“sole cause” of the adverse employment action, making room for retaliation claims with multiple “but-for” causes. 195 Other courts, however, continued to apply the “motivating factor” test for causation. For instance, in Gatti , the district court granted summary judgment for the employer because the record did not show that its decision to terminate the plaintiff “was motivated, at least in part, by the employee’s engaging in protected activity.” 196
Other courts, however, continued to apply the “motivating factor” test for causation
The employer offered evidence that it terminated the employee after she openly refused to comply with the medical clinic’s reorganization plans. The employee, on the other hand, relied solely on temporal proximity to satisfy causation, which, under Tenth Circuit precedent, was insufficient to survive summary judgment. Additionally, the district court found that the employer’s reason for termination was not pretext for retaliation because the employer provided an adequate explanation for changing its reorganization plan to include terminating the employee, namely that she refused to comply with the original plan that would have continued her employment. Finally, the district court held a bench trial in New York ex rel. Khurana v. Spherion Corp. and found that an employee who was terminated seven months after engaging in protected activity did not establish a causal connection between the protected activity and his termination. 197 The district court observed that plaintiff’s retaliation claim was “undermined by the passage of time between the alleged protected activity and his termination” and the “glaring absence” of any direct evidence of causation.
195 2021 WL 2717952 (D. Utah June 30, 2021). 196 529 F. Supp. 3d 1242 (D. Utah 2021). 197 511 F. Supp. 3d 455 (S.D.N.Y. 2021).
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