court case of McDonnell Douglas v. Green. That opinion said that to succeed in a disparate treatment gender discrimination case, a worker who lacks direct evidence must show that her allegations make up a prima facie case of discrimination. In the context of a discriminatory firing case, that means demonstrating that:
- She was a member of a protected class;
- She was qualified for the job she held;
- She was fired from her job; and
- She “was replaced by someone outside her protected group or was treated less favorably than other similarly situated employees outside the protected group.”
Once the worker does that, the test shifts the burden to the employer to provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the firing, which then shifts the burden back to the worker to show that the employer’s stated reason was just a pretext for discrimination.
Proving Mixed Motives Instead of Pretext
The trial court in the supermarket manager’s case ruled that the woman failed to clear this third component. The federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, declaring that the woman still had a possible case under the “mixed motive” theory of discrimination.
When an employer’s stated reason for terminating a plaintiff is undisputedly true, the worker may potentially still proceed with her disparate treatment claim under the mixed-motive theory, which exists as a viable alternative to proving pretext. Instead of proving that “that the employer’s stated reason was false, and that the sole actual reason was discrimination,” a worker may clear the third hurdle of the burden-shifting test by demonstrating that, even the employer’s stated reason was true, “discrimination was still a motivating factor in” the firing.
In other words, discrimination need not be the lone motivator behind the termination as long as the worker proves it was a driving force behind the employer’s action. In E.B.’s case, she admitted that she violated her employer’s policies regarding the maintenance of food logs, but also asserted that gender discrimination (as evidenced by her manager’s statements about women's inability to handle the job of manager) also factored in. This, the appeals court said, was a viable allegation of gender discrimination.
If you are a New York City worker who has been treated less well than others at your place of employment because of your gender, you have multiple laws you can use to seek justice for this discrimination. Unlike the Connecticut worker in the supermarket case, you have federal, state, and city laws that protect you from discrimination based on your gender. The experienced New York gender discrimination attorneys at Phillips & Associates are dedicated to helping employees achieve the best possible outcomes in their cases. To learn more, contact us online or at (833) 529-3476 to set up a free and confidential consultation.