Are the flood gates open for retaliation claims?
Retaliation claims have been on the rise for more than a decade. According to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, only 15.3 percent of the charges of discrimination filed with the agency in 1992 alleged retaliation. By 2005, retaliation claims were included in nearly 30 percent of all charges of discrimination. The boom in retaliation claims is partially explained by the class of potential claimants. The retaliation provisions of many labor and employment statutes extend to all persons and not merely to those for whose protection the statutes were enacted. Indeed, supervisors and human resource officials are common claimants of retaliation. The explosion is also explained by the breadth of protection afforded by anti-retaliation provisions. A person can engage in legally protected conduct based upon a good faith belief that an employer has violated the law, even if the belief is erroneous. Retaliation can often be inferred from nothing more than a short proximity in time
