By JESSE J. HOLLAND
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court says companies can't fire people simply because they are in a relationship with other employees who complain of discrimination.

The high court on Monday unanimously ruled for Eric Thompson, who was fired from a North American Stainless plant in Kentucky after his fiancee, who also worked there, filed a sex-discrimination complaint.

Thompson's fiancee and now-wife, Miriam Regalado, filed a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging that her supervisors at the manufacturing plant discriminated against her because of her gender. The EEOC told North American Stainless of her charge on Feb. 13, 2003.

Thompson was fired March 7.

He then went to the EEOC and complained that he had been fired because of his fiancee's discrimination charge. But the federal courts threw out his lawsuit, saying the law "does not permit a retaliation claim by a plaintiff who did not himself engage in protected activity" by opposing an unlawful employment practice.

But Justice Antonin Scalia said in a unanimous court judgment that Thompson clearly falls under the category of people who can sue for retaliation.

"Thompson is not an accidental victim of the retaliation - collateral damage, so to speak, of the employer's unlawful act," Scalia said. "To the contrary, injuring him was the employer's intended means of harming Regalado. Hurting him was the unlawful act by which the employer punished her. In these circumstances, we think Thompson well within the zone of interests sought to be protected by (anti-retaliation law.) He is a person aggrieved with standing to sue."

Thompson's lawsuit against North American Stainless now goes back to the lower courts.