Supreme Court backs workers filing bias suits

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court said Tuesday that workers who claim they faced retaliation for complaining of racial or age discrimination may sue in federal court, and made clear that federal employees enjoy the same protection as their counterparts in the private sector.

In a pair of decisions, the court said its past decisions compelled the view that federal laws that protect workers from discrimination also protect them from retaliation for filing complaints, even if the words of the statute do not say so.

"It's a huge victory for federal workers, who will enjoy the same protection from retaliation that private-sector employees receive," said Joseph Guerra, who argued the case for postal worker Myrna Gomez-Perez. He said more than 1 million federal workers are covered by the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).

More broadly, the court's decisions brought grudging praise from civil-rights groups that had complained about the court's overwhelmingly pro-business rulings last term, and concern from industry groups.

The liberal People for the American Way said the rulings were "welcome exceptions" to what it called a trend of the court's conservative justices to "undercut the rights of everyday Americans and protect powerful business and government interests."

The National Federation of Independent Businesses, however, called the decisions "extremely disappointing for the small-business community."

In CBOCS West v. Humphries, the justices ruled 7-2 that an 1866 civil-rights law gave a fired black manager at Cracker Barrel the right to pursue his claim of retaliation. Only the court's two most conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, dissented.

In Gomez-Perez v. Potter, Justice Samuel Alito wrote the 6-3 opinion that federal workers are protected from retaliation under the ADEA, approved by Congress in 1967. Chief Justice John Roberts joined Thomas and Scalia in dissent in that case.

In both cases, the court stood by prior rulings that said legal protection against discrimination carried an implied right to sue for retaliation.

The CBOCS suit stemmed from the 2001 firing of Hedrick Humphries, a black assistant manager of a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Bradley, Ill. He said he was dismissed after complaining about discriminatory remarks by a supervisor and about the firing of a black waitress for offenses that were tolerated from whites. Soon after Humphries complained, a supervisor claimed he had left a restaurant safe unlocked overnight and fired him.

Among other claims, Humphries said his dismissal violated provisions of the Reconstruction-era Civil Rights Act of 1866.

In Tuesday's opinion by Justice Stephen Breyer, the court agreed. Even though reprisals are not specifically addressed in the law, the idea that the act "encompasses retaliation claims is indeed well-embedded," Breyer wrote.

Thomas wrote in his dissent that the court's view "has no basis in the text" of the statute and that retaliation is not the same thing as "discrimination based on race."

In the postal-worker case, Gomez-Perez said that after she filed an age-discrimination complaint against the postal service, she was subjected to various forms of retaliation, including false accusations of sexual harassment and drastically reduced work hours.

The ADEA prohibits retaliation against private-sector employees but does not specifically mention such a ban with respect to federal workers.

But Alito wrote that the phrase "discrimination based on age" in the federal-sector provision of the ADEA "includes retaliation based on the filing of an age-discrimination complaint."

Roberts disagreed in that case. He said Congress protected federal workers through the civil-service process and "did not intend those employees to have a separate judicial remedy for retaliation."

Also Tuesday, the court:

Said Alabama's governor did not need advance approval from the federal government to fill a county-commission vacancy with a fellow Republican appointee.

Refused to step into the case of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who was convicted of steering contracts, tax fraud, misuse of tax dollars and state workers, and killing a bribery investigation.

Material from The Associated Press is included in this report.