In November 2025, the 6th Circuit issued its opinion in Gray v. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, reversing the lower court’s denial of summary judgment to the employer.[1]

Background

Monica Gray helped a colleague secure an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), in the face of opposition from the colleague’s supervisor, Joe Kyle.[2] A few months later, Kyle reported Gray to HR for timecard falsification while he was filling in for her regular manager, who was on vacation at the time. State Farm’s Human Resources investigated Kyle’s report and ultimately fired Gray for various instances of confirmed timecard falsification. HR found that Gray had falsified several timecards in addition to the one reported by Kyle. Furthermore, Gray occasionally manually changed her timecards to state she was working when she was not even in the building.

After her termination, Gray filed suit, alleging that Kyle retaliated against her — by singling her out for conduct that was widespread at State Farm — because she had helped her colleague advocate for an ADA accommodation. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio granted summary judgment to State Farm on the basis of the honest belief rule. The 6th Circuit reversed summary judgment, finding that Gray can proceed on a theory of vicarious liability based on Kyle’s alleged bias. Judge Bloomekatz delivered the opinion in which Judge Gilman concurred. Judge Readler offered an unyielding, lengthy dissent based on the party presentation principle.

The Court’s Analysis

The court began by confirming that Gray had presented sufficient evidence of a prima facie case of retaliation.[3] In doing so, the court specifically highlighted that the assistance Gray provided to her co-worker in seeking an ADA accommodation qualified as protected activity under the ADA. The court further noted that there was a triable question regarding causation,[4] as Gray had proffered evidence that Kyle subjected her to particular scrutiny for commonplace behavior shortly after this protected activity.

Having found that Gray had shown triable issues of fact as to a prima facie case of retaliation, the court then articulated that State Farm had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for terminating Gray — her timecard falsification.[5] The court then swiftly disposed of Gray’s claim of direct liability against State Farm, finding that she had failed to call into question State Farm’s stated reason for firing her.[6]

However, much to the dissent’s consternation, the court does not stop there. Rather it then goes on to say “[b]ut Gray also seeks to hold State Farm vicariously liable for Kyle’s actions. She argues that Kyle reported her for retaliatory reasons and that his report influenced State Farm’s decision to fire her.”[7] The court then highlights that it has previously upheld retaliation claims when the plaintiff was singled out for adverse treatment. It also agrees that Gray “has enough evidence of differential scrutiny to raise a material dispute over Kyle’s motives.”[8]

In particular, the court noted that Gray had provided evidence that one of her teammates had “nearly identical discrepancies” in her timecards.[9] However, Kyle did not report that teammate’s timecards to HR, despite the fact that he “undisputedly knew about [the teammate’s] timecard discrepancies at the time he reported Gray.”[10] State Farm attempted to argue that this teammate’s timecard discrepancies were not “virtually identical conduct” as required of a comparator because Gray, unlike her teammate, occasionally claimed to have been working when she was not even in the building.[11]

However, the court stated that this difference between Gray’s conduct and that of her teammate only became apparent after Kyle had reported Gray to HR and thus could not sanitize the biased nature of Kyle’s report. The court further notes that Gray pointed to other employees who spent time socializing or visiting in the cafeteria while clocked in. The court was unconvinced by State Farm’s attempt to characterize these workers’ conduct as a “performance” issue distinct from Gray’s “falsification” issue.[12] Based on these particular facts, the court found that Gray had raised a genuine dispute over Kyle’s motives for reporting her sufficient to survive summary judgment on the question of pretext.[13]

State Farm attempted to argue that Kyle’s motives for reporting Gray could not be imputed to the decisionmakers who ultimately chose to terminate her for her timecard falsification, as confirmed by an independent HR investigation. However, the court found that the company “remains liable even if it relied only partially on the supervisor’s ‘biased report’” in reaching the adverse decision.[14] Further, the court noted that this remains true even if Kyle “honestly believed” the truth of his allegations. More specifically, the court stated, “But a supervisor does not have to lie in order to be biased. As we have repeatedly recognized, a supervisor can cause an employee’s termination by reporting true yet selective information.”[15] 

State Farm then tried to argue that it couldn’t be liable even if Kyle’s report was biased because it confirmed his allegations in an independent investigation. The court rejected this premise, however, stating that “employers cannot avoid liability simply because they independently confirm the substance of a selective report.”[16] The court further noted that “when a supervisor reports true but selective information, an investigation will always confirm the supervisor’s allegation.”[17] One particularly troublesome fact for State Farm in this analysis was that Gray had told HR during the investigation that she believed Kyle had targeted her because she assisted a co-worker in seeking an ADA accommodation. Despite this “State Farm made no effort to determine whether Kyle had singled Gray out for retaliatory reasons ... [A] jury could conclude that State Farm acted as a quintessential ‘conduit’ of Kyle’s bias.”[18]

In sum, the court articulated that “a subsequent investigation that does nothing more than confirm a supervisor’s true-but-selective report is by itself insufficient to break the chain of proximate cause.” However, “[a]n employer can still negate causation by establishing that the employer’s investigation resulted in an adverse action for reasons unrelated to the supervisor’s original biased action.”[19]

Ultimately, the court highlighted that “[a] jury could conclude that State Farm would not have investigated and eventually fired Gray had Kyle not reported her.”[20] Accordingly, the court reversed the lower court’s grant of summary judgment.

Moving Forward

Gray firmly announces that employers cannot avoid liability by relying on independent investigation and confirmation of the substance of an otherwise selective report. With this in mind, employers should be careful to fashion investigations into employee misconduct to determine whether the supervisor made the report selectively or for an impermissible reason.

Bethany Westcott Wilson is an associate of Kramer Rayson LLP in Knoxville, Tennessee, where she practices labor and employment law, focusing on complex federal and state leave law issues. She graduated from Lee University in 2017 and The University of Tennessee (now Winston) College of Law in 2024.