## Facts

- Daniel Mayo, an African American employee, worked at DCP Midstream L.P.’s propane facility in Auburn, Maine.
- In September 2005, Mayo complained that a customer truck driver used a racial slur in his presence; the company barred the driver from the facility, and the driver later lost his job.
- After the customer was banned, Mayo reported that coworkers and other drivers were angry with him and treated him coldly, and the situation did not improve.
- In November 2005, Mayo used the company’s ethics hotline to report that a coworker also used the same racial slur at work; the coworker and Mayo’s supervisor were close and long-tenured.
- Two workplace confrontations followed in November. Mayo claimed that in the first incident the coworker used profanity toward him in the supervisor’s presence, and the supervisor stopped Mayo from escalating the complaint to a regional manager.
- In the second incident, the supervisor encouraged the coworker to complain about Mayo; a resulting call with management criticized Mayo’s “attitude,” and Mayo asserted the supervisor denied knowledge of the first incident.
- Mayo then complained to human resources that he was facing retaliation related to his complaints; he contended HR did not address the retaliation aspect during the investigation.
- Mayo’s performance review initially tallied to “Meets Expectations,” but management reduced the total score so it fell into “Partially Meets Expectations,” despite the arithmetic not adding up.
- In December 2005, the supervisor arrived early intending to issue Mayo a warning from the second November incident, saw Mayo violating a safety rule, and suspended him; Mayo asserted the rule was routinely ignored by others without discipline.
- Midstream terminated Mayo on December 29, 2005, citing the safety violation; a jury later found the stated reason was pretext and that the termination was unlawful retaliation under Title VII.
- The jury found no liability for race discrimination or hostile work environment and awarded Mayo compensatory damages for retaliation; back pay was addressed by stipulation.
- After the verdict, the EEOC and Mayo sought permanent injunctive relief and proposed ten provisions, including: an anti-retaliation injunction; a reporting requirement identifying employees engaged in protected activity; employee letter and posting; placing the judgment in supervisors’ files; supervisor training; limits on employment references about Mayo; EEOC monitoring; successor-binding language; and a five-year duration.
- The court also considered that only one supervisor had left the company and that the company reported no retaliation complaints in the three years after Mayo’s termination.

## Issues

1. Whether permanent injunctive relief is warranted under Title VII after a jury finds the employer retaliated against an employee for protected activity.
2. If injunctive relief is warranted, what scope and terms are appropriate—particularly whether to impose broad reporting and monitoring obligations or more limited, case-tied measures.

## Decision

- The court held that permanent injunctive relief was appropriate in light of the jury’s retaliation finding and the defendant’s failure to show retaliation was unlikely to recur.
- The court granted the EEOC’s and Mayo’s motion in part and fashioned an injunction aimed at preventing future retaliation, rather than ordering sweeping, companywide compliance measures untethered to the verdict.
- The court approved targeted remedial steps such as employee notice/posting and supervisor training, with the training tied to retaliation (the unlawful practice the jury found).
- The court addressed post-termination harms by ordering limited, standardized reference-related relief for Mayo, while declining to adopt the plaintiffs’ broader proposal in full.
- The court rejected or narrowed more intrusive provisions, including the proposed reporting requirement that would require identifying employees who engaged in protected activity and expansive monitoring-style relief.
- The detailed injunctive terms were later memorialized in a separate judgment for injunctive relief issued in the same case.

## Legal Principles

- Title VII expressly authorizes injunctive and other equitable relief after a finding of an unlawful employment practice. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-5(g)(1).
- Courts apply the traditional permanent-injunction factors (including irreparable injury, inadequacy of legal remedies, balance of hardships, and public interest), as articulated in Supreme Court equitable-relief precedent.
- In the Title VII setting, a liability finding, combined with Congress’s authorization of equitable relief, strongly supports equitable remedies; the employer bears the burden to show there is no reasonable likelihood of recurrence.
- Equitable relief should be tied to the specific unlawful practice proved at trial; where the jury finds retaliation but not discrimination or hostile environment, injunction terms should focus on retaliation.
- Structural remedies such as ongoing reporting, broad information-disclosure obligations, and open-ended monitoring require a stronger showing of need and should not impose unnecessary burdens disproportionate to the record.
- A court may order limited measures to prevent continuing effects of retaliation, including standardized reference practices, where supported by the need to prevent further harm.

## Conclusion

After a jury found DCP Midstream retaliated against Daniel Mayo for making protected complaints, the District of Maine concluded that permanent injunctive relief was warranted but only in a tailored form. The court entered an anti-retaliation injunction and ordered limited notice and training measures aimed at preventing repetition of retaliation, while refusing to impose broad reporting and expansive monitoring provisions that were not justified by the record and were more intrusive than necessary.


EEOC v. DCP Midstream L.P., 608 F. Supp. 2d 107