Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Labor & Employment Law Blogs -> New York Public Personnel Law

Labor & Employment Law

: New York Public Personnel Law

Protected activity under Title VII

By Harvey Randall, Esq.

Protected activity under Title VII
McMenemy v City of Rochester, CA2, 241 F.3d 279

If an individual who works for Employer A investigates a human rights complaint alleged by an individual working for Employer B, is he or she engaged in a protected activity within the meaning of Title VII insofar as Employer A is concerned? This was a major issue in the McMenemy case.

John McMenemy, a former Rochester firefighter, filed human rights complaints under federal and state law alleging that he had been passed over for passed over for promotion by the City in retaliation for his investigating a sexual harassment complaint made by the secretary of the local firefighters' union against the president of the union.

Federal District Court Judge Charles J. Siragusa granted the City's motion for summary judgment on the ground that McMenemy had not engaged in a protected activity under those statutes because he had been investigating an employer different from the employer who took the adverse employment action.
In addition, the district court dismissed McMenemy's retaliation in promotion claims, finding that he had no property interest in a promotion or a competitive promotional examination and therefore had not been deprived of an interest protected by the Constitution.

After sustaining the lower court's ruling concerning McMenemy's promotion claims founded on an alleged property interest, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Second Circuit pointed out that an individual is protected against retaliation for participation in employment discrimination proceedings even if those proceedings involved a different entity. In the words of the court:

We think that Title VII protects an employee from any employer, present or future, who retaliates against him because of his prior or ongoing opposition to an unlawful employment practice or participation in Title VII proceedings.

Vacating the lower court's judgment concerning McMenemy's Title VII and New York Human Rights Law claims, the Circuit Court remand the case for further proceedings "consistent with its ruling."

Full post as published by New York Public Personnel Law on January 29, 2008 (boomark / email).