retaliation
Retaliation generally refers to adverse conduct taken because a person engaged in activity protected by law. It most often appears in employment, whistleblower, housing, and victim/witness retaliation statutes. The term does not identify a single cause of action with uniform elements: the governing law determines who is protected, what activity qualifies, what conduct is adverse, the required causal connection, filing deadlines, and available remedies.
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibits covered employers and some other entities from discriminating against an individual because the individual opposed a practice made unlawful by Title VII or made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in a Title VII investigation, proceeding, or hearing. Opposition and participation are distinct forms of protected activity. See: 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a).
A typical Title VII retaliation claim asks whether the person engaged in protected activity, suffered a materially adverse action, and can establish the required causal connection. In Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006), the Supreme Court held that the challenged action need not alter the terms of employment or occur at the workplace. It must be serious enough that it might dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a discrimination charge; minor slights and trivial annoyances are not enough. The inquiry is objective and context-specific. Under University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338 (2013), a plaintiff bringing a retaliation claim under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a) ultimately must establish that the protected activity was a but-for cause of the challenged action.
Retaliation can also target someone associated with the person who engaged in protected activity. In Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP, 562 U.S. 170 (2011), the Court held that firing an employee's fiancé in response to his fiancée's discrimination charge could violate Title VII and that the fired employee fell within the statute's zone of interests. The Court did not create a fixed rule covering every relationship.
Other laws define retaliation differently. The Fair Labor Standards Act bars discharge or discrimination because an employee filed a complaint or participated in specified proceedings. Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp., 563 U.S. 1 (2011), held that an oral complaint can qualify if it is sufficiently clear and detailed to give fair notice that the employee is asserting statutory rights; the Court did not decide whether a complaint must be made to the government rather than only to an employer. The Americans with Disabilities Act, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the False Claims Act contain separate anti-retaliation provisions protecting different activities and using different procedures.
Retaliation is not limited to employment. Federal criminal law punishes specified retaliation against witnesses, victims, and informants. State landlord-tenant laws may prohibit retaliatory eviction or other changes in tenancy after a tenant exercises their protected rights. For example, New York Real Property Law § 223-b protects tenants of covered residential premises for specified good-faith complaints, enforcement of housing rights, and participation in a tenant organization, and provides both a civil claim and an affirmative defense in a possession proceeding.
[Last reviewed in August of 2026 by the Wex Definitions Team]
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