Courts find Muldrow’s ‘some harm’ standard challenging to apply to workplace clashes

In April 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision with the potential to significantly alter the scope of employment discrimination claims. The case, Muldrow v. City of St. Louis, addressed what employer actions would be considered “adverse employment actions” for purposes of discrimination claims. The Court articulated a standard that seemed more lenient, thus potentially permitting a broader definition of what constitutes an adverse employment action. Since Muldrow, litigants before lower courts have argued that a variety of different acts or omissions constitute adverse employment actions, relying on the “some harm” standard announced by the Supreme Court. This is illustrated by four recent cases from the Kansas federal district court.

Brief review of SCOTUS’s Muldrow decision

In Muldrow, the Supreme Court unanimously stated that to prove employment discrimination, an employee “must show some harm respecting an identifiable term or condition of employment” but need not show “that the harm incurred was ‘significant.’”