Retaliation

What does “retaliation” mean?

Retaliation is an adverse action taken against an employee because they engaged in protected activity, and it is actionable independently of whether the original complaint had merit.

Adverse action reaches further than termination. Reassignment, schedule changes, exclusion from meetings and negative reviews have all been argued as retaliatory where they followed a complaint.

Retaliation claims frequently outlive the underlying claim. An employer can be right about the original allegation and still lose on what happened afterwards.