Actual Knowledge vs. General Corporate Knowledge - Which Should Be Required In Retaliation Cases?

Some days ago, we discussed the recent opinion of the D.C. Court of Appeals in McFarland v. [need cite], wherein the Court required that the decisionmaker in a retaliation case have actual knowledge of the employee's protected activity, and rejected an argument that it should, in essence, impute knowledge to the corporation in general. Judge Squatrito of the Federal District Court for the District of Connecticut in Tucker v. Journal Register East, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 82368 (D. Conn., Nov. 7, 2007) held that while a prima facie case of retaliation requires that the plaintiff show that his/her employer was aware of his/her protected activity, the Court went on to hold that the plaintiff merely needed to show nothing more than "general corporate knowledge that the plaintiff has engaged in a protected activity", relying on Gordon v. New York City Board of Education, 232 F.3d 111, 116 (2d Cir. 2000).