Retaliation Causation Cannot Run Backward: Post-Ultimatum Accommodation or FMLA Activity Cannot Create a Nexus to Termination

Introduction

In Harris v. National Grid USA Service Company, Inc. (1st Cir. Mar. 24, 2026), the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit affirmed summary judgment for National Grid on Sandy Harris, Jr.’s retaliation claims under Massachusetts law (Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 151B, § 4(4)-(4A)) and the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (29 U.S.C. §§ 2601-2654).

Harris, a “Change Analyst” whose job required travel within National Grid’s service territory (including Massachusetts and Rhode Island), remained out of state after a July 2020 vacation and sought to continue working remotely from Ohio or California without prior supervisor approval. National Grid issued an ultimatum: return immediately or be deemed to have resigned. Only after receiving that ultimatum did Harris (for the first time, by his own concession) invoke “preexisting conditions,” request a “reasonable accommodation,” and later briefly pursue (then withdraw) FMLA leave.

The central issue on appeal was narrow: whether a reasonable jury could find a causal connection between Harris’s protected activity (requesting an accommodation and/or invoking FMLA rights) and his eventual termination—where the employer’s decision path toward separation was already set in motion before the protected activity occurred.

Summary of the Opinion

The First Circuit held that Harris failed to establish the required causal nexus for retaliation under either Massachusetts law or the FMLA. The court emphasized an “obvious” chronological problem: National Grid informed Harris on July 30 that he would be deemed to have resigned unless he returned immediately, and only afterward did Harris first request accommodation and raise medical concerns. Because “causation moves forward, not backwards,” protected activity undertaken after the employer’s adverse-action decision cannot supply causation.

The court also rejected Harris’s effort to infer retaliatory intent from National Grid’s subsequent handling of medical documentation and leave inquiries. On this record, the employer’s conduct reflected caution and procedural sensitivity—potentially delaying termination while waiting for documentation—rather than antagonism.

Analysis

1. Precedents Cited

• Alam & Sarker, LLC v. United States, 113 F.4th 153 (1st Cir. 2024)
  The court cited Alam & Sarker for the summary-judgment standard and de novo appellate review: summary judgment is appropriate where no genuine issue of material fact exists and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. In practical terms, this framing matters because Harris needed evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer causation—not merely speculation.
• Moore v. Indus. Demolition LLC, 138 F.4th 17 (1st Cir. 2025)
  Moore plays two roles in the opinion:
  1. Elements of a Massachusetts retaliation claim: The court cited Moore for the requirement that a plaintiff prove a causal connection between protected conduct and the adverse action under Massachusetts law.
  2. What counts as protected “accommodation request” activity: In a footnote addressing Harris’s assertion that he made a “general request” on July 22, the court invoked Moore’s threshold: the employee must at least identify a desired accommodation and explain how it is linked to a handicap. The record, the panel noted, lacked evidence that any July 22 communication met that standard.
  This precedent undercut Harris’s attempt to shift the timeline earlier to create temporal proximity and causal inference.
• Stratton v. Bentley Univ., 113 F.4th 25 (1st Cir. 2024)
  The panel cited Stratton for the causation requirement under the FMLA retaliation framework. By aligning the FMLA analysis with the Massachusetts causation requirement, the court treated Harris’s two retaliation theories as “largely duplicative” and resolved them together.
• Pearson v. Mass. Bay Transp. Auth., 723 F.3d 36 (1st Cir. 2013)
  This is the opinion’s doctrinal centerpiece. Pearson supplied the rule the court applied almost verbatim: “Causation moves forward, not backwards, and no protected conduct after an adverse employment action can serve as the predicate for a retaliation claim.” The court also relied on Pearson to reject arguments hinging on sequencing nuances (e.g., recommendation versus final decision), emphasizing that where the pre-protected-activity trajectory is set, a plaintiff must show evidence the trajectory would have changed absent protected conduct.
• Jones v. Nationwide Life Ins., 696 F.3d 78 (1st Cir. 2012)
  The court used Jones to reinforce that timing can be fatal where an accommodation request is first made only after adverse action becomes imminent: such a request can be “too little, too late.” In Harris’s case, the first accommodation-related assertion followed the July 30 ultimatum. The point was not that late requests are never protected, but that they may not establish causation where the employer’s action predates the request.
• Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d 816 (1st Cir. 1991)
  The panel invoked Mesnick for a policy rationale: if post hoc protected activity could defeat a discharge already justified and underway, employees could “inhibit a well-deserved discharge” by engaging in protected conduct after the fact. Mesnick thus supplies the anti-manipulation principle that animates the court’s strict chronology approach.

2. Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning is a straightforward application of retaliation causation principles to an unusually clean timeline. Harris’s claims required proof that protected activity (accommodation request and/or FMLA-related conduct) caused the termination. But National Grid’s July 30 letter—sent before any protected activity—warned that Harris would be deemed to have resigned unless he returned immediately. Harris conceded that only after receiving that letter did he first claim preexisting conditions and request an accommodation.

From those facts, the court drew three linked conclusions:

1. No backward causation: Because the ultimatum (and the threat of separation) preceded the protected conduct, the protected conduct could not have caused the ultimatum or the employer’s already-communicated course of action.
2. No evidence of altered outcome: Even if the final termination occurred later, Harris offered no evidence that National Grid would have reversed course absent his protected conduct. Instead, the record suggested the company paused to consider the accommodation request and asked for additional documentation.
3. Subsequent sensitivity is not retaliatory animus: Harris pointed to National Grid’s internal check for FMLA paperwork on the eve of termination. The court read that evidence in the opposite direction: it showed an effort to ensure Harris had time to respond and that the company had not overlooked protected leave activity.

Notably, the court also emphasized what Harris did not show: he never asserted a medical reason he could not return to his service territory, and the doctor’s note did not explain why remote work had to be performed from Ohio or California rather than from within the territory. That gap made it harder to view National Grid’s insistence on returning to the territory as pretext for retaliation, rather than enforcement of a location/approval policy.

3. Impact

Although the opinion is fact-specific, it clarifies and strengthens several practical points likely to influence future retaliation litigation in the First Circuit:

• Chronology can be dispositive at summary judgment: Where an employer can document that the adverse-action decision path (or ultimatum) clearly predates protected activity, courts may treat causation as foreclosed absent concrete evidence of a later retaliatory pivot.
• Post-ultimatum protected activity is not a “reset button”: The decision underscores that protected requests made only after discipline becomes imminent may still be protected in the abstract, but they will not automatically create a triable causation issue.
• Process evidence can cut against plaintiffs: Employers’ efforts to solicit medical documentation, confirm leave requests, and provide response time may be persuasive evidence of non-retaliatory intent—particularly where termination follows a failure to provide requested support rather than the act of requesting itself.
• Accommodation requests must be intelligible and linked to a condition: By invoking Moore v. Indus. Demolition LLC, the court signals that vague “general” accommodation language—without specifying the accommodation and its connection to a handicap—may not even qualify as protected conduct under Massachusetts retaliation theory, eliminating causation analysis at the threshold.

Complex Concepts Simplified

Retaliation (in this context)

Punishing an employee because the employee engaged in legally protected activity (e.g., requesting a disability accommodation or invoking FMLA rights). A key element is causation: the protected activity must be a reason for the adverse action.

Causal nexus / causation

The required link showing the employer acted because of the protected activity. The court’s core point is temporal logic: an employer cannot retaliate for something it did not yet know about, and protected activity occurring after the employer has already set an adverse action in motion generally cannot be the cause of that action.

Protected activity

Actions the law shields from retaliation—such as requesting a reasonable accommodation under disability law or requesting/using FMLA leave. Under Massachusetts law as discussed via Moore v. Indus. Demolition LLC, an accommodation request should identify what is being sought and how it relates to a handicap.

Summary judgment

A pretrial ruling for one side when there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the law entitles that side to win. Here, the timeline was sufficiently undisputed that no reasonable jury could find causation.

“Too little, too late” accommodation request

As used through Jones v. Nationwide Life Ins., this means an accommodation request first made only when termination is imminent may fail to establish that the request caused the termination—particularly where the employer’s disciplinary trajectory predates the request.

Conclusion

Harris v. National Grid USA Service Company, Inc. reinforces a strict, chronology-driven approach to retaliation causation: protected activity cannot retroactively cause an adverse employment decision already made or clearly underway. By relying on Pearson v. Mass. Bay Transp. Auth. and related precedents, the First Circuit treated the case as a paradigmatic example of “no backward causation,” and it read National Grid’s documentation requests and FMLA checks as evidence of care rather than retaliatory motive.

The broader significance is practical: in both Massachusetts accommodation-retaliation claims and FMLA retaliation claims, plaintiffs must do more than show that protected activity preceded the final termination date. They must show the protected activity plausibly influenced the employer’s decision-making, and where an employer can document an earlier ultimatum or termination recommendation, causation may fail as a matter of law.