Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, DISCRIMINATION—SEX—D. Kan.: Female director, ‘fired’ after declaring intent to file sex discrimination complaint, advances Title VII claims, (Apr 18, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

Three weeks after the employee told the HR director she had documentation to file an outside complaint, the company “accepted” her “voluntary resignation.”

Not only did a marketing and analysis director establish fact issues as to whether she voluntarily resigned or was terminated after she told the HR director that she wanted an outside investigation into her claims of sex discrimination by her manager, but also she presented evidence she was treated less favorably than her manager as well as evidence that her employer’s claim it accepted her resignation was pretextual. In addition to denying summary judgment on her Title VII sex discrimination claim, the federal court in Kansas also allowed her Title VII retaliation claim to advance to trial. The court also denied summary judgment on her employer’s affirmative defense of failure to mitigate (Peck v. Schlage Lock Co., LLC, No. 23-2474-KHV (D. Kan. Apr. 17, 2025)).

Twelve years after the employee was hired by Ingersoll Rand, Allegion, the parent company of Schlage Lock, bought Ingersoll. Six years later, in October 2020, Allegion promoted the employee to Director, Channel Marketing & Analysis, contingent on her accepting a noncompete agreement.

Dispute. Beginning in 2021, the employee became involved in a workplace dispute between her subordinate and the subordinate of a peer. Although she attempted to facilitate the dispute between the two women, she was unable to do so. Although she eventually sought support from her manager in 2022, he dismissed several of her emails seeking help. She ultimately included the HR manager in her conversations with him and HR agreed to provide coaching.

Clipped. During a July 2022 meeting with her manager about the conflict, he described one of the subordinates as a “self-proclaimed bitch,” characterized the conflict as a “molehill,” and told her that the last time two female leaders could not get along, they were both “clipped.” The employee interpreted this as a threat to end the conflict or be fired.

In a follow-up meeting the next month, the manager admitted that he had intended by his comments to “nudge” the employee into resolving the conflict. In response, she told him that his comments scared and threatened her. She then submitted a complaint to HR about the conflict but said nothing about the manager’s comments. Following the meeting, according to the employee, her manager began leaving her out of communications with her direct reports and continued to dismiss her concerns.

Irreparable. In September, the employee submitted a gender discrimination complaint to Allegion through its ethics helpline detailing her concerns about her manager and his prior comments. She also informed the HR director about her complaint. During the investigation, the manager said the situation was “comical” and “all just fake drama” and admitted that another male manager had suggested that he try to manage the employee out of the company. He also threatened to resign and seek employment elsewhere due to the “irreparable” situation.

After HR told the employee it could not substantiate her report, she notified her manager’s supervisor that she was prepared to take legal action. She also asked him if he would consider giving her a severance agreement. She explained to the HR director that she was not resigning but wanted an outside investigation of her sex discrimination claim. She also filed a charge of discrimination with a state agency.

Termination. Three weeks later, the company told the employee they were accepting her resignation and were terminating her employment whether or not she accepted the severance agreement. Despite her refusal to accept the agreement, she was locked out of her email and other company systems.

Sex discrimination. The company first argued that the employee could not establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination because she did not suffer an adverse action but rather voluntarily resigned. Finding a fact issue as to whether she resigned or was fired, the court noted evidence she told the HR director that she was not resigning and that he understood she did not intend to resign. Despite this, the company initiated a meeting with her, offered her a severance agreement that was not open to negotiation, and immediately terminated her employment.

As to the company’s assertion the employee could not show she was treated less favorably than similarly situated male employees, the court again found a material fact issue. She presented evidence that when her manager threatened to resign, the company did not take his comments as a resignation and did not terminate his employment or lock him out of the computer systems. In contrast, when she asked her manager’s supervisor whether he would consider giving her a severance agreement and explicitly stated that she was not resigning, the company initiated a meeting with her, offered her a severance agreement that was not open to negotiation, and immediately terminated her employment. Accordingly, the court found the employee set forth a prima facie case of discrimination.

Pretext. And while the company argued that its acceptance of her voluntary resignation was a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for her departure, the court found she presented sufficient evidence of pretext to preclude summary judgment. Specifically, she presented evidence that three weeks before her termination, she told the HR director she was not resigning but wanted to file a discrimination charge while remaining employed; her manager made sex-based comments; the company assigned part of her work to a male; and it treated her manager, a man, differently. Not only did the company’s stated reason not explain its more favorable treatment of the manager, there was a fact dispute as to whether the employee resigned.

Retaliation. The employee also claimed the company retaliated against her for her complaints of sex discrimination by allowing the hostile work environment to continue, failing to remedy the discrimination, and terminating her employment. Rejecting the company’s assertion that she did not engage in protected activity, the court pointed to her sex discrimination complaint against her manager in which she explicitly opposed perceived discrimination. In addition, she engaged in protected activity when she forwarded that complaint to her manager’s supervisor and told HR she was seeking legal remedies because she wanted to work in an environment free of discrimination and retaliation and when she told the HR director she intended to file an outside complaint.

Although the company again argued that she could not establish an adverse action because she voluntarily resigned, the court noted a fact issue existed as to whether the company’s conduct in initiating the meeting, offering her the nonnegotiable severance agreement, and immediately terminating her would have dissuaded a reasonable employee from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.

The employee also established a causal connection between her complaint and her termination. She presented evidence that three weeks after she told the HR director she had documentation to file an outside complaint, she was terminated.

As to the company’s contention its acceptance of her voluntary resignation was a legitimate reason for terminating her, the court again noted, for the same reasons already stated, that the employee presented sufficient evidence of pretext to preclude summary judgment on this claim as well.

Lost wages. Finally, the company argued that the employee, who was making $417,804 at the time of her termination, was precluded from seeking lost wages after March 2023 when she accepted a position with another employer for $140,000 per year. Its contention that she did not seek reemployment with it did not establish that she failed to mitigate her damages, said the court, noting that she presented evidence her search for employment was initially restricted because of her one-year noncompete agreement; she diligently sought work in areas in which she was previously employed; she accepted a position in March 2023 as a private wealth lead advisor making $140,000; and she completed additional education to accelerate her compensation. Not only did the company fail to identify a suitable in-house position for which she was qualified or allege that it would have hired her for that position if she had applied, it did not show that she refused to accept substantially equivalent employment.

The case is No. No. 23-2474-KHV.

Judge: Vratil, K.

Attorneys: Amy R. Jackson (Siro Smith Dickson) for Joey L. Peck. Cameron E. Grant (Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani) for Schlage Lock Co., LLC, Allegion PLC, Allegion S&S Lock Holding, Inc., Allegion US Holding Co., Inc., and Allegion US Holding III, Inc.

Companies: Schlage Lock Company, LLC; Allegion PLC; Allegion S&S Lock Holding, Inc.; Allegion US Holding Co., Inc.; Allegion US Holding III, Inc.

Cases: SexDiscrimination Discrimination Retaliation Discharge RemediesDamages KansasNews