Kasten v. Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corp.
The Supreme Court ruled that the federal wage law's anti-retaliation protection can cover oral complaints, not just written ones, reversing a lower court that had thrown out a worker's retaliation claim solely because his complaints about timeclock placement were spoken rather than written.
The decision means workers who verbally raise concerns about minimum wage, overtime, or hour violations may still be protected from being fired or punished for speaking up, though the Court left open exactly how formal an oral complaint must be and did not decide whether complaints to a private employer (rather than the government) count at all.
“To limit the scope of the antiretali-ation provision to the filing of written complaints would also take needed flexibility from those charged with the Act’s enforcement.”
The majority explains why restricting protection to written complaints would undermine enforcement of the wage law.
How it got here: A federal trial court granted summary judgment for the employer, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed, both holding oral complaints are not protected; the worker asked the Supreme Court to review that legal question.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Kevin Kasten worked at a plastics manufacturing plant. He said the company placed timeclocks in a spot that prevented workers from getting paid for time spent putting on and taking off required protective gear, violating federal wage law. Kasten said he repeatedly complained out loud to supervisors and human resources about the timeclock placement, and that the company fired him because of these complaints, though the company said it fired him for failing to clock in and out as required.
The question before the Court
Can a worker who verbally complains to his employer about illegal pay practices be protected from retaliation, or does the law only protect complaints filed in writing?
Why it matters
Workers, especially those who are less literate or find it hard to put complaints in writing, gain protection from retaliation even when they only speak up rather than file paperwork. Employers must now treat clear verbal complaints about pay and hours seriously, since firing or punishing a worker for raising such a complaint out loud can trigger legal liability just as a written complaint would.
What changes now
The case is sent back to the lower courts, which must now decide whether Kasten's oral complaints met the 'fair notice' standard the Court described, and whether the anti-retaliation provision even covers complaints made only to a private employer rather than to the government -- an issue the majority explicitly left open. This is a final merits ruling, not a temporary order, but key questions remain for the lower courts to resolve on remand.
What this does not decide
The Court did not decide whether the anti-retaliation provision protects complaints made only to a private employer, as opposed to complaints filed with a court or government agency -- a question the dissent argued was central and inseparable from the oral-versus-written issue. That question was left for later proceedings.
Concurrences and dissents
Dissent — Justice Scalia
“While the jurisprudence of this Court has sometimes sanctioned a “living Constitution,” it has never approved a living United States Code.”Scalia's objection to reading modern statutory language into the 1938 wage law.
Justice Scalia argued the anti-retaliation provision only protects formal complaints filed with a court or government agency, not complaints made to an employer at all, whether oral or written. He pointed to the word 'complaint's' specialized legal meaning, its pairing with other government-facing activities in the statute, and the FLSA's 1938-era enforcement structure. He also argued the majority's own 'fair notice' test only makes sense if intracompany complaints are covered, showing the majority secretly resolved the question it claimed to leave open.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court examined the text of the anti-retaliation provision, which protects employees who have 'filed any complaint,' and found that dictionaries, state and federal statutes, and older court opinions all used the word 'filed' in connection with both oral and written statements, so the text alone did not settle whether oral complaints count.
- Because the text was ambiguous, the Court turned to the law's purpose: the wage-and-hour law relies on workers coming forward with complaints to enforce its standards, and limiting protection to written complaints would discourage illiterate, less-educated, or overworked workers -- often the very people the law was designed to help -- from speaking up.
- The Court gave some weight to the longstanding position of the Department of Labor and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, both of which have consistently treated oral complaints as covered, reasoning that their considered, long-held views add support to this reading.
- The Court rejected the employer's argument for a strict written-only rule but agreed the law requires 'fair notice' -- a complaint must be clear and detailed enough that a reasonable employer would understand it as an assertion of rights under the law, not just a worker letting off steam.
- The Court declined to decide a separate question the employer raised late in the case: whether the anti-retaliation provision protects complaints made only to a private employer, as opposed to complaints filed with the government, leaving that issue for the lower courts.