HR Worker’s Testimony Against Ex-Employer Backs Retaliation Suit

Georgia Pacific LLC must face trial on a former human resources manager’s claim that she was fired in retaliation for giving testimony in a pregnancy bias case against her previous employer, the Eleventh Circuit ruled Tuesday.

A lower court mistakenly rejected Marie Patterson’s claim on the ground that she needed and failed to show she acted outside her normal duties as an HR manager when she testified in support of her former co-workers at Memorial Hermann Health System, the appeals court said. Managers don’t have to qualify their protected activity under a special rule or exception to recover for retaliation ...