Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, RETALIATION—4th Cir.: Production manager revives suit alleging he was fired for raising food safety concerns, (Jul 28, 2025)

By Brandi O. Brown, J.D.

A jury could infer that the employer’s decision to impose the most severe disciplinary sanction on him for an alleged infraction was affected in some part by his prior complaints.

In a lawsuit by a former Kraft Heinz Inc. production manager alleging retaliatory termination in violation of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the Fourth Circuit has vacated the district court’s decision to grant summary judgment in favor of the employer. Contrary to the lower court’s finding, the appeals court concluded that the employee presented evidence that could allow a jury to determine that his various previous safety complaints were a “contributing factor” in his discharge, which the employer claimed was based on statements he made regarding the botched termination of one of his second-level subordinates (Finley v. Kraft Heinz Inc., No. 24-1191 (4th Cir. July 25, 2025)).

Bones and leakers. In 2019 and 2020, the work relationship between Kraft Heinz and the plaintiff, a production manager whose responsibilities included oversight of product quality and food safety, became contentious. The manager repeatedly paused production because of safety concerns about the products, including improperly sealed bacon packages (“leakers”) and overly large bone fragments.

Specifically, the manager alleged that in 2019 he regularly raised these concerns to his supervisors and to HR, claiming that inadequate employee training and staffing shortages were leading to both issues. In weekly meetings, he reported improper use of bone-detecting x-ray machines and shared with his supervisors that he was finding too much bone in the bacon.

Production pauses. However, he was told to continue processing the product and not to discard it. When he stopped production to address these issues, he was criticized and instructed not to shut down the lines. He alleged that, in frustration, he would run back and forth from the line to management’s office with actual packages of bacon, to show them the bones in the meat. At least one of his coworkers attested that she heard comments in conversations with supervisors and certain employees that the production manager might be fired if he did not ease up on those complaints.

Nevertheless, he persisted, and his complaints increased in frequency in early 2020. He shared documentation with his supervisors on January 25, February 17, February 18, and March 2 regarding meat quality issues. On March 12, he raised concerns about insufficient staffing, including the removal of a specialized food-safety employee.

Suspension and termination. On March 24, 2020, he was suspended pending review. Two days later, he was fired. His employer claimed it was because of an HR investigation on March 24, in which he allegedly made inconsistent statements regarding the botched termination of one of his second-level subordinates 12 days earlier. On March 12, one of his subordinates was supposed to terminate four workers. Three of the four were terminated without issue by the subordinate and the production manager signed off on the paperwork. The fourth, however, was not at work that day. The paperwork for her termination was submitted, with the production manager’s signature, but she never actually learned of her termination and continued to work until March 24, when HR realized she was still there.

Summary judgment. HR interviewed the production manager multiple times and claimed that his statements about the matter were inconsistent. He was fired on March 26, purportedly for “dishonesty” and “lack of integrity” during the investigation. He exhausted his claim with OSHA and then filed suit, alleging that his termination was retaliatory in violation of the FSMA. Ultimately, the district court adopted the report and recommendation of a magistrate judge and granted summary judgment in favor of the employer. The magistrate judge concluded that the causal inference raised by the temporal proximity between the production manager’s complaints and his termination was “severed” by his conduct during the HR investigation, which the judge characterized as a “legitimate intervening event.”

Wrong standard. The manager appealed to the Fourth Circuit, which vacated the lower court’s decision. The first issue with the lower court’s decision, the appeals court explained, was that even though the magistrate judge had correctly described the applicable framework (the “contributing factor” standard commonly used in whistleblower statutes, also known as the “AIR-21” standard), the lower court had instead erroneously referred to the familiar but-for causation framework for analyzing retaliation under the ADEA and Title VII. “This is a meaningful difference,” according to the court, because “by design,” the contributing-factor standard is more generous to employees and less protective of employers than causation standards under other statutes. This is intended to encourage whistleblowers to come forward.

Focusing on the causation element, the appeals court explained that to show his protected activity was a “contributing factor” to his termination, the manager had to establish that his activities “tend[ed] to affect in any way” the employer’s decision to terminate him. At bottom, it explained, the employer sought judgment on the ground that it could show that the manager’s protected activity had no effect on his termination because he would have been fired anyway because of his purported dishonesty. However, contrary to the lower court’s conclusions, the appeals court did not see that the employer had made that showing.

Temporal proximity. Contrary to the magistrate judge’s indication that the manager’s protected conduct stopped in February, the record showed that he voiced concerns to his supervisor and HR on March 2, 9, 12, and 19. “Ordinarily,” the appeals court explained, “the extremely close temporal proximity between” the manager’s complaints and his termination “would be sufficient, by itself, to support an inference of contributing-factor causation.” Here, however, the employer argued that the events of March 24 constituted a “legitimate intervening event” that severed any causal link.

Not talismanic. “But an ‘intervening event,’ the appeals court explained, “is not a talisman that makes all other evidence of causation disappear establishing conclusively that there can be no connection between protected activity and an adverse action.” The March 24 events should not be considered in isolation, but in conjunction with the employee’s evidence of contributing-factor causation. While an intervening event could undermine the strength of the inference, the “question at summary judgment remains the same: In light of all the evidence, including the intervening event, could a reasonable jury conclude that [the manager’s] protected activity tended to affect his termination?” In this case, the magistrate judge and district court failed to conduct that inquiry, evaluating only whether there was evidence to support the employer’s given reason for termination. As the manager properly objected, however, the existence of record evidence to support the employer’s position “does not negate the existence of evidence to support his own.”

Close temporal proximity. Undertaking the inquiry that the lower judiciary failed to apply, the appeals court concluded that the record here “gives rise to genuine issues of material fact for a jury.” The record, viewed in the light most favorable to the manager, with inferences drawn in his favor, would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that his food safety complaints contributed to the termination decision and that the decision might not have been made if not for his complaints. First, there was very close temporal proximity between his complaints, the investigation, and his termination. A jury could find the fact that the manager was deemed “dishonest” shortly after he increased the frequency of his objections weighed in his favor.

Comparator and other evidence. Additionally, there was a comparator who was not disciplined (the supervisor of the unfired worker, who had not made any complaints, was not disciplined and it was his job, rather than the job of the production manager, to fire the employee). While the employer claimed that the supervisor had not been dishonest, the appeals court pointed out that this was a genuinely disputed question of fact based on assertions made by that supervisor that were questionable and disputed by both the production manager and another witness. There also was other evidence casting at least some doubt on the employer’s given reason for its actions.

Jury needed. “At summary judgment, of course, it is not the court’s role to weigh this evidence or make credibility determinations in favor of either party,” the appeals court explained, “and we express no view on the ultimate merits of this dispute.” The court determined, only, that a reasonable jury could infer from the record as a whole that “something more than” the production manager’s alleged “dishonesty” contributed to his termination and that his “increasingly urgent food safety complaints—culminating immediately before his termination—‘affect[ed] his termination in at least some way.””

The case is No. 24-1191.

Judge: Harris, P.

Attorneys: Stephani Lynne Ayers (T.M. Guyer & Friends) for Wilbert Finley. McKenzie L. Ahmet (Foley & Lardner) for Kraft Heinz Inc.

Companies: Kraft Heinz Inc.

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