2023 Iowa Labor & Employment Year End Review

• Published date: 08 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Employment and HR, Contract of Employment, Discrimination, Disability & Sexual Harassment, Unfair/ Wrongful Dismissal, Employee Rights/ Labour Relations
• Law Firm: Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP
• Author: Mr Alexander DeMasi

Kansas City, Mo. (December 28, 2023) - This update highlights key developments in Iowa labor and employment law in 2023, and how these developments will impact employers in 2024.

Iowa Supreme Court Applies Modified McDonnell Douglas Test Into Summary Judgment Standard on Indirect Discrimination Claims Under Iowa Civil Rights Act

The Iowa Civil Rights Act ("ICRA") does not contain language similar to Title VII that allows an employer the opportunity to raise the "same decision" defense (i.e., the employer would have reached the same decision regarding an employee absent discrimination or protected activity).

To address this, in 2019, the Iowa Supreme Court abandoned the use of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework at trial on discrimination and retaliation claims, which relied on indirect evidence under the ICRA, and directed Iowa courts to apply the Price Waterhouse motivating factor causation test when instructing the jury. Hawkins v. Grinnell Regional Medical Center, 9929 N.W.2d 261 (Iowa 2019). In Hawkins, the Iowa Supreme Court did not address the appropriate standard for summary judgment, which left an open-ended question under Iowa law. As articulated by this author in the 2022 Iowa Labor & Employment Year End Review, courts applying Iowa law during this time continued to use the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting standard at summary judgment and the Price Waterhouse motivating-factor standard at trial.

On March 31, 2023, the Iowa Supreme Court in Feeback v. Swift Pork Co., 988 N.W.2d 340 (Iowa 2023), modified the burden-shifting framework for summary judgment "to align the summary judgment test with the mixed-motive causation standard and same-decision defense at trial." Under this "modified McDonnell Douglas test," employees "must carry the initial burden of establishing a prima facie case of age discrimination" and can do so by showing that they are members of a protected class, were qualified for their positions, and the circumstances of their discharge raised an inference of discrimination. Once this initial burden is met, employers must "'articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason' for its employment action." At that point, the burden shifts back to the employee to demonstrate that the employer's proffered reason is pretextual or, while true, was not the only reason for the employee's termination and that the employee's protected class was another motivating factor.

In Feeback, a former employee at a pork processing plant...