An employee that filed a charge of age discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claimed that he was subjected, after he filed the charge, to an increased degree of scrutiny by his supervisors. This increased degree of scrutiny could be properly considered evidence of the employer's intent to retaliate against the employee for filing the charge the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has ruled in Hamilton v. General Electric Company, No. 08-5023 (February 12, 2009). The court explained its reasoning as follows:
Hamilton does not argue that his work had not been scrutinized before, but he states that the level of scrutiny increased greatly after he filed the EEOC complaint. The fact that the scrutiny increased is critical. The district court also emphasized Hamilton’s prior disciplinary history. Though this case includes information about the pre-existing relationship between Hamilton and GE, we must decide what made GE fire Hamilton when it did. GE did not terminate Hamilton until after he filed an EEOC complaint alleging age discrimination. We hold that this temporal proximity of less than three months combined with the assertion that GE increased its scrutiny of Hamilton’s work only after the EEOC complaint was filed are sufficient to establish the causation element of a prima facie case of retaliatory termination.
