Case Citator › Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.

Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.

Is it still good law? What later courts have actually done to this case.

Limited by some courts
Court
Supreme Court of the United States
Citation
557 U.S. 167
Decided
Confirmed treatments
2
Flagged citations read
437 of 437
Citing cases (total)
2,789
Treatment dates
2022
Limited by some courts
At least one reviewed court has limited this case’s holding to narrower facts or a narrower rule. No reviewed court has overruled it. Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc. is limited on this review: all 437 flagged citations have been read, with the 2 confirmed treatments listed below. Markiewicz v. Galloway, Johnson, Tompkins, Burr and Smith, APLC declined to graft Gross's ADEA rule onto FMLA retaliation, and Quituizaca v. Garland declined its but-for construction in the INA withholding context.
More on how this was screened

The other reviewed opinions applied Gross's ADEA but-for rule, described Gross's own effect on older mixed-motive and burden-shifting precedents, reported another court's treatment, rejected adverse arguments, or placed the treatment words near unrelated statutes, case histories, and rulings.

Every treatment on this page is written from the citing opinion itself, with a verbatim quote, never copied from a commercial citator. A citation flagged by our screen but not shown here was read and found not to weaken this case.

2,789 later cases cite Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.; 437 of those citations sat close to treatment language and were flagged for reading, and all of them have been read. Citations that did not sit near treatment language were not flagged and were not read one by one, so a court that weakened this case without using any of that language would not appear here.

Relying on Gross v. FBL Financial Services, Inc.?

This page shows what later courts did to it. Ask about your specific facts and see whether it still carries your argument, with citations you can check.

Treatments

Limited

  • The Eastern District of Louisiana declined to extend Gross's but-for rule to FMLA retaliation claims and, while awaiting Fifth Circuit direction, retained the circuit's mixed-motive standard.

    Markiewicz v. Galloway, Johnson, Tompkins, Burr and Smith, APLC · E.D. La. · filed

    While Galloway’s legal arguments are persuasive, the Court is persuaded that they are best left to the Fifth Circuit which thus far has expressly declined (more than once) to address the impact of Gross and Nassar on Richardson’s mixed-motive holding notwithstanding that those decisions are not recent. Undoubtedly, the Fifth Circuit has cast doubt on the continued viability of Richardson, but it has also cautioned against “blindly applying” Gross and Nassar to the FMLA, Stanton v. Jarvis Christian Coll., No. 20-40581, 2022 WL 738617, at *5 (5th Cir. Mar. 11, 2022) (unpublished) (citing Adams v. Mem’l Herman, 973 F.3d 343, 353 (5th Cir. 2020)). Earlier this year in Stanton, the Fifth Circuit explained why grafting the holdings of Gross and Nassar onto the FMLA is not as simple as it may seem at first blush. See Stanton, 2022 WL 738617, at *6.
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

  • The Second Circuit declined to extend Gross's but-for construction of “because of” to INA withholding-of-removal claims, found the immigration statute ambiguous, and deferred to the agency's one-central-reason standard.

    Quituizaca v. Garland · Second Circuit · filed

    although “because of” is sometimes synonymous with “but-for” causation, 31 we doubt that interpretation applies in the immigration context. ... Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176-77 (2009).
    Read the full opinion on CourtListener →

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