Scapegoating at Work: When Blame Becomes Illegal

By David M. · Published 11 September 2026 · Verified 10 September 2026 · Editorial policy

Applies to employees in the United States. Covers being blamed for failures that were not yours, and smear campaigns, under federal law and the state rules named on this page.

Not legal advice. The rules change from state to state, and federal courts do not all read them the same way. No page can cover your own facts, so if a deadline or a decision is close, talk to an employment lawyer where you live.

Being wrongly blamed at work is not illegal by itself in the US. A federal appeals court says an employer can “just get it wrong.” Blame becomes a legal problem when it tracks your race, sex, age or another protected trait, follows a discrimination complaint, comes from a biased colleague and goes unchecked, or is spread as a false fact.

Courts do not ask whether the blame was fair. They ask who fed the story to the person who made the call, and whether anyone checked it. Your own record should answer those same questions, starting the day the blame lands.

Is scapegoating at work illegal?

Not by itself. No federal law uses the word. Title VII of the Civil Rights Act bans firing or discipline “because of” race, color, religion, sex or national origin (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)). It says nothing about unfair blame as such.

The plainest statement of the rule comes from the federal appeals court for New York, Connecticut and Vermont. In Vasquez v. Empress Ambulance Service, Inc. (2d Cir. 2016), the court said that showing an employer “incorrectly found an employee guilty of misconduct is insufficient to prove retaliation.” It added: “an employer can still ‘just get it wrong’ without incurring liability under Title VII.”

The Supreme Court has said much the same. Title VII does not set out “a general civility code for the American workplace,” it wrote in Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White (2006). Even a worker who has complained is not shielded from “petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at work and that all employees experience.”

Title VII also has a size limit. It covers only employers with “fifteen or more employees” (42 U.S.C. § 2000e(b)). State laws can reach smaller ones. Minnesota’s personnel-file law, covered below, applies to any employer with “one or more employees” (Minn. Stat. § 181.960).

The law does reach blame that fits one of four patterns:

• It falls along a protected line. Others who did the same are not blamed, and you differ from them by race, sex, religion, national origin or age 40 or over (29 U.S.C. § 623 covers age).
• It follows a complaint. The blame starts after you complained about discrimination, or backed someone else’s complaint.
• A biased person fed it to the decision-maker. A supervisor or co-worker with a biased motive supplied the story, and nobody tested it.
• It is spread as a false fact. Someone states something untrue about you to people who have no need to hear it.

If none fits, the law will not do much. The reply-to-blame email further down still puts your account in writing next to theirs.

When does workplace scapegoating cross the legal line?

Each pattern has its own cases. The ones below are scapegoat cases on their facts, where the courts asked how the blame reached the person who decided and why it landed on that worker.

What if others did the same thing and were not blamed?

Then you may have the comparison the law needs. In McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co. (1976), three workers were all charged with stealing 60 one-gallon cans of antifreeze. “Six days later, petitioners were fired by Santa Fe, while Jackson was retained.” The two fired workers brought a race discrimination claim.

The Supreme Court did not excuse the theft. It said a rule against theft must be “applied, alike to members of all races.” It also said that “while crime or other misconduct may be a legitimate basis for discharge, it is hardly one for racial discrimination.” What counts is a person like you, facing the same charge, who was treated more gently.

The full method for building that comparison, with the same boss, the same rule and the same conduct, is on the page about when favoritism at work becomes unlawful.

What if the blame started after you complained?

Then it may be retaliation, which is a separate claim. Title VII bans action against you “because he has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice,” or because you took part in a charge or an inquiry (42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a)). The age law has its own version in 29 U.S.C. § 623(d).

In Burlington Northern (2006), White had filed charges with the EEOC. Later she argued with her supervisor about a truck. That afternoon the supervisor told a manager she had been insubordinate. The manager “immediately suspended White without pay.” An internal grievance later found she had not been insubordinate, and she got 37 days of back pay.

Back pay did not end the case. “White did receive backpay. But White and her family had to live for 37 days without income,” the Court wrote. The test is whether the action “well might have ‘dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.’” A month without pay met that test.

The EEOC’s 2016 guidance on retaliation gives examples that look like scapegoating. They include “disparaging the person to others” and “scrutinizing work or attendance more closely than that of other employees, without justification.” The guidance says it does not have the force of law. It does show how the agency reads the statute.

Your complaint does not need legal words. The same guidance says it “need not include the words ‘harassment,’ ‘discrimination,’ or any other legal terminology.” It must, though, reasonably read as opposing discrimination. A complaint about a bad boss, with no link to a protected trait, does not count.

When the blame is turned back on the person who complained, see how DARVO works in the workplace. For timing evidence, see how to prove workplace retaliation.

What if a biased person fed the blame to the person who decided?

The person who fired you may have had no bias at all. The person who supplied the story may have. Courts call this the “cat’s paw” problem: a biased person uses an unbiased boss as a tool.

The Supreme Court’s case on this is Staub v. Proctor Hospital (2011). A supervisor, Mulally, gave Staub a written “Corrective Action” warning under a rule about staying in his work area. Staub said “the company rule invoked by Mulally did not exist,” and that he had not broken it anyway. Later a second supervisor, Korenchuk, told HR he had left his desk without telling anyone. Staub said he had left a voicemail.

The HR decision-maker “relied on Korenchuk’s accusation” and fired him. When Staub challenged it, she “did not follow up with Mulally about this claim.” The case was brought under USERRA, the federal law that protects service members at work. His claim was that the supervisors were hostile to his military service.

The Court said an HR review does not automatically clean up a biased report. The report “may remain a causal factor if the independent investigation takes it into account without determining that the adverse action was, apart from the supervisor’s recommendation, entirely justified.” If HR relies on the biased supervisor’s facts, it has in effect handed the fact-finding to that supervisor.

The employer is liable, the Court held, if the biased supervisor meant the report to get the worker disciplined or fired, and it did. The EEOC applies the same reasoning to Title VII retaliation.

The same rule works in a layoff. In Bennett v. Riceland Foods, Inc. (8th Cir. 2013), two maintenance workers complained about their supervisor’s racial slurs. The director who reviewed the complaint was “mad” that Bennett would not drop it. He then proposed cutting both their jobs in a reorganization, and HR and senior managers approved it. The jobs went six weeks after HR found the complaints had merit.

The company’s policy listed seniority as a factor in layoffs. A manager who reviewed the plan testified “that seniority is irrelevant to job-elimination decisions.” The court called the argument that higher-level review cured the director’s motive “unavailing.” The workers kept their win.

Staub was about supervisors. The Court expressed “no view” on a co-worker’s biased act. At least two federal appeals courts have since taken it up. In Vasquez, an EMT complained about a co-worker’s sexual advances. The employer’s inquiry “consisted of Empress crediting false documents manufactured by Vasquez’s co-worker.” She was fired on those documents.

The 1st Circuit had set a similar test two years earlier, in Velázquez-Pérez v. Developers Diversified Realty Corp. (2014). The court read the evidence in the fired worker’s favor. On that reading, an HR worker whose romantic advances he had turned down “compiled an arsenal of allegations” against him. His own boss had real concerns about his attendance, and had chosen “a thirty-day performance improvement plan.” After the HR worker lobbied senior officials, he “was fired within days.”

Both courts set a high bar. The co-worker must have acted from bias or payback, meaning to get you fired. And the employer must have been careless. In the 1st Circuit’s words, it let the co-worker’s acts “achieve their desired effect though it knows (or reasonably should know) of the discriminatory motivation.” Outside those two circuits, check how your own federal appeals court handles it.

What does a winning scapegoat case look like?

Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc. (2000) is a Supreme Court age case. On its facts, it is also a scapegoat case, and the way it was won shows what your own record needs.

A company review of the plant’s time records found “numerous timekeeping errors and misrepresentations on the part of Caldwell, Reeves, and Oswalt.” Reeves, who was 57, and his manager Caldwell, who was 45, were fired. Oswalt, in his mid-thirties, was named in the same findings and kept his job.

The company “admitted that Caldwell, and not petitioner, was responsible for citing employees for violations of the company’s attendance policy.” On the day he was fired, Reeves was told it was for failing to report one worker absent on two days. He said he had been in the hospital on those days, so Caldwell “was therefore responsible for any overpayment.”

The scrutiny was one-sided too. Reeves and Oswalt “had nearly identical rates of productivity in 1993.” Yet the company studied the efficiency of “only the regular line, supervised by petitioner, and placed only petitioner on probation.”

Reeves also showed who really made the call. He “introduced evidence that Chesnut was the actual decisionmaker behind his firing.” The company said he had deliberately falsified records. But it “only introduced evidence concerning the inaccuracy of the records, not their falsification.”

Take away the names and four questions are left. Who was actually responsible for the thing you are blamed for? Where were you on the days in question? Who else did the same thing and was not looked at? Who really decided? Your record should answer all four.

Is a smear campaign at work defamation?

Sometimes. Defamation is a state-law claim over false statements about you. Two limits come first. The California group Legal Aid at Work states the first one: “A defamatory statement must be an assertion of fact, not an opinion.” A boss saying “you are not a very nice person” is likely opinion. Saying “you have been stealing from the company” is a statement of fact.

The second limit is truth. “Truth is a complete defense to defamation,” the Texas Supreme Court said in Randall’s Food Markets, Inc. v. Johnson (1995). If what was said is true, the claim fails.

When the story reaches a manager or HR, the employer starts with an advantage. In the same case, the court said “an employer has a conditional or qualified privilege that attaches to communications made in the course of an investigation following a report of employee wrongdoing.” A qualified privilege is a legal shield. It protects the speaker, even when wrong, as long as it is used properly.

When does the employer’s protection fall away?

State high courts describe two ways to lose it. They also apply the same limits to the reason an employer gives for a firing.

• The speaker lied or did not care about the truth. In Texas, “Proof that a statement was motivated by actual malice existing at the time of publication defeats the privilege.” New York’s top court agreed in Loughry v. Lincoln First Bank (1986). The privilege “cannot shelter statements published with malice or with knowledge of their falsity or reckless disregard as to their truth or falsity.” There, a jury found two bank officers spoke “solely from malice.”
• The story spread too far. In Texas, the privilege holds “as long as communications pass only to persons having an interest or duty in the matter.” In Bratt v. International Business Machines Corp. (1984), the Massachusetts high court said the worker must show it was spread “recklessly.” Its example: “loud and repeated public accusations concerning the plaintiff constituted an abuse of the conditional privilege.”
• The same limits apply to the reason for a firing. In Lewis v. Equitable Life Assurance Society (1986), the Minnesota Supreme Court said that reason can be privileged. The company lost the shield because the jury found its statements “actuated by actual malice.” In California, Cal. Civ. Code § 47(c) protects a statement made “without malice, to a person interested therein.”

A manager telling HR “she caused the outage” is usually protected, even if wrong. It stops being protected when the speaker knew it was false or did not care. It also stops when the story is spread far beyond the people who needed to know. A smear campaign, by its nature, is that second kind.

Each state above sets its own limit.

When a group runs the campaign, see how workplace mobbing works and what the law does about it. Co-worker spite with no link to a protected trait or a complaint is not a federal claim. It can still be defamation if it is false and spread too far.

What if they only said it to you?

Usually, defamation needs someone other than you to hear it. Some states have allowed an exception, called compelled self-publication. It means you were forced to repeat the false reason yourself, for example to a new employer who asked why you left.

Minnesota accepted it in Lewis, where the fired workers had told prospective employers they were fired for “gross insubordination.” Colorado took a narrow version in Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co. (1988). It applies only when the speaker “reasonably can foresee that the defamed person will be compelled to repeat” it.

Tennessee said no in Sullivan v. Baptist Memorial Hospital (1999). Its Supreme Court said “The majority of states addressing the issue do not recognize self-publication.” It listed New York and Texas as states where the issue “appears to be undecided.”

Minnesota then added a trade-off. Under Minn. Stat. § 181.933, passed in 1987, a fired worker can ask in writing for the reason within 15 working days. The employer has ten working days to give “the truthful reason for the termination” in writing. But no defamation suit can be based on that written statement. Asking gets you the reason, and gives up a claim over that letter.

How long do you have to sue for defamation?

Not long. The deadline is one year in California (Code of Civil Procedure § 340), New York (CPLR 215) and Texas (Civil Practice and Remedies Code § 16.002). It is two years in Minnesota (Minn. Stat. § 541.07).

Discrimination and retaliation claims run on a different clock, through an EEOC charge. Those deadlines are covered in how to file an EEOC complaint.

What about a bad reference after you leave?

If you had complained of discrimination, a spiteful reference can be retaliation. In Robinson v. Shell Oil Co. (1997), a former worker said the company “gave him a negative reference in retaliation for his having filed the EEOC charge.” The Supreme Court held that “former employees are included” in Title VII’s retaliation ban.

In California, a former employer who blocks a new job “by any misrepresentation” commits a misdemeanor (Labor Code § 1050). The worker can also sue for three times the damages (§ 1054). Section 47(c) protects a former employer’s reference only if it is “based upon credible evidence, made without malice.”

Can you put your side in your personnel file?

In some states, yes. That turns your reply to the blame into part of the file that follows you.

• Massachusetts. Under Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 52C, your employer must tell you within 10 days when it adds anything that may count against you. If you and the employer cannot agree to remove or fix it, your written statement “shall become a part of such employee’s personnel record.” It must go with the record whenever the record is sent outside the company.
• Minnesota. Under Minn. Stat. § 181.962, you can add a statement of up to five pages “explaining the employee’s position.” It stays with the disputed entry.
• Washington. Under RCW 49.12.250, you can ask once a year for “irrelevant or erroneous information” to be removed. If the employer refuses, your “rebuttal or correction” goes in the file. Since a 2025 change, a former worker can also ask for a signed statement of the reasons for the firing, due within 21 calendar days.
• California. Your file must be available within 30 calendar days of a written request (Labor Code § 1198.5). If you sign anything about your job, you get a copy on request (Labor Code § 432).

The table below puts the four states side by side.

If the blame has already become a warning, see what to do before you sign a written warning.

How do you build a record that traces the blame?

Write one email, the same day the blame is made. Send it to the person who blamed you, and to your manager if that is someone else. Keep it short, factual and calm. Its job is to fix the facts in writing before the story drifts.

One advice column takes the opposite view. A 2020 Psych Central column says: “Keep Communication to a minimum. The more you say, the more there is to use against you.” That is advice, not research. The risk with silence is that the only written account becomes the blamer’s.

Subject: Notes from today's review of the
  March 14 shipment delay

Hi Dana,

Thanks for going over the delay with me
today. So the record is accurate, here is
what I understand and what I can document.

1. What I was told today
You said the delay happened because I did
not send the vendor the revised spec.

2. Who decided and who approved
The switch to the new vendor was decided
by Sam Ortiz on March 2 (email attached).
The spec was approved by Priya Lee on
March 6. I was not on either approval.

3. What I was asked to do, and when
On March 7 I was asked, in person, to send
the spec "once Priya signs off." I sent it
on March 7 at 4:12 pm, 20 minutes after
her approval (email attached).

4. The part that was mine
I did not follow up when the vendor had
not confirmed by March 9. That was my
miss, and I now confirm receipt in writing.

5. What I am asking
Please correct the summary of the delay
so it reflects the approval dates above.
If a note goes in my file, please attach
this email to it.

Thanks,
Jordan

If you believe the blame is tied to a protected trait or to an earlier complaint, one more step matters. Send a separate, short email to HR that says so in plain words. That sentence is what can make it a protected complaint under the EEOC guidance. Without it, your email is a record, not a complaint.

If the blame started after a complaint:
I am concerned this is connected to my
March 1 complaint about ___.

If others who did the same were not blamed:
I am concerned I am being blamed when
[names] were not, and that my
[race / sex / age] is part of the reason.

If the blame keeps coming, keep a running log as well. Use these columns: date, decision or instruction, who made it, who approved it, how you were told, where the copy is saved, and who else did the same thing and what happened to them. The last column is your comparison column. The full same-day method is in how to document workplace mistreatment so it holds up.

What if your situation is messier than that?

Each of the situations below can change the answer.

What if part of the mistake was yours?

Partial fault does not end the question. In McDonald, the fired workers were themselves accused of the theft. The question was why a co-worker “likewise implicated, was not so disciplined.” The Court added: “Of course, precise equivalence in culpability between employees is not the ultimate question.” So own your share in writing, precisely, and ask why the whole failure is being put on you.

What if the instruction you followed was only spoken?

That gap is where blame tends to land. In Lewis, travel instructions came from a secretary and a supervisor, and “they did not give plaintiffs any written instructions.” The expense reports had to be changed because “the initial instructions had been erroneous.” The company “did not dispute the claims that these expenses were honestly incurred.” The workers were fired for “gross insubordination” anyway. Confirm spoken instructions by email the same day.

What if the blame was later withdrawn?

It can still count if the blame followed a complaint, as in Burlington Northern, or fell along a protected line. If neither applies, a withdrawn accusation is blame alone, which is legal.

What if the blame is being used to pick you for a layoff?

Look at how people were chosen. In Bennett, calling the cuts “job eliminations” let the company skip the seniority factor in its own policy. If you are 40 or over and offered a severance deal in a group layoff, the Older Workers Benefit Protection Act gives you “at least 45 days” to consider it (29 U.S.C. § 626(f)).

The employer must also list “the job titles and ages of all individuals eligible or selected for the program,” and the ages of those in the same unit who were not. That list is a ready-made comparison table.

What if the blame is building toward a PIP?

Real faults plus a smear can still be a case. Reeves began with an efficiency study of one line and probation for one man. In Velázquez-Pérez, the boss had real complaints and chose a 30-day plan. On the worker’s evidence, a biased colleague’s lobbying turned it into a firing within days. If a plan is on the table, see what a performance improvement plan actually means when it lands.

What if co-workers push back on the blame together?

Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act protects “other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection” (29 U.S.C. § 157). Co-workers raising unfair blame together can fall inside that. Who is covered is on the page about protected concerted activity.

What does the research say about who gets scapegoated?

The research that exists makes modest points. A study of 67 organizations over 22 years found that powerful chief executives were less likely to be dismissed after a downturn (Boeker, 1992). Instead, blame moved onto top managers, who were replaced. A study of French and Italian public offices described scapegoats chosen on purpose by people with power “to prevent the blame for an incident from reaching higher hierarchical levels” (Bonazzi, 1983).

Blaming may spread by example. In three of four experiments, people who watched someone blame others were more likely to do the same for their own, unrelated failures (Fast & Tiedens, 2010). These were lab and online studies, not a workplace.

One study mapped gossip among 36 employees at a Dutch child care organization (Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, 2012). It found that “Negative gossip is relatively targeted, with the objects being specific individuals, particularly those low in informal status.” That is one small workplace. None of this research says how common scapegoating is.

Which step fits your situation?

Each wrong route has a cost. Complaining with no link to discrimination gains no protection under the discrimination laws. Staying silent leaves the blamer’s account as the only written one. A rebuttal to the whole office starts a second fight, and it can look like the smear you are fighting.

What should you do this week?

In order:

1. Send the reply-to-blame email today. Use the five parts above, and send it only to the people who need it.
2. Save the decision trail. Note the date, sender and approver of each instruction behind the thing you are blamed for.
3. Write down who else did the same thing. Record the name, the date, what they did and what happened to them.
4. Decide whether bias or payback is involved. If it is, send HR the separate one-line email. If not, skip the formal complaint and rely on the record.
5. Ask for your personnel file. In California, the employer must make it available within 30 calendar days of receiving your written request. In Massachusetts, Minnesota and Washington, add a written rebuttal to anything false.
6. Note the date the false statement was made, the day you heard it, and who heard it. The deadline to sue for defamation is one year in California, New York and Texas, and two in Minnesota.

Common questions about scapegoating at work

Can you sue your employer for scapegoating you?

Not for the blame alone. A federal appeals court has said an employer can “just get it wrong” about who caused a problem (Vasquez v. Empress Ambulance, 2d Cir. 2016). You may have a claim if the blame fell on you because of race, sex, age or another protected trait, followed a discrimination complaint, or came from a biased colleague the employer failed to check. False statements spread about you are a separate claim, under state defamation law.

How do you prove your boss is scapegoating you?

Show who actually made and approved the decision, what you were told and when, and who else did the same thing without being disciplined. That is how Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing (2000) was won. The company admitted a manager, not Reeves, was responsible. Only his line was studied, and only he was put on probation. Proof that the stated reason is false can support a discrimination finding, but it does not guarantee one.

Is being blamed at work harassment?

Usually not in the legal sense. Federal law is not “a general civility code for the American workplace” (Burlington Northern v. White, 2006). Blame counts when it is tied to a protected trait or follows a discrimination complaint. The EEOC’s 2016 retaliation guidance lists “disparaging the person to others” and “scrutinizing work or attendance more closely than that of other employees, without justification” as possible retaliation after a complaint. See what counts as a hostile work environment.

Can you sue a coworker for spreading lies about you at work?

Sometimes. A false statement of fact can be defamation. But reports made in good faith to people at work who need to know are usually protected by a qualified privilege. The Texas Supreme Court says actual malice defeats it (Randall’s, 1995). New York’s top court says it cannot shelter statements made with malice or reckless disregard for the truth (Loughry, 1986). Deadlines are short: one year in California, New York and Texas, two in Minnesota.

Sources

• 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2, Title VII (Cornell LII)
• Vasquez v. Empress Ambulance Service, Inc., 835 F.3d 267 (2d Cir. 2016)
• Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Railway Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53 (2006)
• 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, definitions (Cornell LII)
• Minn. Stat. § 181.960 (Minnesota Revisor of Statutes)
• 29 U.S.C. § 623, Age Discrimination in Employment Act (Cornell LII)
• McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co., 427 U.S. 273 (1976)
• 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3, Title VII retaliation (Cornell LII)
• EEOC, Enforcement Guidance on Retaliation and Related Issues, August 25, 2016
• Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 562 U.S. 411 (2011)
• Bennett v. Riceland Foods, Inc., 721 F.3d 546 (8th Cir. 2013)
• Velázquez-Pérez v. Developers Diversified Realty Corp., 753 F.3d 265 (1st Cir. 2014)
• Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133 (2000)
• Legal Aid at Work, Workplace Defamation fact sheet (California, updated October 2024)
• Randall’s Food Markets, Inc. v. Johnson, 891 S.W.2d 640 (Tex. 1995)
• Loughry v. Lincoln First Bank, 67 N.Y.2d 369 (1986)
• Bratt v. International Business Machines Corp., 392 Mass. 508 (1984)
• Lewis v. Equitable Life Assurance Society, 389 N.W.2d 876 (Minn. 1986)
• Cal. Civ. Code § 47 (California Legislative Information)
• Churchey v. Adolph Coors Co., 759 P.2d 1336 (Colo. 1988)
• Sullivan v. Baptist Memorial Hospital, 995 S.W.2d 569 (Tenn. 1999)
• Minn. Stat. § 181.933 (Minnesota Revisor of Statutes)
• Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 340 (California Legislative Information)
• N.Y. CPLR 215 (compilation at newyork.public.law)
• Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.002 (compilation at texas.public.law)
• Minn. Stat. § 541.07 (Minnesota Revisor of Statutes)
• Robinson v. Shell Oil Co., 519 U.S. 337 (1997)
• Cal. Labor Code § 1050 (California Legislative Information)
• Cal. Labor Code § 1054 (California Legislative Information)
• Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 149, § 52C (Massachusetts Legislature)
• Minn. Stat. § 181.962 (Minnesota Revisor of Statutes)
• RCW 49.12.250 (Washington State Legislature)
• Cal. Labor Code § 1198.5 (California Legislative Information)
• Cal. Labor Code § 432 (California Legislative Information)
• Psych Central, Creating Scapegoats in the Workplace (June 2020)
• 29 U.S.C. § 626, Older Workers Benefit Protection Act (Cornell LII)
• 29 U.S.C. § 157, National Labor Relations Act § 7 (Cornell LII)
• Boeker, Power and managerial dismissal: Scapegoating at the top, Administrative Science Quarterly 37(3), 400–421 (1992), ERIC record
• Bonazzi, Scapegoating in complex organizations, Organization Studies 4(1), 1–18 (1983), Crossref record
• Fast & Tiedens, Blame contagion, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46(1), 97–106 (2010)
• Ellwardt, Labianca & Wittek, Who are the objects of positive and negative gossip at work?, Social Networks 34(2), 193–205 (2012)

Review schedule. State-level rules are re-checked every six months; federal law annually. The Verified date above is set at import and is the date the facts here were last checked. General information on US law, not legal advice for a particular situation.