The Eleventh Circuit today granted the defendant employer’s petition for rehearing en banc in Gogel v. Kia Motors Manufacturing of Georgia, Inc., 904 F.3d 1226 (11th Cir. 2018). The now-vacated panel opinion, authored by Judge Martin, had affirmed summary judgment for the defendant on the plaintiff’s discrimination claims but revived her claim for retaliation. Judge Julie Carnes wrote a separate opinion dissenting as to the retaliation claim only, and the employer moved for en banc rehearing on that issue. Based on Judge Carnes’s dissent, the en banc decision may focus on the question of when conduct in “opposition to perceived discrimination,” which generally is protected by Title VII’s anti-retaliation provision, can be said to “so interfere[] with the performance” of an employee’s job duties as to render the employee “ineffective” in the position for which she was hired.
Posted by Stacey Mohr.