Employment: Former employee alleges he was fired for raising food safety concerns

Where a reasonable juror could find that an employee’s repeated complaints about alleged food safety were a contributing factor to his termination, the district court erred when it granted the company’s motion for summary judgment.

Background

Wilbert Finley alleges that Kraft Heinz Inc. violated the Food Safety Modernization Act by firing him because he raised food safety concerns. The district court granted summary judgment to Kraft Heinz, holding that Finley could not show that his safety complaints were a “contributing factor” in his dismissal.

Analysis

To show that his protected activity was a “contributing factor” to his termination, Finley must establish – by a preponderance of the evidence, in making his prima facie case – that his activities “tend[ed] to affect in any way” Kraft Heinz’s decision to terminate him. According to Kraft Heinz, Finley was terminated for dishonesty during a human resources investigation into the botched firing of another employee. Specifically, Kraft Heinz argued – and the district court agreed – that Finley’s protected activity had no effect on his termination because Finley’s failure to give a consistent account of his actions on March 24 was a “legitimate intervening event” that fully explains why he was fired – and why would have been fired regardless of any prior protected activity.

The March 24 investigation, like any intervening event, must be considered in the causation analysis. But an “intervening event” 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 events of March 24 should be considered not in isolation, but in conjunction with Finley’s evidence of contributing-factor causation.

An intervening event may “undermin[e]” the strength of an inference that otherwise would arise from temporal proximity. But the question at summary judgment remains the same: In light of all the evidence, including the intervening event, could a reasonable jury conclude that Finley’s protected activity tended to affect his termination?

As Finley correctly objects, the existence of evidence in the record to support Kraft Heinz’s position does not negate the existence of evidence to support his own. The district court and magistrate judge were still required to consider all the evidence – the evidence supporting Finley as well as the evidence supporting Kraft Heinz – to determine whether a reasonable jury could side with Finley.

A jury considering all the evidence could find that the March 24 investigation weakened or even fully “severed” the inference. But it also could find that the fact that Finley was deemed “dishonest” shortly after he increased the frequency of his objections to Kraft Heinz’s food safety procedures in February and March weighs in Finley’s favor as part of the totality of the evidence.

Second, Finley argues that he was disciplined more severely than others involved in the Gaines non-firing, allowing a reasonable jury to infer that Kraft Heinz singled him out because of his prior safety complaints. whether Clark is a valid comparator cannot be determined, on this record, as a matter of law.

Third, a jury could have questions about what Kraft Heinz really thought of Finley’s behavior on March 24 and the consistency of its rationales for targeting and then firing him. As the district court saw it, Kraft Heinz believed Finley “lied” during the investigation and fired him for that reason. But there is deposition testimony from another HR employee saying that Kraft Heinz never concluded Finley lied, much less intentionally.

Conclusion

A reasonable jury could infer from the record, considered as a whole, that something more than Finley’s alleged “dishonesty” on March 24 contributed to his firing by Kraft Heinz, and that Finley’s increasingly urgent food safety complaints – culminating immediately before his termination – “affect[ed] his termination in at least some way.” And for much the same reason, a jury could also doubt Kraft Heinz’s position that it would have taken the “same action” – firing Finley, while leaving Clark undisciplined – even if Finley had never voiced a concern about food safety. Under those circumstances, the district court erred in awarding summary judgment to Kraft Heinz.

Vacated and remanded.

Finley v. Kraft Heinz Inc., Case No. 24-1191, July 25, 2025. 4th Cir. (Harris), from DSC at Anderson (Cain). Thad M. Guyer for Appellant. Katelynn Mary Williams for Appellee. VLW 025-2-284. 20 pp.