AARP Bulletin - November 2010

Your AARP ;
The Law
By Emily Sachar
; The issue: Can an Army Reservist be terminated
from his full-time civilian job?
For more than a decade, Vincent Staub balanced his work as a lab
technician at Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Ill., with his U.S. Army Re-
serve duties. But that relationship began to unravel in 2000 when
Staub’s supervisor openly denigrated his military service and placed
him on weekend work rotations that conflicted with his scheduled
drill and training obligations.
Eventually, she convinced the hospital’s employment o;cer that
Staub should be fired. “I was surprised and angry,” said Staub. “After
all, I was serving our country.”
The dispute has reached the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices have
agreed to decide whether Staub’s job is protected by the Uniformed
Services Employment and Reemployment Act, which prohibits dis-
crimination against employees who are
in the Reserves.
The core issue is whether the employer
is responsible when a biased supervisor
who does not make employment deci-
sions has influenced the ultimate deci-
sion-maker. It’s an example of what law-
yers call the “cat’s paw theory,” stemming
from a 17th-century fable in which a mon-
key persuades a cat to pull chestnuts from
a fire. The monkey eats the chestnuts as
the cat pulls them out, leaving nothing for
the cat except singed paws. In this case,
an unbiased and unknowing company
o;cial fired Staub and is in court for ex-
ercising what Staub alleges was the anti-
military bias of the actual supervisor.
Tension and conflict had developed between the two from 2000 to
April 20, 2004, when Staub was terminated. Staub sued Proctor Hos-
pital, claiming that the reasons given for his termination—insubordina-
tion, shirking and attitude problems—were a pretext for discrimination
based on his association with the military. Proctor said its decision to
fire Staub was fair. “Mr. Staub was terminated by an unbiased decision-
maker, following hospital policies, and after an independent investiga-
tion showed no evidence of any bias based on Staub’s military service,”
stated Steve Wilson, a hospital spokesman.
A federal district court jury agreed with Staub, awarding him al-
most $58,000 in damages, but that was reversed by the U.S. Court of
Appeals in March 2009. The Supreme Court will hear the case this
fall. “The stakes are high,” says AARP Foundation Litigation attorney
Tom Osborne. “The court’s decision is certain to be applied to other
federal antidiscrimination laws.”

‘After all, I
was serving
our country.’
Vincent Staub
; What it means to you: The court’s decision could limit protec-
tions for workers under existing federal antidiscrimination laws. ;
Emily Sachar is a journalist and author based in Brooklyn, N. Y.