The Evolving Impact of the Muldrow Ruling on Employment Cases

In Muldrow v. City of St. Louis (2024), the U.S. Supreme Court addressed whether an employee’s transfer — without a change in rank or pay — could still trigger liability under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 . The court ruled that a transferee must show “some harm” to an identifiable term or condition of employment but doesn’t need to demonstrate “significant” harm. Since Muldrow, lower courts across the country have explored the ruling’s broader implications as plaintiffs have sought to extend its reasoning beyond lateral transfers and disparate treatment claims, applying it to other equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws or to other causes of action within Title VII, such as hostile work environment or constructive discharge cases.

For example, in EEOC v. Chipotle Services, a Kansas federal court took note that Muldrow reshaped the Title VII landscape. The court evaluated the plaintiff’s hostile work environment claim through the lens of Muldrow, stating that a plaintiff must show “some harm or some disadvantageous change with respect to an identifiable term or condition of her employment on account of a hostile work environment.”

However, this judicial interpretation is not universal because other federal circuits have not taken the same position. A federal district court in Texas rejected the argument that Muldrow lowered the threshold for hostile work environment claims. Within the same jurisdiction, however, an appellate court within the Fifth Circuit explicitly affirmed that Muldrow’s reasoning applies to age-based discrimination claims.

The full extent of Muldrow’s impact is hard to immediately quantify, but it is important to note that even in circuits that interpret the decision as lowering the initial threshold for plaintiffs, it does not necessarily mean that courts will overturn or invalidate prior rulings for those plaintiffs.