Supreme Court rules that oral complaints trigger anti-retaliation protections of Fair Labor Standards Act
By Margaret Lockhart
Cooper & Kowalski
The U.S. Supreme Court decided on March 22, 2011 that the anti-retaliation provision of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), protects oral, as well as written, complaints by employees.
The FLSA prohibits employers from "discharging . . . any employee because such employee has filed any complaint" alleging a violation of the Act, The Plaintiff in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., No. 09-834, claimed that he was discharged in retaliation for orally complaining to supervisors about the location of company timeclocks. In a related case, the court had determined that the location of the timeclocks prevented employees from being paid for "donning" and "doffing" time, in violation of the FLSA. The U.S. district court granted the employer's motion for summary judgment on the ground that an oral complaint did not trigger the FLSA's anti-retaliation provision, 29 U.S.C. §215(a)(3), because they are not "filed," as §215(a)(3) requires. The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's decision.
The U.S. Supreme Court reversed in a 6-2 decision, concluding that employee complaints need not be in writing to trigger anti-retaliation protection of the FLSA. The Court reasoned that the statutory phrase "filed any complaint" was susceptible to a broad interpretation that would include oral complaints. The Court held that limiting anti-retaliation protection to written complaints would not further the remedial purpose of the FLSA and would remove needed flexibility from those who enforce the Act. The Court concluded that if an oral complaint is "sufficiently clear and detailed for a reasonable employer to understand it, in light of both content and context, as an assertion of [employees'] rights protected by the statute and a call for their protection," the complaint may be protected by the FLSA. Justices Scalia and Thomas dissented, arguing that the plain meaning of the phrase "filed any complaint" in the FLSA refers to written complaints filed with a government agency, not to oral or written complaints to an employer.
