Unlawful retaliation under the Elliott-Larsen Civil Rights Act (ELCRA) (MCL 37.2101 et seq.); MCL 37.2701(a); Meyer v. City of Ctr. Line; Causation; Barrett v. Kirtland Cmty. Coll.; Rymal v. Baergen; Direct evidence; Hazle v. Ford Motor Co.; Cuddington v. United Health Servs., Inc.; Indirect evidence; Debano-Griffin v. Lake Cnty.; Burden-shifting framework; McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green; The law of the case doctrine; Grievance Adm’r v. Lopatin; Webb v. Smith; Duncan v. Michigan

Assuming that plaintiff made out a prima facie case of retaliation in violation of the ELCRA, the court concluded that defendant-former employer provided legitimate, nonretaliatory reasons for its compensation decisions and supported them with evidence, and plaintiff failed to show that they were pretextual. Thus, it affirmed summary disposition for defendant. Plaintiff first argued on appeal that the trial court’s rulings as to “the statute of limitations, protected activity, causation, and collateral estoppel were all precluded by” the court’s prior decision in the case. He invoked the law of the case doctrine, asserting “that the previous panel determined that his retaliation claim in the amended complaint was not futile and presented a jury question.” But the court found that, given it had “ultimately determined that a summary disposition motion could be pursued on remand, which would necessarily encompass a challenge regarding the merits of the retaliation claim, the law of the case doctrine did not preclude the trial court’s various rulings that summarily rejected the substance of the retaliation claim.” Turning to the elements of a prima facie retaliation claim, the court concluded that the only issue it had to address was causation. Defendant produced evidence that its determinations as to plaintiff’s compensation were based “on business assessments and criticisms of his performance.” Plaintiff pointed “to a litany of evidence that he claims constituted direct and indirect evidence of retaliation and established that defendant’s reasons were pretextual.” However, the court “scoured and scrutinized this evidence and, as a matter of law, it simply did not constitute direct evidence of retaliation, nor did it indirectly reflect that retaliation was a motivating factor for defendant’s compensation decisions. Plaintiff failed to demonstrate, as a matter of law, that the business and performance-related reasons for defendant’s compensation decisions had no basis in fact, were not the actual factors motivating the decisions, or were insufficient to justify the decisions.”