Female Delta Pilot Advances Sexual Harassment, Reprisal Claims

By Patrick Dorrian/ Bloomberg Law

Delta Air Lines Inc. must face a female pilot’s claims of workplace sexual harassment and that she was retaliated against for complaining about gender bias and harassment, including by being forced to undergo retreatment for alcohol abuse.

The ruling by the US District Court for the District of Minnesota rejected Delta’s contention that the retreatment requirement and other job actions cited by the pilot weren’t adverse for purposes of proving job retaliation, but instead were “beneficial opportunities” permitted by its collective bargaining agreement with her union. Binding case law “indicates otherwise,” the court said.

According to Andrea Ratfield, Delta’s adverse employment actions also included threatening her with termination and suspension, and manipulating her use of leave so it could demote her from captain to first officer. She started drinking to deal with trauma stemming from an incident in which she was raped while attending an aviation event in September 2017, which she reported to her supervisor, Ratfield says.

Ratfield says the sexual harassment she’s experienced in her Delta tenure includes being groped, her training manager asking her on a date, a supervisor calling her “princess,” and lewd hand gestures and comments. A supervisor also allegedly bragged to others that he had seen Ratfield’s breasts while she was breastfeeding, Judge Katherine Menendez said.

Those allegations sufficiently state a hostile work environment claim under the Minnesota Human Rights Act, the judge said. The alleged acts of harassment may be “of the type brushed off by courts in different eras,” but they “comprise the sort of workplace behavior today that reasonable people” likely wouldn’t tolerate, Menendez said.

At least two of the incidents alleged by Ratfield occurred within the time period for suing, the court said.

Her retaliation claims are plausible in light of the alleged close timing—two weeks—between when she reported unfair and discriminatory treatment and when Delta refused to accept secondary test results she received that contradicted an allegedly false positive test that triggered the retreatment requirement, Menendez said.

Ratfield also alleges the retreatment facility was told that she rubbed people at Delta the wrong way and that supervisors further tried to sabotage her retreatment and effort to regain her license to fly by sharing her false positive test with the facility, the judge said.

The court dismissed Ratfield’s gender discrimination claims, including her allegations that Delta accepted secondary test results from male pilots under similar circumstances, but not from her.

Those claims require Ratfield to prove she was qualified to be a pilot and thus implicate terms of her union CBA, Menendez said. They therefore are preempted by the Railway Labor Act. RLA preemption didn’t apply to Ratfield’s retaliation claims because they don’t require proof that Ratfield was qualified for her job, the judge said.

Valli Kane & Vagnini LLP, Nichols Kaster PLLP, and Ellwanger Law LLLP represent Ratfield. Dorsey & Whitney LLP represents Delta.

Read the full article from Bloomberg Law here.

A Win for Delta Captain Andrea Ratfield!

By Sara Hammel

For all those following what’s by far the most-read story in The Landing’s short history, we have a victory to report.

Captain Ratfield will have her day in court. Delta Air Lines’ motion to dismiss was denied on two of three claims. As United States District Judge Katherine Menendez writes in part in her August 11, 2023 decision,

Delta’s motion is denied to the extent it seeks dismissal for failure to state a claim. Ms. Ratfield has plausibly pleaded a claim for retaliation under Title VII and the MHRA and sexual harassment under the MHRA.

Retired Delta Captain Karlene Petitt, who knows more about the airline’s legal strategies than almost anyone, covered that side of things on her blog yesterday:

Delta Air Lines utilizes the Railway Labor Act (RLA) to get away with illegal actions. The airline, under the management of CEO and Board of Directors, Ed Bastian, has a history of retaliation and sexual harassment. They also have a history of filing motions to remove these cases from the courtroom and pull them into the grievance process, of which they own both the arbitrator and the process. 

Congratulations to Capt. Ratfield. The cost of taking a stand is high, and can drain both your finances and your energy. But she’s standing firm, and I look forward to continuing to follow her court case.

Read more at The Landing here.

The Curious Case of Pilot Andrea Ratfield

By Sarah Hammel/The Landing

It’s the summer of 2020, and Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian is drafting an epic memo outlining the company’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

Bastian promises clarity and transparency throughout the $27.5-billion company’s journey to a less white, less male leadership. He writes that he is “committed to correcting our course as we become a more just, equal and anti-racist company.”

Meanwhile, up north in Delta’s “second home” of Minneapolis, Captain Andrea Ratfield is doing some writing of her own.

It’s June 26, a Friday. At her wits’ end, Ratfield composes an email to high-ranking Delta executives, including Bastian.

A skilled pilot with an exemplary flying record, Ratfield launched her career at Delta as a flight attendant in 1999 before joining the airline’s three percent of women pilots in 2007.

In the summer of 2020, Ratfield is balancing a full life as a commercial airline pilot, activist, mother of two young boys with special needs, and trauma survivor. Making life even more challenging: In the midst of it all, she’s been routinely sexually harassed and assaulted at work. Despite reporting the incidents to her bosses, the male pilot perpetrators are never disciplined.

In her email, Ratfield reminds the executives what she’s been through—likely touching on a few examples in a laundry list that includes a male instructor pilot coming to her hotel room at 2 a.m. for “a drink” and another grabbing her breasts—and outlines again the retaliation she’s endured since reporting the abhorrent behavior.

She closes out the letter with a request that she not be forced to work any longer with the male pilots she says are retaliating against her. She names Captain Scott Monjeau, First Officer Warren Mowry and Captain Ray Baltera.

She hits send.

On July 14, Bastian goes on CNN to tout his airline’s diversity and equity plan.

Delta’s top man talks a good game. The 6’ 3” bespectacled CEO with slicked-back salt-and-pepper hair is duly somber as CNN’s presenter pushes him on the airline’s poor record of minorities in leadership positions.

Bastian admits he’s heard Black employees speak of being left out of the “broader” discussion, and says that “…minorities of all varieties, women, are all really important…[we need to] ensure that we’re doing our very best to promote opportunity and equality.”

He adds, “They’re family. They’re my family…I have a responsibility to do a better job.”

On August 11, 2020, Ed Bastian’s diversity memo blasts out to staff and media worldwide. The subject: Taking Action.

Read the full article from The Landing here.

Supervisor sues Omni hotels, alleging sexual harassment and retaliation when she reported it

A former supervisor with Omni Hotels & Resorts has filed suit against the Dallas-based company, alleging sexual harassment and saying the company broke federal laws governing equal pay.Continue reading

Retaliation – Employees Should Not Fear Reporting Discrimination –

Employees who have been discriminated or harassed against in the workplace should not be hesitant to report these claims.  Retaliation laws are in place to protect the employee from being harassed or targeted after they exercise their right to report discrimination.  When an employee reports discriminatory acts to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, their respective state equivalent, the Department of Labor, or even internally to their employer, retaliation laws are in place to stop the employer from taking adverse action against the wronged employee.
 
Retaliation laws protect against all forms of retaliation.  Retaliatory actions include, but are not limited to:
–          Disparate Hiring Practices
–          Unwarranted Firing
–          Pay Reductions
–          Change in Job Assignments
–          Promotion Discrepancies
–          Layoffs
–          Unwarranted Training Procedures
–          Denial of Fringe Benefits
–          Alteration of any other Term or Condition of Employment.
 
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is a federal agency in place to protect the rights of employees.  It is “an unlawful employment practice for an employer to discriminate against any of his employees…because the employee has opposed any practice made unlawful employment practice by Title VII.” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a).  EEOC Retaliation laws bar the employer from exercising any retaliatory acts, even retroactively, against an employee after they file an EEOC Charge of Discrimination.  Employees should not fear reporting discrimination because the EEOC is an agency to rectify these wrongs.
 
Most states have a functional state equivalent to the EEOC and this is another avenue for discriminated employees to use to remedy the harassment they have endured.  In New York specifically, New York Labor Law Article 20-C § 740 is in place to forbid an employer from taking retaliatory actions against an employee who reports discrimination in the work place.  New York employees have protection at both the Federal and State level when exercising their right to be free of discriminatory actions taken by their employer.  For employees working in New York City, they even have a third layer of protection under the New York City Human Rights Law.
 
Employees do not have to report acts of discrimination to one of these agencies in order to be afforded protection under these anti-retaliation laws.  An employee is safeguarded against retaliation in any form when they complain about discrimination or harassment directly to their employer by complaining to Human Resources, management or some equivalent.  It is vital, however, when complaining directly to your employer, that the aggrieved employee document their complaint of discrimination or harassment in some manner, whether through a formal document, email, or in the presence of a trusted witness.

 
For an employee to prove they have been retaliated against, they only need to show that the retaliation has produced “an injury or harm.” Burlington Northern & Sante Fe Ry. V. White, 548 U.S. 53, 67 (2006).  The injury or harm requirement must however stem from or convey a feeling or perception of discrimination.  Employees should not be weary of reporting acts of retaliation, but should exercise their right to be free of these acts.  Retaliation can also occur if someone has been negatively affected by your report of discrimination.  The EEOC’s Retaliation laws protect the rights of third–parties, even though they have not made claims of discrimination themselves. Thompson v. North American Stainless, LP (2011).  For a more detailed discussion on how third-parties are protected by the law, check back to see further blog discussion on our website.