to characterize the agency relationships on which it focuses. The acts the dissent goes on to describe — discriminatory "hiring or firing decision[s],’’ Dissent at 974 — are “company acts” that do not involve an unusual degree of attenuation between employer/defendant and employee/wrongdoer. These are precisely the sorts of cases in which employers' claims to have misunderstood the extent of their legal obligations are least plausible. 7 . We need not address the scope of employer liability for "noncompany acts” such as sexual harassment. 8 . As with § 1981, the position of the Seventh Circuit on this question is not simple to characterize. The Emmel decision comports with the approach we take today, as do Tincher v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 118 F.3d 1125, 1132 (7th Cir.1997) (<HOLDING>), and Ortiz v. John O. Butler Co., 94 F.3d
holding discrimination based on pregnancy was not sex discrimination holding that discrimination is unlawful even if only one of several motives for adverse employment action holding that in a discrimination case plaintiff must prove that firing was a result of intentional discrimination holding that evidence of egregiousness is required for punitive damages since otherwise every employment discrimination claim could include a punitive damage award because every employment discrimination plaintiff must demonstrate an intentional unlawful discrimination holding that a claim for discrimination in private employment is not preempted by title vii