Supreme Court makes it easier to sue employers for job transfers

WASHINGTON - Workers who are transferred from one job to another against their will can now more easily sue their employers for job discrimination, thanks to a ruling issued Wednesday by the Supreme Court.

The unanimous decision, written by Justice Elena Kagan and published on Wednesday, came from a sex discrimination lawsuit filed by a St. Louis police sergeant after she was forcibly transferred, but retained her rank and pay.

The ruling made it easier for workers who are transferred jobs to pursue job discrimination claims under federal civil rights law, even when they are not demoted or docked pay.

Workers only have to show that the transfer resulted in some, but not necessarily significant, harm to prove their claims, Kagan wrote for the court.

Here’s what to know about the ruling:

Muldrow v. St. Louis

Sgt. Jaytonya Muldrow had worked for nine years in a plainclothes position in the department's intelligence division before a new commander reassigned her to a uniformed position in which she supervised patrol officers. 

The new commander wanted a male officer in the intelligence job and sometimes called Muldrow "Mrs." instead of "sergeant," Kagan wrote.

Muldrow sued under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits workplace discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion and national origin. 

Lower courts had dismissed Muldrow's claim, concluding that she had not suffered a significant job disadvantage.

"Today, we disapprove that approach," Kagan wrote. "Although an employee must show some harm from a forced transfer to prevail in a Title VII suit, she need not show that the injury satisfies a significance test."

Kagan noted that many cases will come out differently under the lower bar the Supreme Court adopted Wednesday.

She pointed to cases in which people lost discrimination suits, including those of an engineer whose new job site was a 14-by-22-foot wind tunnel, a shipping worker reassigned to exclusively night time work and a school principal who was forced into a new administrative role that was not based in a school.

FILE - Close up detail of a business person working at a desk with a smartphone and laptop computer, taken on January 31, 2019. (Photo by Neil Godwin/Future via Getty Images)

Although the outcome was unanimous, Justices Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh and Clarence Thomas each wrote separate opinions noting some level of disagreement with the majority's rationale in ruling for Muldrow.

Madeline Meth, a lawyer for Muldrow, said her client will be thrilled with the outcome. Meth, who teaches at Boston University's law school, said the decision is a big win for workers because the court made "clear that employers can’t decide the who, what, when, where and why of a job based on race and gender."

The decision revives Muldrow's lawsuit, which now returns to lower courts. 

Muldrow contends that, because of sex discrimination, she was moved to a less prestigious job, which was primarily administrative and often required weekend work, and she lost her take-home city car.

"If those allegations are proved," Kagan wrote, "she was left worse off several times over."

The case is Muldrow v. St.Louis, 22-193.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.