Case ID: f-appx_477/html/0852-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
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Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Michael Allen WIGGINS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. JEWISH THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, Defendant-Appellee.
    No. 11-1004-cv.
    United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.
    May 31, 2012.
    Michael Allen Wiggins, Philadelphia, PA, pro se.
    Diane Windholz, Esq., Gena Brook Usenheimer, Esq., Jackson Lewis L.L.P., New York, NY, for Appellee.
    Present: B.D. PARKER, PETER W. HALL, J. CLIFFORD WALLACE, Circuit Judges.
    
      
      . Judge J. Clifford Wallace, of the United States Court of the Appeals for the 9th Circuit, sitting by designation.
    
   SUMMARY ORDER

Plaintiff-Appellant Michael Allen Wiggins, pro se, appeals from the district court’s judgment granting Defendant-Ap-pellee’s motion for summary judgment and dismissing his sexual discrimination and retaliation action brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), and the New York State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”). We assume familiarity with the facts, proceedings below, and specification of issues on appeal.

We review orders granting summary judgment de novo and focus on whether the district court properly concluded that there was no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party was entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See Miller v. Wolpoff & Abramson, L.L.P., 321 F.3d 292, 300 (2d Cir.2003). The Court is required to resolve all ambiguities and draw all Inferences in favor of the nonmovant; the inferences to be drawn from the underlying facts revealed in materials such as affidavits, exhibits, interrogatory answers, and depositions must be viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. See Nationwide Life Ins. Co. v. Bankers Leasing Assoc., 182 F.3d 157, 160 (2d Cir.1999) (citing Cronin v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 46 F.3d 196, 202 (2d Cir.1995)). Summary judgment is appropriate “[w]here the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the non-moving party.” Matsushita Elec. Indus. Co. v. Zenith Radio Corp., 475 U.S. 574, 587, 106 S.Ct. 1348, 89 L.Ed.2d 538 (1986).

Upon de novo review, we hold that the district court properly dismissed Wiggins’s action. With respect to Wiggins’s retaliation claim, the record evidence shows no material dispute that Defendant-Appellee Jewish Theological Seminary had a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason for terminating him. There is ample evidence in the record that Wiggins failed to meet the requirements of his employment, including documentation of his poor performance beginning within one week of the start of his employment and continuing throughout his short tenure there. See Ruiz v. Cty. of Rockland, 609 F.3d 486, 493 (2d Cir.2010).

Accordingly, for the foregoing reason and the reasons stated by the district court and the magistrate judge below, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.