Workers who complain to their employers about wage violations are protected from retaliation whether the complaints are oral or written, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 6-to-2 decision.  The question in the case, Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the majority, was whether the phrase “filed any complaint” in the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 applied only to written complaints.

The case arose from complaints Kevin Kasten said he made to his former employer about where it kept the time clocks that recorded the hours he worked at a Wisconsin manufacturing plant. Though workers had to wear protective gear that took time to put on and take off, the time clocks were in an area beyond the changing area.  That was, a federal judge later found in a related case, a violation of the 1938 law.  Mr. Kasten said he had complained about the practice orally to a shift supervisor and to his employer, the Saint-Gobain Performance Plastics Corporation, through its grievance procedure.  The company fired Mr. Kasten for what it said were unrelated reasons, and he sued, asserting that his dismissal was retaliation. The lower courts dismissed the suit on the ground that the 1938 law did not cover oral complaints.

Justice Breyer wrote that the word “filed” sometimes concerned oral submissions, citing dictionary definitions, regulations, court opinions and other laws. But he said the statutory text alone “cannot provide a conclusive answer to our interpretive question.”  Justice Breyer also considered Congress’s purpose in enacting the law, which he said was to address poor working conditions, including by encouraging workers to speak up without fear of being fired. Moreover, he wrote, “illiteracy rates were particularly high among the poor” in the years before the law was passed.  (click on link to read full story)