From mid-January to mid-February, I spent four weeks working remote from New Zealand’s South Island. It’s an astoundingly beautiful place, and I loved the experience. One experience I apparently missed out on, however, was seeing the now-famous blobfish.
The gelatinous blobfish lives at depths of 2,000-4,000 feet, a visit to which was not on my itinerary. But if it had been, I might have seen the 2025 Fish of the Year, as named by New Zealand’s Mountain to Sea Conservation Trust.
Its odd appearance is apparently caused by bringing the fish to the surface. In its deep sea habitat, the pressure causes it to look rather like a normal fish. So if you were deep in the sea, you might not have treated the blobfish any differently than its neighbors.
A recent federal court decision serves as a good reminder about the dangers of treating someone differently — in a way you might not have expected.
A recruiting firm was working with a candidate who had been threatening to sue her former employer for discrimination. The recruiting firm advised her against it and, when she sued anyway, it dropped her as a client.
But recruiting, staffing, and other firms can work with whomever they want, right? Generally yes, but they cannot decline to engage someone for an unlawful reason.
Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act allows employees to assert their legal rights opposing discrimination and protects them against retaliation. The protection against retaliation extends beyond the company being sued. Another potential employer — or recruiting firm, or staffing firm, or even a company considering engaging the person as an independent contractor — cannot retaliate against that person for having asserted protected legal rights.
The lesson for recruiting, staffing, and other firms is this: Do not turn someone away for the sole reason that the person sued a former employer. That may be in violation of federal law.
In the federal case described above, the court denied a motion to dismiss by the recruiting firm, holding that the firm could potentially be liable for retaliation if the reason it declined to work with the individual was because she had asserted her federal protected rights under Title VII.
Like the blobfish, this seems like an ugly outcome for businesses. But also like the blobfish, if you go a little deeper, everything appears somewhat normal. If an individual was truly discriminated against, that person should not be punished for being a victim. That’s the theory anyway. We all know there are lots of meritless discrimination lawsuits. The anti-retaliation protections of Title VII extend to claims brought in good faith, even if the plaintiff doesn’t win.
© 2025 Todd Lebowitz, posted on WhoIsMyEmployee.com, Exploring Issues of Independent Contractor Misclassification and Joint Employment. All rights reserved.
