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December 11, 2025
In Finley v. Kraft Heinz, Inc., the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit ruled that an intervening event – such as employee misconduct – does not automatically extinguish the employee’s retaliation claim. 146 F.4th 382, 391 (2025). Although the Fourth Circuit rendered this decision while addressing a retaliation claim under the Food Safety Modernization Act (“FSMA”), the court’s rationale is likely to influence retaliation claims under other statutes because the standard for establishing a retaliation claim is the same.
The Facts
Wilbert Finley worked as a production manager at Kraft Heinz’s Newberry, South Carolina plant. From the Fall 2019 through the Spring 2020, he repeatedly raised food safety concerns. Twelve days following his last complaint, the Human Resources department began an investigation into an employee whose employment should have been terminated but was not. Both Finley and his supervisor were subjects of the investigation because they were the individuals who should have terminated the employee. Two days after the start of the investigation, Finley’s employment was terminated for “dishonesty” and “lack of integrity” because certain Human Resources employees concluded that he gave multiple, inconsistent accounts during the investigation. After exhausting his administrative remedies, Finley sued Kraft Heinz in court for retaliation pursuant to the FSMA. Ultimately, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of Kraft Heinz on the grounds that any causal connection between Finley’s complaints and the termination of his employment was severed by a “legitimate intervening event,” namely his misconduct.
The Fourth Circuit’s Ruling
The Fourth Circuit explained that the FSMA – which protects employees whose work involves the manufacture or distribution of foods – instructs courts to review retaliation claims under the “contributing factor” standard commonly used under whistleblower statutes. Therefore, the plaintiff bears the initial burden of demonstrating that the plaintiff was engaged in whistleblowing activity protected by the FSMA and that the protected activity “was a contributing factor in the unfavorable personnel action.” To demonstrate causation or the “contributing factor” standard, the plaintiff must demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that his protected activities “tend[ed] to effect” the unfavorable personnel action. The Fourth Circuit stated that this standard is “broad and forgiving.” Moreover, the Fourth Circuit noted that close temporal proximity between protected activity and unfavorable personnel action is usually sufficient to establish causation.
In this case, Kraft Heinz argued that Finley’s misconduct constituted a “legitimate intervening event” that severed any causal link between Finley’s complaints and the termination of his employment. The Fourth Circuit disagreed. The Fourth Circuit ruled that “an ‘intervening event’ is not a talisman that makes all other evidence of causation disappear.” Put another way, while an intervening event may undermine a retaliation claim, it does not do so conclusively. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit found that the district court erred by merely examining whether evidence existed in the record to support Kraft Heinz’s position. Rather, the district court should have determined whether a reasonable jury could rule in Finley’s favor given the evidence as a whole. The Fourth Circuit concluded that a reasonable jury could rule in Finley’s favor given the close temporal proximity between Finley’s complaints and the termination of his employment, the fact that Finley was disciplined more severely than his supervisor, and a disagreement among Human Resources employees about whether Finley had been dishonest during the investigation. Therefore, the Fourth Circuit vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Kraft Heinz and remanded the case for further proceedings.
Employer Takeaways
Employers should not rely solely upon an intervening event to defeat a retaliation claim. Employers should take care to evaluate employees’ complaints about the workplace and whether they would take the same adverse personnel action if those complaints had not been raised. In addition, employers should make sure that employees who have engaged in the same misconduct are treated the same. Otherwise, employers may expose themselves to a retaliation or discrimination claim.
This article is designed to provide one perspective regarding recent legal developments, and is not intended to serve as legal advice. Always consult an attorney with specific legal issues.
