In the recent case of Staub v Proctor Hospital, the United States Supreme Court addressed the so-called “cat’s paw” claim of discrimination under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act. In a cat’s paw case, the employee seeks to hold the employer liable for the discriminatory intent of a supervisor who was not the ultimate “decision maker” for the challenged adverse employment action. The Court’s holding in Staub now makes it easier for employees to establish liability in such cases where a biased supervisor has influenced someone else to take the adverse employment action. This case is sure to impact employers, as its holding potentially reaches beyond USERRA and into other types of federal discrimination cases.

Staub worked as an angiography technician for Proctor Hospital. He also served in the U.S. Army Reserve, and took leaves of absence from work in order to attend monthly drill. Staub’s immediate supervisor (Mulally), as well as Mulally’s supervisor (Korenchuk), were allegedly hostile towards Staub’s military obligations. Mulally issued Staub a corrective action for purportedly violating the hospital’s work rules regarding failure to remain in his work area whenever he was not working with a patient. The corrective action directed Staub to report to his supervisors when had no patients. A few months later, Korenchuk reported to the hospital’s vice president of human resources (Buck) that Staub had violated the corrective action by leaving the work area without notifying his supervisors. Buck relied on this report and, after reviewing Staub’s personnel file, made the decision to discharge Staub for failure to comply with the corrective action.