Court rules employment discrimination lawsuits can be brought under wider range of circumstances

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Employment discrimination lawsuits overview: 

• Who: The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ended a decades-long legal standard for discrimination lawsuits while reversing and remanding claims brought by a group of female officers against the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. 
• Why: The 5th Circuit ruled employers or job applicants must only show they were subjected to bias in the workplace to bring discrimination claims. 
• Where: The case was in front of the 5th Circuit. 

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ended a legal standard that held that discrimination lawsuits could only be brought on the basis of “ultimate employment decisions,” such as hiring, compensation, leave or terminations. 

The decision undid a decades-old legal precedent that limited the range of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, with the 5th Circuit contending the phrase “ultimate employment decisions” does not appear in the statute. 

The court said employers or job applicants will now only have to show they were subjected to bias in the workplace with a standard that fits into the language of Title VII. 

Standards that will fit into a workplace discrimination lawsuit going forward include a protected characteristic in respect to “hiring, firing, compensation, or the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment,” according to the appeals court.  

“Despite (Title VII’s) broad language, we have long limited the universe of actionable adverse employment actions to so-called ‘ultimate employment decisions.’ We end that interpretive incongruity today,” the 5th Circuit said. 

5th Circuit rules female officers have valid claims of workplace bias over sex-based scheduling policy

The decision reverses a previous ruling made by a three-judge panel last year that put an end to a lawsuit filed by a group of female detention officers challenging the lawfulness of a sex-based scheduling policy by the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department. 

The policy prevents female officers from being able to have full weekends off, unlike their male counterparts, according to the appeal. 

The 5th Circuit said it had “little difficulty” under its new legal framework in determining the female officers’ claims of workplace bias were valid as they related to their terms of conditions of employment, while reversing and remanding the case for further action. 

“Here, giving men full weekends off while denying the same to women — a scheduling policy that the county admits is sex-based — states a plausible claim of discrimination under Title VII,” the appeals court said. 

In another case involving Title VII, the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that it is a violation of the law for workplaces to discriminate on the basis of gender identity or sexual orientation. 

Have you been discriminated against in the workplace? Let us know in the comments! 

The officers are represented by Jay D. Ellwanger of Ellwanger Law, and Madeline Meth and Brian Wolfman of the Georgetown Law Appellate Courts Immersion Clinic.

The Dallas County Sheriff’s Department employment discrimination case is Hamilton v. Dallas County, Case No. 21-10133, in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.

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