Antonin Scalia

“ Proctor, on the other hand, contends that the employer is not liable unless the de facto decisionmaker (the technical decisionmaker or the agent for whom he is the “cat's paw”) is motivated by discriminatory animus. This avoids the aggregation of animus and adverse action, but it seems to us not the only application of general tort law that can do so. Animus and responsibility for the adverse action can both be attributed to the earlier agent (here, Staub's supervisors) if the adverse action is the intended consequence of that agent's discriminatory conduct. ”

“ The central difficulty in this case is construing the phrase “motivating factor in the employer's action.” When the company official who makes the decision to take an adverse employment action is personally acting out of hostility to the employee's membership in or obligation to a uniformed service, a motivating factor obviously exists. The problem we confront arises when that official has no discriminatory animus but is influenced by previous company action that is the product of a like animus in someone else. ”

“ The employer is at fault because one of its agents committed an action based on discriminatory animus that was intended to cause, and did in fact cause, an adverse employment decision.
Justice Alito claims that our failure to adopt a rule immunizing an employer who performs an independent investigation reflects a “stray [ing] from the statutory text.” Post, at 424, 179 L. Ed. 2d, at 156 (opinion concurring in judgment) . We do not understand this accusation. Since a supervisor is an agent of the employer, when he causes an adverse employment action the employer causes it ”

“ Nor can the ultimate decisionmaker's judgment be deemed a superseding cause of the harm. A cause can be thought “superseding” only if it is a “cause of independent origin that was not foreseeable.” Exxon Co., U.S.A. v. Sofec, Inc., 517 U.S. 830, 837, 116 S. Ct. 1813, 135 L. Ed. 2d 113 (1996) (internal quotation marks omitted) .
Moreover, the approach urged upon us by Proctor gives an unlikely meaning to a provision designed to prevent employer discrimination. An employer's authority to reward, punish, or dismiss is often allocated among multiple agents. ”

“ The Restatement of Agency suggests that the malicious mental state of one agent cannot generally be combined with the harmful action of another agent to hold the principal liable for a tort that requires both. ”

“ Here, however, Staub is seeking to hold liable not Mulally and Korenchuk, but their employer. Perhaps, therefore, the discriminatory motive of one of the employer's agents (Mulally or Korenchuk) can be aggregated with the act of another agent (Buck) to impose liability on Proctor. Again we consult general principles of law, agency law, which form the background against which federal tort laws are enacted. ”

“ And we find both speculative and implausible Justice Alito's prediction that our Nation's employers will systematically disfavor members of the armed services in their hiring decisions to avoid the possibility of cat's-paw liability, a policy that would violate USERRA in any event. ”

“ While employed by Proctor, Staub was a member of the United States Army Reserve, which required him to attend drill one weekend per month and to train full time for two to three weeks a year. Both Janice Mulally, Staub's immediate supervisor, and Michael Korenchuk, Mulally's supervisor, were hostile to Staub's military obligations. Mulally scheduled Staub for additional shifts without notice so that he would “pa [y] back the department for everyone else having to bend over backwards to cover [his] schedule for the Reserves. ”