Employment Litigation · Primary-source case analysis

Staub: A Biased Supervisor Can Cause Liability Through an Unbiased Decisionmaker

By Aneeta Mishra and Timothy Chan

Published April 26, 2026

Staub supplies the causation rule often called cat’s-paw liability when biased subordinate conduct feeds into a formally independent personnel decision.

Military obligations generated supervisor hostility

Vincent Staub alleged that supervisors were hostile to his Army Reserve duties, placed a corrective action in his file, and accused him of violating it. A vice president later relied on that record in firing him.

The supervisor’s act need not be the final decision

Under USERRA’s motivating-factor language, liability can arise when a supervisor performs a discriminatory act intended to cause an adverse action and that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate decision.

An independent review may or may not break causation

A decisionmaker’s investigation does not automatically cleanse the process. Causation can remain when the final action relies on facts supplied through the biased act rather than an independent ground that fully justifies the decision.

Disposition

The Court reversed the judgment for the employer and remanded. The announced causation principle required review of the jury verdict under the proper standard.

Key takeaways

• Trace who created each fact used in the decision.
• Identify discriminatory intent and intended consequences.
• Test whether the final investigation established independent grounds.
• Preserve emails, discipline records, and decisionmaker testimony.