Employer not liable for nondecision-maker's bias

HR Magazine, April, 2004 by Angela H. France

Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Management, Inc., 4th Cir., No. 01-1359, Jan. 5, 2004 (en banc).

The full 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals recently decided that an employer is not liable for employment decisions that were influenced by an employee with discriminatory motives who was neither a supervisor or manager nor principally responsible for the adverse employment decision.

Ethel Hill was an aircraft sheet metal mechanic for Lockheed Martin Logistics Management. As a consequence of several reprimands for poor performance, Lockheed Martin terminated Hill's employment.

A Lockheed safety inspector who was not in Hill's supervisory chain had recommended two of the three reprimands. Although the inspector allegedly had made derogatory comments about Hill's age and sex, supervisors who were not motivated by age or sex bias made the ultimate decisions to issue the reprimands and to terminate Hill.

In upholding the trial court's dismissal of Hill's Title VII lawsuit, the court noted that the safety inspector's derogatory comments would be relevant only if he had been the decision-maker. The court determined that the supervisor had made an independent, non-biased decision to issue the reprimands and that the next-higher level of management made the final decision to fire Hill. Hill failed to demonstrate that the decision-makers acted with any discriminatory motive.

The ruling overturns the previous ruling of a three-judge panel in this case, which had held that an employee could establish discrimination through the statements of an employee who lacked formal decision-making authority but who had influenced the adverse employment decision.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: THESE ARTICLES SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE.

RELATED ARTICLE: Professional Pointer

There is always potential for the biases of co-workers to creep into an adverse employment decision. Managers responsible for making such decisions must make an independent evaluation of an employee's situation and not rely entirely on a subordinate's subjective assessment. Note that several circuits still hold that liability can be established based on the biased statements of nondecision-makers.

BY ANGELA H. FRANCE, AN ATTORNEY WITH THE LAW FIRM OF ALBO & OBLON IN ARLINGTON, VA.