An employee may be employed for years, happy in their employment and enjoy the status it gives to them. Then the employer, for no obvious reason, changes their job responsibilities and assignments, or the days and hours worked, or institutes an allocation or distribution of work or resources in a different way. Must the employee comply and could this be illegal discrimination under federal law? Unscrupulous employers will sometimes try to wear down an employee by giving them undeserved harsh Employee Performance Evaluations.
First, unless the employee has a contract of employment which may include a stipulation of the responsibilities and day and hours that one is required to work, the majority of employees are “at-will” employees. The employer is free to terminate an at-will employee for any reason unless it is an illegal reason, such as because of the employer’s animosity toward and discrimination against persons of a certain race, see New Jersey Race Discrimination Lawyer, or sex, etc. See NJ Employment Attorney, Sex Discrimination Against Women Based on Numerous Biases.
However, “at-will” runs both ways: at-will employment allows the “at-will” employee to resign or quit at any time for any reason. By way of an example, when an employee dislikes the parameters of the reassigned new job responsibilities and new assignments or role, or the new schedule of expected days and hours worked, an at-will employee may choose to resign rather than accept the reassignments. NJ Employment Discrimination Attorney, I’m an African American Manager Passed over in Promotions.
However, Forced Transfers and Job Reassignments Can Be Illegal Employment Discrimination in Certain Instances according to the United States Supreme Court; see Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 601 U.S. 346 (2024), discussion below.
If you think your employer is discriminating against you because of your race, sex, age, or other protected class, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. See NJ Employment Attorney, I Was Put on a PIP: the Dangers of a PIP. I have represented public and private employees who suffered illegal discrimination at work and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. Call today for a free consultation.
Muldrow v. City of St. Louis: Are Forced Transfers and Job Reassignments Evidence of Illegal Bias? Possibly.
In Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, 601 U.S. 346 (2024), the United States Supreme Court held that forced transfers and job reassignments could be evidence of illegal discrimination in some instances.
In Muldrow, the Supreme Court had to decide a matter where a female a police officer, a sergeant in the St. Louis Police Department, could sustain a viable sex discrimination claim under Title VII when she was transferred from her position, yet she maintained the same title, rank and pay.
Sergeant Muldrow, a police officer in the St. Louis Police Department, alleged that the Police Department transferred her from her position in the Intelligence Division to a uniformed job in another department strictly because of her sex. Although she maintained the same title, rank and pay, Sergeant Muldrow’s responsibilities, perks, and schedule were significantly different. She filed a Title VII discrimination suit against the City of St. Louis, claiming that the transfer constituted sex discrimination with respect to the terms and conditions of her employment.
On appeal, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court holding which had granted the defendant summary judgment against Police Sergeant Muldrow and dismissed the case so Muldrow's lawsuit could not proceed further. The District and Appeals Courts held that the police officer had to show that the transfer caused her a materially significant disadvantage and that she was unable to do so. The courts ruled that since the transfer only caused minor changes in her working conditions and did not result in a reduction to her rank, salary, or benefits, that Muldrow's lawsuit under title VII could not proceed and dismissed the case.
The Supreme Court of the United States disagreed with the lower courts' interpretation of the standards of Title VII. The Supreme Court held that an employee challenging a job transfer under Title VII must show that the transfer brought about some harm with respect to an identifiable term or condition of employment, but that harm need not be significant harm. See Bergen County, New Jersey Sex Discrimination Lawyer.
The Supreme Court held that an employee such as Muldrow only was required to show some injury respecting her employment “terms or conditions”, not that the harm was significant. It held that in matters of a forced transfer, an employee must show some harm from a forced job transfer to prevail in a Title VII claim, but does not need to show that the injury satisfies a heightened significant harm standard. The Court ascertained the correct Title VII “standard of harm” that is required to move the case forward and it remanded the case for further proceedings.
From 2008 through 2017, Police Sargent Muldrow worked as a plainclothes officer in the Department’s specialized Intelligence Division. This was a prestigious position. In 2017, the new Intelligence Division commander asked to transfer Muldrow out of the unit so he could replace her with a male police officer. The Department approved the request against Muldrow’s wishes, and reassigned Muldrow to a uniformed job elsewhere in the Department.
While Muldrow’s rank and pay remained the same in the new position, her status, responsibilities, perks, and schedule did not. After the transfer where she had been replaced with a male officer, Muldrow no longer worked with high-ranking officials on the departmental priorities lodged in the Intelligence Division. Instead, she was assigned to supervising the daily activities of neighborhood patrol officers. Also troubling to her, was that in the new position, she had a less regular schedule which involved her working weekend shifts. She also lost access to an unmarked take home vehicle.
Muldrow alleged that she was moved from a plainclothes job in an extremely prestigious specialized division where she had substantial responsibility over priority investigations and frequent opportunity to work with Police Commanders, to a new uniformed job supervising one district’s patrol officers with less involvement in high status matters and in high visibility crime matters, to one primarily performing administrative work.
The primary holding of the Supreme Court was that although an employee must show some harm from a forced job transfer to prevail in a Title VII discrimination claim, they do not need to show that the injury satisfies a significant heightened harm standard.
Justice Kagan delivered the opinion of the Court. Sergeant Jatonya Clayborn Muldrow maintained that her employer, the St. Louis Police Department, transferred her from one job to another because she is a woman. She sued the City of St. Louis under Title VII, alleging that she had suffered sex discrimination with respect to the “terms [or] conditions” of her employment. 42 U. S. C. §2000e-2(a)(1). Justice Kagan stated that the courts below rejected Muldrow’s claim on the ground that the transfer did not cause Muldrow a “significant” employment disadvantage. Justice Kagan noted that other courts have used similar standards in addressing Title VII suits arising from job transfers, but the other courts were applying the wrong standard in addressing job transfers. “Today, we disapprove that approach. Although an employee must show some harm from a forced transfer to prevail in a Title VII suit, she need not show that the injury satisfies a significance test. Title VII’s text nowhere establishes that high bar.”
In reaching their conclusion, overturning the lower courts and allowing Muldrow’s Title VII lawsuit to proceed, the Court stated many of the relevant facts of the case as follows:
“From 2008 through 2017, Sergeant Muldrow worked as a plainclothes officer in the St. Louis Police Department’s specialized Intelligence Division. During her tenure there, she investigated public corruption and human trafficking cases, oversaw the Gang Unit, and served as head of the Gun Crimes Unit. By virtue of her Division position, Muldrow was also deputized as a Task Force Officer with the Federal Bureau of Investigation—a status granting her, among other things, FBI credentials, an unmarked take-home vehicle, and the authority to pursue investigations outside St. Louis. In 2017, the outgoing commander of the Intelligence Division told her newly appointed successor that Muldrow was a “workhorse”—still more, that “if there was one sergeant he could count on in the Division,” it was Muldrow. . ..
While Muldrow’s rank and pay remained the same in the new position, her responsibilities, perks, and schedule did not. Instead of working with high-ranking officials on the departmental priorities lodged in the Intelligence Division, Muldrow now supervised the day-to-day activities of neighborhood patrol officers. Her new duties included approving their arrests, reviewing their reports, and handling other administrative matters; she also did some patrol work herself. Because she no longer served in the Intelligence Division, she lost her FBI status and the car that came with it. And the change of jobs made Muldrow’s workweek less regular. She had worked a traditional Monday-through-Friday week in the Intelligence Division. Now she was placed on a “rotating schedule” that often involved weekend shifts.
Muldrow brought this Title VII suit to challenge the transfer. Her complaint alleged that the City, in ousting her from the Intelligence Division, had “discriminate[d] against” her based on sex “with respect to” the “terms [or] conditions” of her employment. §2000e-2(a)(1). In later deposition testimony, Muldrow set out her view of what the transfer had cost her. She had been moved out of a “premier position [in] the Police Department” into a less “prestigious” and more “administrative” uniformed role. She had fewer “opportunities” to work on “important investigations,” as well as to “network” with commanding officers. And she lost material benefits—her weekday work schedule and take-home car. Or as she summarized the situation: “I went from straight days, weekends off with a take-home car and more visibility and responsibility within the Department to a rotating schedule with few weekends off, assigned to . . . uniformed patrol,” with “responsibilities being limited to that of administrative work” and “supervising officers on patrol.” ...
Title VII makes it unlawful for an employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.” §2000e-2(a)(1). Muldrow’s suit, as described above, alleges that she was transferred to a lesser position because she is a woman. That transfer, as both parties agree, implicated “terms” and “conditions” of Muldrow’s employment, changing nothing less than the what, where, and when of her police work. So the statutory language applicable to this case prohibits “discriminat[ing] against” an individual “with respect to” the “terms [or] conditions” of employment because of that individual’s sex....
That language requires Muldrow to show that the transfer brought about some “disadvantageous” change in an employment term or condition, citing Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Services, Inc., 523 U. S. 75 (1998). Or otherwise said, the statute targets practices that “treat a person worse” because of sex or other protected trait. And in the typical transfer case, that “worse” treatment must pertain to—must be “with respect to”—employment “terms [or] conditions.” §2000e-2(a)(1). The “terms [or] conditions” phrase, we have made clear, is not used “in the narrow contractual sense”; it covers more than the “economic or tangible.” Still, the phrase circumscribes the injuries that can give rise to a suit like this one. To make out a Title VII discrimination claim, a transferee must show some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment....
What the transferee does not have to show, according to the relevant text, is that the harm incurred was “significant.” Or serious, or substantial, or any similar adjective suggesting that the disadvantage to the employee must exceed a heightened bar. “Discriminate against” means treat worse, here based on sex. But neither that phrase nor any other says anything about how much worse. There is nothing in the provision to distinguish, as the courts below did, between transfers causing significant disadvantages and transfers causing not-so-significant ones. And there is nothing to otherwise establish an elevated threshold of harm. To demand “significance” is to add words—and significant words, as it were—to the statute Congress enacted. It is to impose a new requirement on a Title VII claimant, so that the law as applied demands something more of her than the law as written....
And that difference can make a real difference for complaining transferees. Many forced transfers leave workers worse off respecting employment terms or conditions. (After all, a transfer is not usually forced when it leaves the better off.) The anti-discrimination provision, we explained, simply “seeks a workplace where individuals are not discriminated against” because of traits like race and sex....
The provision thus flatly “prevent[s] injury to individuals based on” status, without distinguishing between significant and less significant harms.
In light of everything said above, the Court of Appeals’ treatment of Muldrow’s suit cannot survive. The court required Muldrow to show that the allegedly discriminatory transfer out of the Intelligence Division produced a significant employment disadvantage. As we have explained, that is the wrong standard. Muldrow need show only some injury respecting her employment terms or conditions. The transfer must have left her worse off, but need not have left her significantly so. And Muldrow’s allegations, if properly preserved and supported, meet that test with room to spare. Recall her principal allegations. She was moved from a plainclothes job in a prestigious specialized division giving her substantial responsibility over priority investigations and frequent opportunity to work with police commanders. She was moved to a uniformed job supervising one district’s patrol officers, in which she was less involved in high-visibility matters and primarily performed administrative work. Her schedule became less regular, often requiring her to work weekends; and she lost her take-home car. If those allegations are proved, she was left worse off several times over. It does not matter, as the courts below thought...that her rank and pay remained the same, or that she still could advance to other jobs. Title VII prohibits making a transfer, based on sex, with the consequences Muldrow described...
We recognize, however, that the decisions below may have rested in part on issues of forfeiture and proof. In addition, both courts suggested that some of the allegations Muldrow made about the nature of the work she did in her old and new jobs lacked adequate evidentiary support. We leave such matters for the courts below to address. All we require is that they use the proper Title VII standard, and not demand that Muldrow demonstrate her transfer caused “significant” harm.”
In Muldrow, the US Supreme Court vacated the judgment of the lower courts which had dismissed the case, and remanded the case for further proceedings allowing Muldrow to go forward with her suit. See NJ Age Discrimination Attorney, I Think I Was Fired Because of My Age, How Can I Prove It?
WHAT YOU CAN DO
I have represented public and private employees who were illegally discriminated against and was successful in recovering financial compensation for their emotional pain and suffering and moneys for lost wages, both for past lost wages and projected future lost wages. If you think your employer is illegally discriminating against you, you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation. I accept discrimination and whistleblower cases from all over New Jersey and have locations in Southern, Central and Northern NJ to meet with clients.
If You Quit Your Job, You May Lose Right to Prevail in a Lawsuit
In many instances of discrimination, if you quit your job, you may lose right to prevail in a lawsuit unless you first take certain legally required measures to preserve your job while you are still employed. If you are thinking of handing in a resignation letter, or think you will be fired (or have already been terminated), you should contact this office immediately for a free consultation to discuss your options.
Hope A. Lang, Attorney at Law represents workers throughout the entire state, including Hackensack, Jersey City, Newark, Irvington, Orange, East Orange, Trenton, Paterson, Montclair, Elizabeth, North Brunswick, Cherry Hill, Vineland, Union, Plainfield, Hamilton Township, Lakewood, Edison, Parsippany-Troy Hills, Franklin, Lakewood, and every NJ County, including Bergen, Hudson, Middlesex, Essex, Monmouth, Somerset, Ocean, Union, Camden, Passaic, Morris, Gloucester, Atlantic, Burlington, Camden Counties.