September 27, 2024
In April 2024, the Supreme Court concluded the Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, Missouri case. This decision has changed the requirements for proving employment discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 during job transfers.
The Muldrow Case
Before the Muldrow case, a plaintiff had to suffer tangible, material, or objective harm to prove employment discrimination under Title VII for a job transfer. The Muldrow case concerned a Saint Louis Police Department officer’s discriminatory job transfer. She said that she was transferred from the Intelligence Division to the Fifth District due to her gender. According to the complaint, her superiors transferred her from the Intelligence Division to the Fifth District due to her gender.
However, she did not suffer significant harm. The transfer did not change her rank or pay, offered similar duties, and did not affect her career prospects. Despite the lack of harm, the plaintiff’s attorney argued against the standard in effect. They claimed the transfer based on the plaintiff’s gender should qualify for a Title VII claim. The city’s council disagreed and argued to keep the standard unchanged. The council also expressed how the employee must suffer some tangible, material, or objective harm to qualify for a Title VII claim.
The Supreme Court Decision
The Supreme Court decided that a plaintiff no longer needed to show that any harm was significant, substantial, or severe. Furthermore, the harm no longer has to meet a certain standard. Instead, the Supreme Court decided the transfer must leave a plaintiff worse off, but not by a significant amount.
Therefore, a plaintiff must still show some harm regardless of whether it is substantial, material, or significant. Despite the favorable ruling, it did not address the plaintiff’s argument about the discriminatory job transfer. Instead, the plaintiff must prove that the transfer caused some harm, as described above. In this case, the plaintiff claimed that the lateral transfer left her in a less prestigious and more administrative role compared to her previous position.
This ruling significantly changes the definition of “adverse employment action.” The Supreme Court stressed that this decision affected only job transfers. As such, adverse action based on other employment-related decisions still requires proof of substantial, material, or significant harm.
The Supreme Court stressed, “To make out a Title VII discrimination claim, a transferee must show some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment. What the transferee does not have to show is that the harm incurred was ‘significant’ or otherwise exceeded some heightened bar.”