SJC Affirms $1.4 Million Retaliation Verdict For Former Fire Chief, Reinforcing The Power Of Circumstantial Evidence In Chapter 151B Claims

Key Takeaways:

• The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) affirmed a $1.4 million jury verdict finding the Town of Marshfield retaliated against its former Fire Chief after he complained that his niece, a probationary firefighter, was treated differently than similarly situated male firefighters.
• The decision confirms that a retaliation claim under G. L. c. 151B, § 4 (4), may succeed on circumstantial evidence even where the underlying gender discrimination claim itself lacked merit.
• Employers should ensure that employment decisions following an internal complaint of discrimination are well-documented and supported by legitimate business reasons.

In its May 15, 2026 decision in Robinson v. Town of Marshfield, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) affirmed a jury verdict awarding a former municipal fire chief $300,000 in compensatory damages and $1,100,000 in punitive damages on his retaliation claim. The decision highlights the SJC's willingness to sustain retaliation verdicts built on circumstantial evidence. It also confirms that a Chapter 151B retaliation claim can produce substantial damages even when the underlying discrimination complaint lacks probable cause.

In Robinson, the plaintiff had served the Town of Marshfield as a firefighter since 1978 and as fire chief since 2003. In 2013, the Town hired his niece as a probationary firefighter. After supervisors reported that his niece was struggling with her training, Robinson sent a detailed letter to the Town’s Board of Selectmen (the “Board”). He complained that other firefighters with comparable deficiencies had received additional training, coaching, or counseling, while his niece had not. Nearly all of those comparators were male, in an overwhelmingly male department. Within roughly ten days, Town leaders met with the plaintiff to raise a possible conflict-of-interest violation, then filed a complaint with the State Ethics Commission. About three months after his letter, the Board voted not to renew the plaintiff’s contract and not to approve his contractual salary increase. Then, roughly one month after learning that he appeared to have assisted his niece with a complaint to the Massachusetts Commission Against Discrimination (MCAD), the Town placed him on administrative leave. A deputy chief and an investigator escorted the plaintiff from the fire station while a police captain waited in the parking lot. Facing the loss of his pension and separation benefits if terminated, the plaintiff resigned in March 2015.

In 2016, the plaintiff sued the Town and several Town leaders in federal court, alleging discrimination and retaliation in violation of Chapter 151B and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, among other claims. The District Court granted the Town’s motion for summary judgment. But the First Circuit concluded that the District Court should not have ruled on the plaintiff’s state law claims. After the plaintiff’s state law claims were refiled in Superior Court, a jury returned a verdict in his favor on the retaliation claim, awarding him $300,000 in compensatory damages for emotional distress and $1,100,000 in punitive damages. (Meanwhile, his niece’s MCAD complaint was dismissed for a lack of probable cause.)

On appeal, the SJC upheld the verdict, concluding that the plaintiff’s circumstantial evidence was sufficient to support his retaliation claim under G. L. c. 151B, § 4 (4). Regarding whether the plaintiff engaged in protected activity, the SJC focused on the plaintiff’s letter to the Board and reasoned that, because the department was overwhelmingly male, the jury could reasonably find the plaintiff was opposing what he believed to be gender-based differential treatment, even though he had not used the words "gender discrimination" in the letter. The SJC emphasized that a Chapter 151B retaliation claim requires only a reasonable, good faith belief that wrongful discrimination has occurred, not certainty or a successful underlying claim. As to causation, the SJC was persuaded that the timing of events, combined with Robinson's three-decade tenure of unblemished service and the highly unusual nature of administrative leave in the department, was ample circumstantial evidence from which the jury could infer retaliation.

Robinson is a significant decision for Massachusetts employers. It reaffirms several principles that, together, lower the bar for plaintiffs pursuing Chapter 151B retaliation claims on circumstantial evidence. First, an employee need not prove, or even allege with certainty, that unlawful discrimination occurred. A reasonable, good faith belief is enough to support the protected-activity element, even where the MCAD later finds no probable cause on the underlying claim. Second, a series of seemingly independent management decisions, including conflict-of-interest inquiries, contract nonrenewal, external investigations, and administrative leave, can support an inference of retaliation when clustered in the months following a complaint, particularly where the actions depart from the employer's past practice. Third, because Chapter 151B authorizes compensatory and punitive damages and mandatory attorney’s fees, Robinson highlights that the stakes of getting the post-complaint response wrong are substantial.

With Robinson in mind, Massachusetts employers must proceed cautiously in the wake of an internal complaint. Even if the complaint does not use words like “discrimination” or “harassment,” employers should consider the complaint and the context behind it as a whole when assessing whether it constitutes protected activity. Further, employers contemplating adverse employment action should ensure that any such action is supported by contemporaneous documentation of legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons that, where possible, predate the protected activity.

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