WHEN IS AN ACTION ADVERSE ENOUGH FOR EEOC?
One of the reasons an agency will raise to dismiss an employee’s EEO complaint is that the action s/he complained of was not adverse enough to be actionable. While EEO law does require that employee can only file complaints over actions that are adverse, there is a lot of debate about what makes an action adverse enough to meet that test. Consequently, practitioners on both side of the table should keep an eye on significant case decisions addressing that question, and the Second Circuit of the U. S. Court of Appeals just issued one of them. Check out the blog from Goldberg-Segalla entitled, “Second Circuit: Notice of Termination is an Adverse Action Even if Rescinded.” The court held that an employee can file an EEO charge over a proposed termination letter even if the proposal is withdrawn before it is acted upon. The court’s reasoning is what an employee’s representative would need to follow to make a good case when there is a question of whether an action is adverse enough. If you want to read the case yourself, it is known as Alana Schutz v. the Congregation Sherith Israel.