76 | Developments in Equal Pay Litigation 2026 ©2026 Seyfarth Shaw LLP On the other hand, when an adverse action follows closely after a plaintiff’s protected activity, this can be powerful evidence to establish a causal link between the two events. In Donathan v. Oakley Grain, Inc.,587 a female employee alleged she was terminated for complaining that she had not received bonuses in line with other employees in similar positions, and that new employees were starting at higher rates of pay. Plaintiff was laid off approximately eight days later.588 The Eighth Circuit held that she “was terminated from her office position even though [employer] had not included the office position in its seasonal layoffs any of the prior three years that [plaintiff] had worked for the company (or during the years when [plaintiff’s] predecessor held the post). Plaintiff’s termination occurred despite the absence of negative reviews, and [employer] hired [replacement] to fill the position the very next working day.”589 Retaliation claims under Title VII and the EPA are often analyzed under the same burden-shifting framework. The outcome under either statute often comes down to the credibility of the employer’s reasons for the alleged adverse action. For example, in Carlson v. Qualtek Wireless LLC,590 the court rejected a retaliation claim because it was unwilling to second-guess the business judgment of the employer. In that case, a Finance Manager alleged she was denied a promotion and then fired due to her complaints about gender-based discrimination. The court analyzed the claims under Title VII and the EPA the same way, using the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.591 Evidence demonstrated the promotion would have required moving to a different state to work at the employer’s headquarters, which plaintiff was unwilling to do.592 Plaintiff argued the job could be done from anywhere, but the court declined to supplant its judgment for the employer’s in that regard. “[O]ur concern is not the wisdom of [employer’s] internal processes or business judgment in managing its financial team. Our concern is whether [plaintiff] can cite credible evidence [employer] failed to promote her in November 2019 as retaliation for her October 2019 complaint. [Plaintiff] offers none.”593 Similarly, the court was unwilling to second-guess the employer’s business judgment regarding the restructuring that led to plaintiff’s termination: “[Plaintiff] baldly argues the Finance Team restructuring reason is not credible . . . and we must deny summary judgment. She looks for a jury and argues the wisdom of [employer’s] business judgment; she seemingly would do it differently. But she is not the employer.”594 On August 9, 2023, the Third Circuit affirmed the district court’s decision, holding that the record showed “[plaintiff] was repeatedly told that the position would require her to be in Pennsylvania and the two men ultimately hired for the position both worked in [employer’s] Pennsylvania headquarters.”595 The court also rejected plaintiff’s arguments regarding the restructuring. Although plaintiff was terminated just one week after she complained about her bonus, the court found that “documents and testimony corroborate that [the employer] was, in fact, undergoing a company-wide restructuring at the time of [plaintiff’s] termination.”596 Moreover, the Finance Manager position was eliminated, and plaintiff was not the only employee who was terminated; others were also affected. Given these facts, the court concluded that “temporal proximity does not undermine the legitimacy of the reasons for her termination.”597 587 Donathan v. Oakley Grain, Inc., 861 F.3d 735 (8th Cir. 2017). 588 Id. at 737. As further evidence of the time-causation connection, the Eighth Circuit noted that ten minutes after Plaintiff put her complaints in an email to the president of the company, the president forwarded her email to plaintiff’s manager, and they discussed her complaint by phone. Id. 589 Id. at 740-41. 590 Carlson v. Qualtek Wireless LLC, No. 22-cv-125, 2022 WL 3229399 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 10, 2022). 591 Id. at *9. Regarding the failure to promote allegations, the court held that plaintiff failed to demonstrate a causal connection between her complaint about her promotion and the denial of her promotion. Although those events happened within about a month of each other, under Third Circuit precedent, “temporal proximity of greater than ten days requires supplementary evidence of retaliatory motive.” Id. at *10. Plaintiff had failed to produce such evidence of a retaliatory motive. 592 Id. at *11. 593 Id. 594 Id. at *13. 595 Carlson v. Qualtek Wireless LLC, No. 22-2569, 2023 WL 5094566, at *3 (3d Cir. Aug. 9, 2023). 596 Id. at *4. 597 Id.
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