On March 22, 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., that retaliation under the Fair Labor Standards Act, can be based on oral complaints, not just written ones. The Court rejected the employer’s argument that oral complaints are too indefinite to provide an employer with fair notice that an employee is engaging in protected activity.
Facts of the Case: The plaintiff employee believed that the location of the defendant employer’s time clock was illegal under the FLSA because it prevented employees from receiving fair compensation for the time they spent changing in and out of work clothes. The employer had an ethics policy that imposed on employees the obligation to report suspected violations of the law and an internal grievance resolution procedure that instructed employees to immediately contact their supervisor with “questions, complaints, and problems.” The employee claimed that he “raised concerns” with his supervisor that the location of the time clocks was “illegal” and that he also advised human resources personnel (a generalist and the HR manager) that the company would “lose in court” if a legal challenge were brought about the time clock location. He also told his lead operator that he was “thinking about starting a lawsuit about the placement of the time clocks.” The employee claimed that his subsequent discharge from employment was because of these complaints. He sued under the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provision and his claims were dismissed on summary judgment. The trial court, affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, concluded that the FLSA, which prohibits retaliation against employees because they “file any complaint” required a written filing with a government agency.
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