Dallas Employment Lawyer Blog
Dallas Employment Trial Lawyer Harjeen Zibari
There is a general concept in civil procedure is called standing. Standing is the question of whether or not the Plaintiff bringing the claim can actually legally do so. In employment law, it seems like a pretty straightforward inquiry, but sometimes it can get pretty complicated.
Generally speaking, an employee who has been discriminated or retaliated against in a way that is defined by a statute has the most easily established standing in court. For example, a woman who is constantly subjected to sexist comments in the workplace and then fired and replaced by a male employee has standing under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to bring a case against her former employer. Whether she’ll win is another battle in and of itself, dependent on the facts, but the threshold question of whether she’ll get in the door is pretty easily answered. Or, an employee who was fired two days after requesting a reasonable accommodation similarly has standing under the Americans with Disabilities Act, as he was retaliated against for engaging in a legally protected activity: requesting an accommodation. Again, whether he’ll win is another question, but he’s able to get in the door, as he’s the appropriate person to bring the suit against the employer, as opposed to someone who just witnessed these things happen.
It gets more complicated. What if that employee is actually not legally an employee, but an independent contractor? Well, most statutes do not afford independent contractors standing to bring employment claims. But, they might legally be considered a full-fledged employee under the “economic realities test” (which we have several other blogs about), and establish standing that way.
What if an employee works in an environment that is clearly unacceptably discriminatory, with management frequently using racial slurs against employees? Of course, an employee of that race the slurs refer to has the standing to bring a discrimination claim. But what about employees of other races? They could have standing if they make a protected complaint, and then suffer some adverse action that is considered retaliatory—such as a cut in hours, pay, a demotion, write up, or termination.
But if a person is not of the protected category that the discriminatory language is used about, and otherwise does not make a protected complaint and does not subsequently face retaliation, they likely will not have standing to bring a claim. Just being in an environment that is discriminatory in general may not be enough for everyone bring a claim—you have to be subjected to it or punished for fighting against it, generally speaking. (And this is why lawyers infamously say it depends in response to just about everything. Because it really does depend!)
Third parties can also sometimes have standing to bring employment cases. A famous Supreme Court case from 2011 established that a third party who has personally made no complaint of discrimination has standing to sue their employer for retaliation under Title VII. In Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, 562 U.S. 170 (2011), a man was terminated from North American Stainless just weeks after his fiancée made a protected complaint against the company, which she also was employed by. The Court held that he had standing to sue under Title VII:
Thompson was an employee of NAS, and the purpose of Title VII is to protect employees from their employers’ unlawful actions. Moreover, accepting the facts as alleged, Thompson is not an accidental victim of the retaliation—collateral damage, so to speak, of the employer’s unlawful act. To the contrary, injuring him was the employer’s intended means of harming Regalado. Hurting him was the unlawful act by which the employer punished her. In those circumstances, we think Thompson well within the zone of interests sought to be protected by Title VII. He is a person aggrieved with standing to sue.
Id. at 178.
Standing can be a deceivingly tricky aspect of employment law. Do you wonder if you have standing to bring a case against your employer? Contact me in Dallas or one of my talented colleagues in Houston or Austin today.