Employees with Duty to Report Bias Protected from Retaliation

A recent decision from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit reminded this writer that you can still learn something new about the law every day ' even in an area where you are a supposed expert. This time, it was a decision regarding the so-called “manager rule,” a principle applied in some circuits in the context of retaliation claims under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The rule had been extended to retaliation claims under Title VII. For managers, human resources professionals and the like, in order to engage in protected activity and garner protection from retaliation, the rule required the employee to “step outside his or her role of representing the company.”