Case ID: f-appx_424/html/0610-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "PER CURIAM.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Paul COOPER, Appellant, v. ARKANSAS HIGHWAY & TRANSPORTATION DEPARTMENT, Appellee, B.J. McAlister; Jerry Williams; Glen Chavers, Defendants.
    No. 10-3260.
    United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.
    Submitted: April 20, 2011.
    Filed: April 26, 2011.
    
      Paul Cooper, Conway, AR, pro se.
    Angela Richardson Dodson, David S. Long, Mark Umeda, Arkansas State Highway & Transportation Department, Little Rock, AR, for Appellee.
    Before WOLLMAN, BOWMAN, and SMITH, Circuit Judges.
   PER CURIAM.

Paul Cooper appeals following entry of judgment by the District Court upon an adverse jury verdict in this employment-discrimination action. After careful review, see Strand v. Diversified Collection Sen., Inc., 880 F.3d 316, 317 (8th Cir.2004) (noting that a district court’s decision to grant a motion to dismiss is reviewed de novo); Anderson v. Larson, 327 F.3d 762, 767 (8th Cir.2003) (noting that a grant of summary judgment is reviewed de novo), we affirm.

Specifically, we agree with the court that several claims were not administratively exhausted because they did not grow out of, and were not reasonably related to, the allegations contained in Cooper’s charge of discrimination. See Cottrill v. MFA, Inc., 443 F.3d 629, 634 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 954, 127 S.Ct. 394, 166 L.Ed.2d 272 (2006). Cooper’s purported amendment to his charge was unsigned and bore no evidence that it was ever filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

As to the retaliation claim, the court properly elected to apply a burden-shifting analysis because Cooper failed to present direct evidence of retaliation. See Smith v. Fainiew Ridges Hosp., 625 F.3d 1076, 1087 (8th Cir.2010), petition for cert. filed, — U.S.L.W. -, (U.S. Mar. 14, 2011) (No. 10-9547). Further, summary judgment was proper. The evidence shows a nondiscriminatory reason for Cooper’s termination — fighting in the workplace in violation of department policy— and he failed to create a trialworthy issue that this reason was pretextual and the true motivation was to retaliate against him for litigation he had initiated some four years earlier. See Twymon v. Wells Fargo & Co., 462 F.3d 925, 935 (8th Cir. 2006). Finally, we are unable to review Cooper’s challenge to the jury’s verdict or the composition of the jury itself because he failed to order a trial transcript. See Meroney v. Delta Int’l Mach. Corp., 18 F.3d 1436, 1437 (8th Cir.1994).

Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the District Court. 
      
      . The Honorable Jimm Larry Hendren, Chief Judge, United States District Court for the Western District of Arkansas.