Background
Lance Lowell Lewis, a manufacturing technician, sued his former employer, The Boeing Company, alleging retaliation for complaining of age discrimination in violation of the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Lewis claimed he was terminated after filing internal complaints against his supervisor and an EEOC charge. The district court granted summary judgment for Boeing, adopting a magistrate judge’s recommendation that Lewis failed to show a causal link between his protected activities and his termination.
The court’s reasoning
The court reviewed the grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the burden-shifting framework from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, Lewis needed to show he engaged in protected activity, suffered an adverse action, and that a causal connection existed. The court found that Lewis’s internal complaints did not allege age discrimination and thus were not protected. Regarding his EEOC charge, the court found no evidence that the Employee Corrective Action Review Board knew of the charge when it decided to terminate him. The court also declined to consider Lewis’s cat’s paw theory argument because it was not raised below. Finally, the court noted that Lewis’s other arguments regarding causation were unpreserved and did not alter the conclusion that he failed to establish a prima facie case.
What it means going forward
The decision reinforces that internal complaints must explicitly allege discrimination to qualify as protected activity under federal employment statutes. It also confirms that employers are not liable for retaliation if the decision-makers were unaware of the protected activity at the time of the adverse employment action.