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Your employment retaliation case is complicated, hire an experienced board-certified specialist to help you navigate it. In a retaliation case, the employee must first establish a prima facie case of retaliation by proving that she engaged in statutorily protected conduct; she suffered an adverse employment action; and a causal relation exists between the two events. If an employee establishes a prima facie case, the employer may proffer a “legitimate, non-retaliatory reason” for the adverse action. If the employer does so, the employee must prove that the employer’s proffered reason was a “pretext” for retaliation. Pretext a reason given in justification of a course of action that is not the real reason. To establish pretext, an employee must prove that the employer’s reason “was false” and that retaliation was the real reason. Federal courts have explained that to prove pretext, an employee must identify weaknesses, implausibility's, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer’s justification. That burden does not require an employee to establish that an illegal reason was the only reason for the employer’s action. Instead, it requires the employee to present evidence that casts doubt on the employer’s proffered reason as the only reason for its action. Employee alleging multiple but-for causes must “show an unlawful but-for cause resulted in the alleged wrongful action and respond to the employer’s legitimate reason with a showing of pretext.