Supreme Court will review case of hospital’s firing of Army reservist

Court to hear fired reservist’s appeal

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court will review the case of a fired hospital worker who claims he lost his job over his service in the U.S. Army Reserve.

Vincent Staub, a lab technician at Proctor Hospital in Peoria, Ill., won $57,640 in damages from a jury that found he was fired because of his military service, only to have a federal appeals court throw out the judgment. The justices said Monday they will consider reinstating the award.

The court could use the case to settle an unresolved question about whether an employer can be found liable for discrimination when a biased supervisor does not make employment determinations but influences the decision-maker.

Staub was fired in 2004 after roughly 15 years as an angiography technician at the hospital. He also has been in the Reserves since 1984 and his duties include training other lab technicians. He was called to active duty in 2003 in connection with the U.S. war in Iraq and spent time instructing soldiers how to set up a radiology unit in a field hospital in a combat situation.

Staub claimed, and the jury found, that his supervisor was out to get him, motivated by what the trial judge described as her “negative opinion of Staub’s military service.”

But a more senior executive, not the supervisor, made the ultimate decision on Staub’s employment. The federal appeals court in Chicago said there was no evidence that the decision-maker shared the supervisor’s anti-military bias. It threw out the verdict and upheld the firing.

The Supreme Court has never ruled on whether an employer can be held liable for the discriminatory acts of supervisors who do not make final employment decisions.

The Obama administration recommended that the justices use this case to answer that question.

The case will be argued in the fall.

The case is Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 09-400.