Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar

• Decision Date: 24 June 2013
• Docket Number: No. 12–484.,12–484.
• Citation: 570 U.S. 338,133 S.Ct. 2517,186 L.Ed.2d 503
• Parties: UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER, Petitioner v. Naiel NASSAR.
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

570 U.S. 338

133 S.Ct. 2517

186 L.Ed.2d 503

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS SOUTHWESTERN MEDICAL CENTER, Petitioner

v.Naiel NASSAR.

No. 12–484.

Supreme Court of the United States

Argued April 24, 2013.

Decided June 24, 2013.

Daryl L. Joseffer, Washington, DC, for Petitioner.

Brian P. Lauten, Dallas, TX, for Respondent.

Melissa Arbus Sherry, for the United States as amicus curiae, by special leave of the Court, supporting the respondent.

Greg Abbott, Attorney General of Texas, Daniel T. Hodge, First Assistant Attorney General, David C. Mattax, Deputy Attorney General for Defense Litigation James "Beau" Eccles, Division Chief—General Litigation, Office of the Attorney General, Daryl L. Joseffer, Counsel of Record, Carolyn M. Sweeney, King & Spalding LLP, Washington, DC, Michael W. Johnston, Merritt E. McAlister, King & Spalding LLP, Atlanta, GA, Lars Hagen, Assistant Attorney General, Office of the Attorney General, Austin, TX, Myrna Salinas Baumann, King & Spalding LLP, Austin, TX, for Petitioner.

Michael T. Kirkpatrick, Allison M. Zieve, Public Citizen Litigation Group, Washington, DC, Charla Aldous, Brent Walker, Aldous Law Firm, Dallas, TX, Brian P. Lauten, Counsel of Record, Sawicki & Lauten, LLP, Dallas, TX, for Respondent.

Justice KENNEDY delivered the opinion of the Court.

When the law grants persons the right to compensation for injury from wrongful conduct, there must be some demonstrated connection, some link, between the injury sustained and the wrong alleged. The requisite relation between prohibited conduct and compensable injury is governed by the principles of causation, a subject most often arising in elaborating the law of torts. This case requires the Court to define those rules in the context of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., which provides remedies to employees for injuries related to discriminatory conduct and associated wrongs by employers.

Title VII is central to the federal policy of prohibiting wrongful discrimination in the Nation's workplaces and in all sectors of economic endeavor. This opinion discusses the causation rules for two categories of wrongful employer conduct prohibited by Title VII. The first type is called, for purposes of this opinion, status-based discrimination. The term is used here to refer to basic workplace protection such as prohibitions against employer discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, in hiring, firing, salary structure, promotion and the like. See § 2000e–2(a). The second type of conduct is employer retaliation on account of an employee's having opposed, complained of, or sought remedies for, unlawful workplace discrimination. See § 2000e–3(a).

An employee who alleges status-based discrimination under Title VII need not show that the causal link between injury and wrong is so close that the injury would not have occurred but for the act. So-called but-for causation is not the test. It suffices instead to show that the motive to discriminate was one of the employer's motives, even if the employer also had other, lawful motives that were causative in the employer's decision. This principle is the result of an earlier case from this Court, Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins, 490 U.S. 228, 109 S.Ct. 1775, 104 L.Ed.2d 268 (1989), and an ensuing statutory amendment by Congress that codified in part and abrogated in part the holding in Price Waterhouse, see §§ 2000e–2(m), 2000e–5(g)(2)(B). The question the Court must answer here is whether that lessened causation standard is applicable to claims of unlawful employer retaliation under § 2000e–3(a).

Although the Court has not addressed the question of the causation showing required to establish liability for a Title VII retaliation claim, it has addressed the issue of causation in general in a case involving employer discrimination under a separate but related statute, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 623. See Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 129 S.Ct. 2343, 174 L.Ed.2d 119 (2009). In Gross, the Court concluded that the ADEA requires proof that the prohibited criterion was the but-for cause of the prohibited conduct. The holding and analysis of that decision are instructive here.

I

Petitioner, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center (University), is an academic institution within the University of Texas system. The University specializes in medical education for aspiring physicians, health professionals, and scientists. Over the years, the University has affiliated itself with a number of healthcare facilities including, as relevant in this case, Parkland Memorial Hospital (Hospital). As provided in its affiliation agreement with the University, the Hospital permits the University's students to gain clinicalexperience working in its facilities. The agreement also requires the Hospital to offer empty staff physician posts to the University's faculty members, see App. 361–362, 366, and, accordingly, most of the staff physician positions at the Hospital are filled by those faculty members.

Respondent is a medical doctor of Middle Eastern descent who specializes in internal medicine and infectious diseases. In 1995, he was hired to work both as a member of the University's faculty and a staff physician at the Hospital. He left both positions in 1998 for additional medical education and then returned in 2001 as an assistant professor at the University and, once again, as a physician at the Hospital.

In 2004, Dr. Beth Levine was hired as the University's Chief of Infectious Disease Medicine. In that position Levine became respondent's ultimate (though not direct) superior. Respondent alleged that Levine was biased against him on account of his religion and ethnic heritage, a bias manifested by undeserved scrutiny of his billing practices and productivity, as well as comments that " 'Middle Easterners are lazy.' " 674 F.3d 448, 450 (C.A.5 2012). On different occasions during his employment, respondent met with Dr. Gregory Fitz, the University's Chair of Internal Medicine and Levine's supervisor, to complain about Levine's alleged harassment. Despite obtaining a promotion with Levine's assistance in 2006, respondent continued to believe that she was biased against him. So he tried to arrange to continue working at the Hospital without also being on the University's faculty. After preliminary negotiations with the Hospital suggested this might be possible, respondent resigned his teaching post in July 2006 and sent a letter to Dr. Fitz (among others), in which he stated that the reason for his departure was harassment by Levine. That harassment, he asserted, " 'stems from ... religious, racial and cultural bias against Arabs and Muslims.' " Id., at 451. After reading that letter, Dr. Fitz expressed consternation at respondent's accusations, saying that Levine had been "publicly humiliated by th[e] letter" and that it was "very important that she be publicly exonerated." App. 41.

Meanwhile, the Hospital had offered respondent a job as a staff physician, as it had indicated it would. On learning of that offer, Dr. Fitz protested to the Hospital, asserting that the offer was inconsistent with the affiliation agreement's requirement that all staff physicians also be members of the University faculty. The Hospital then withdrew its offer.

After exhausting his administrative remedies, respondent filed this Title VII suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas. He alleged two discrete violations of Title VII. The first was a status-based discrimination claim under § 2000e–2(a). Respondent alleged that Dr. Levine's racially and religiously motivated harassment had resulted in his constructive discharge from the University. Respondent's second claim was that Dr. Fitz's efforts to prevent the Hospital from hiring him were in retaliation for complaining about Dr. Levine's harassment, in violation of § 2000e–3(a). 674 F.3d, at 452. The jury found for respondent on both claims. It awarded him over $400,000 in backpay and more than $3 million in compensatory damages. The District Court later reduced the compensatory damages award to $300,000.

On appeal, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed in part and vacated in part. The court first concluded that respondent had submitted insufficient evidence in support of his constructive-discharge claim, so it vacated that portion of the jury's verdict. The court affirmed as to the retaliation finding, however, on the theory that retaliation claims brought under § 2000e–3(a) —like claims of status-based discrimination under § 2000e–2(a) —require only a showing that retaliation was a motivating factor for the adverse employment action, rather than its but-for cause. See id., at 454, n. 16 (citing Smith v. Xerox Corp., 602 F.3d 320, 330 (C.A.5 2010) ). It further held that the evidence supported a finding that Dr. Fitz was motivated, at least in part, to retaliate against respondent for his complaints against Levine. The Court of Appeals then remanded for a redetermination of damages in light of its decision to vacate the constructive-discharge verdict.

Four judges dissented from the court's decision not to rehear the case en banc, arguing that the Circuit's application of the motivating-factor standard to retaliation cases was "an erroneous interpretation of [Title VII] and controlling caselaw" and should be overruled en banc. 688 F.3d 211, 213–214 (C.A.5 2012) (Smith, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

Certiorari was granted. 568 U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 978, 184 L.Ed.2d 758 (2013).

II

A

This case requires the Court to define the proper standard of causation for Title VII retaliation claims. Causation in fact—i.e., proof that the defendant's conduct did in fact cause the plaintiff's injury—is a standard requirement of any tort claim, see Restatement of Torts § 9 (1934) (definition of "legal cause"); § 431, Comment a (same); § 279, and...