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Nature of Suit Code: 442
Nature of Suit: Civil Rights Employment
Cause of Action: 

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 16-20135

WILLIAM B. HERNANDEZ, 

 Plaintiff - Appellant 

v. 

METROPOLITAN TRANSIT AUTHORITY OF HARRIS COUNTY, 

 Defendant - Appellee 

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Texas 

USDC No. 4:14-CV-2763

Before ELROD, SOUTHWICK, and GRAVES, Circuit Judges. 

PER CURIAM:*

William Hernandez, a police officer with the Metropolitan Transit 

Authority of Harris County (“METRO”), appeals from a summary judgment 

that rejected his Title VII discrimination and retaliation claims against his 

employer. We AFFIRM. 

 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

December 21, 2016

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND 

Officer William Hernandez, a Hispanic-American, has served as a police 

officer for METRO for the past twenty years. In 2009 and 2010, Officer 

Hernandez applied and was passed over for promotion to the ranks of Sergeant 

and Lieutenant. In February 2011, Officer Hernandez filed a lawsuit under 

Title VII alleging METRO had discriminated against him by failing to promote 

him on the basis of his age, race, and national origin. On January 22, 2013, a 

federal jury found METRO liable for retaliation due to the department’s 

elimination of a position for which Officer Hernandez applied and awarded him 

compensatory and punitive damages. 

While his 2011 lawsuit against METRO was pending, Officer Hernandez 

sought promotions to the rank of Sergeant (April 2012), Lieutenant (April 

2012), and Captain (February 2012), which are the positions at the center of 

this appeal.1 Since at least 2011, each advancement within METRO’s 

hierarchy requires a candidate to have progressive experience and a minimum 

period of supervisory experience. 

METRO used two contractors to administer the promotion process. 

First, METRO requested the Bill Blackwood Law Enforcement Management 

Institute of Texas (“LEMIT”) provide a positional analysis of the relevant 

duties and responsibilities for the ranks of Sergeant and Lieutenant. 

Thereafter, LEMIT produced a job description and identified behavioral 

competencies commensurate with the duties and responsibilities of each 

position. Second, METRO tasked VME Testing Training and Consulting to 

conduct the testing and provide METRO’s Chief, Victor Rodriguez, with a 

scoring matrix of all viable candidates. 

 

1 Officer Hernandez failed to exhaust his administrative remedies with the EEOC for 

all of his non-promotion claims from 2009 through 2011, so those claims are barred. See 42 

U.S.C. § 2000e–5(e)(1); Price v. Choctaw Glove & Safety Co., 459 F.3d 595, 598 (5th Cir. 2006). 

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The first stage of METRO’s promotional testing process consisted of a 

written examination, weighted 40%. The second stage of the process, which 

provided the remaining 60% of the evaluation, was called the Assessment 

Center. It consisted of another written exercise and two job-skill simulations. 

Candidates submitted all their completed work products for the AssessmentCenter portion under a randomly drawn candidate number. Each stage of 

testing required candidates to score a minimum of 70 points to qualify for 

promotion. On the written test, Officer Hernandez scored a 94. For the three 

components of the Assessment Center, Officer Hernandez received a 

consolidated score of 61.13. Therefore, Officer Hernandez was not included in 

the final rankings for possible promotion. 

Upon completion of the testing process, VME provided the overall scores 

and rankings to Chief Rodriguez. Chief Rodriguez then promoted the highest 

ranked individuals: (1) seven to the rank of Sergeant; (2) six to the rank of 

Lieutenant; and (3) two to the rank of Captain. At some point after the 

promotion lists were released, Officer Hernandez sent Chief Rodriguez a letter 

alleging mathematical errors in his calculated score for one of the Assessment 

Center practical exercises. Although METRO never formally adjusted Officer 

Hernandez’s final Assessment-Center score to reflect these errors, there is no 

dispute that a correction would have given a score of only 67.41, leaving Officer 

Hernandez still below the 70-point threshold. 

Officer Hernandez then brought this suit against METRO. He alleged,

among other things, that METRO denied him promotional opportunities based 

upon his race and that the department retaliated against him for his 2011 

lawsuit. METRO moved for summary judgment, arguing Officer Hernandez 

did not have an actionable claim for discrimination or retaliation under Title 

VII. At a motion hearing on January 28, 2016, the district court granted 

METRO’s motion in full. 

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The district court first determined that Officer Hernandez had not 

exhausted his administrative remedies regarding his non-promotion to 

Captain in February 2012. Based on the undisputed record evidence, the court 

also held Officer Hernandez failed to establish his prima facie case for his nonpromotion to Lieutenant and Captain because he was unqualified for both

positions. The district court also held that Officer Hernandez failed to 

establish an additional element of his prima facie case because individuals 

within his protected class were promoted. 

Additionally, the district court determined that METRO had a 

legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not promoting Officer Hernandez to 

Sergeant because his overall ranking (twelfth) fell outside that of the top seven 

candidates. Although the district court found the presence of a causal link, the 

court determined it was insufficient to sustain Officer Hernandez’s retaliation 

claim when viewed in context. This appeal timely followed. 

DISCUSSION 

We review a “district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, 

applying the same standards as the district court.” DePree v. Saunders, 588 

F.3d 282, 286 (5th Cir. 2009) (citation omitted). Summary judgment is 

appropriate when the movant shows there are no genuine issues of material 

fact and “the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” FED. R. CIV.

P. 56(a). A genuine dispute of material fact exists when the “evidence is 

sufficient for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for the non-moving party.” 

Willis v. Cleco Corp., 749 F.3d 314, 317 (5th Cir. 2014). 

All evidence and factual inferences are viewed “in the light most 

favorable to the [nonmovant] and all reasonable doubts about the facts are 

resolved in favor of the [nonmovant].” Bryan v. McKinsey & Co., 375 F.3d 358, 

360 (5th Cir. 2004) (citation omitted). Though we draw all reasonable 

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inferences in favor of the nonmovant, “a party cannot defeat summary 

judgment with conclusory allegations, unsubstantiated assertions, or ‘only a 

scintilla of evidence.’” Turner v. Baylor Richardson Med. Ctr., 476 F.3d 337, 

343 (5th Cir. 2007) (quoting Little v. Liquid Air Corp., 37 F.3d 1069, 1075 (5th 

Cir. 1994) (en banc)). Instead, “[t]he party opposing summary judgment is 

required to identify specific evidence in the record and to articulate the precise 

manner in which that evidence supports his or her claim.” Ragas v. Tenn. Gas 

Pipeline Co., 136 F.3d 455, 458 (5th Cir. 1998). 

“We may affirm summary judgment on any legal ground raised below, 

even if it was not the basis for the district court’s decision.” Performance 

Autoplex II Ltd. v. Mid-Continent Cas. Co., 322 F.3d 847, 853 (5th Cir. 2003)

(citation omitted).

I. Title VII discrimination claim 

We first examine Officer Hernandez’s contention that the district court 

erred in granting summary judgment on his Title VII discrimination claim. 

A Title VII discrimination claim based on circumstantial evidence is 

analyzed using the burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell 

Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–04 (1973). See McCoy v. City of 

Shreveport, 492 F.3d 551, 556 (5th Cir. 2007). To survive summary judgment, 

a plaintiff must first present a prima facie case of discrimination. Thomas v. 

Johnson, 788 F.3d 177, 179 (5th Cir. 2015). Once a plaintiff establishes a 

prima facie case, a presumption of discrimination is established. Id. A burden 

of production then is placed on the employer “to articulate some legitimate, 

nondiscriminatory reason” for the adverse employment action. Tex. Dep’t of 

Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981) (quotation marks omitted). 

If the employer meets this burden, the presumption of discrimination 

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disappears and the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to establish that the 

employer’s proffered reason is pretextual. Id. 

At the outset, Officer Hernandez must establish his prima facie case of 

discrimination by demonstrating that: 

(1) he is a member of a protected class, (2) he was qualified for the 

position at issue, (3) he was the subject of an adverse employment 

action, and (4) he was treated less favorably because of his 

membership in that protected class than were other similarly 

situated employees who were not members of the protected class, 

under nearly identical circumstances. 

Paske v. Fitzgerald, 785 F.3d 977, 985 (5th Cir. 2015) (citation omitted). 

The first and third elements are not in dispute: Officer Hernandez is 

Hispanic-American, and he was passed over for promotion. Officer Hernandez 

must still show that he was qualified for the promotions2 he sought (the second 

element) and treated less favorably than similarly situated employees who 

were not members of his protected group (the fourth element). 

We first consider Officer Hernandez’s non-promotion to Lieutenant. The 

undisputed record evidence supports the district court’s conclusion that he was 

not qualified for the position because he lacked the requisite supervisory 

experience at the rank of Sergeant within the two years immediately preceding 

his application for promotion. Notably, Officer Hernandez concedes that he 

failed to meet the objective criteria METRO set forth to judge its employees’ 

qualifications for promotion.3 See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 259 (“[T]he employer 

 

2 As an initial matter, Officer Hernandez does not dispute that he failed to exhaust 

his administrative remedies regarding the promotion to Captain. Accordingly, he has 

abandoned this issue on appeal. Cinel v. Connick, 15 F.3d 1338, 1345 (5th Cir. 1994) (“An 

appellant abandons all issues not raised and argued in its initial brief on appeal.”). 

3 Instead, Officer Hernandez argues METRO’s revamping of the promotional 

requirements impermissibly favored African-American candidates over Hispanic candidates. 

This argument is belied by the record as the supervisory experience requirement was 

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has discretion to choose among equally qualified candidates, provided the 

decision is not based upon unlawful criteria.”). 

Finally, we consider Officer Hernandez’s being denied a promotion to 

Sergeant. On this challenge, we do not decide if Officer Hernandez established 

his prima facie case. The more certain conclusion is that METRO had a 

legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for not promoting him. We explain. 

We start with the question of Officer Hernandez’s score calculation for 

the Assessment Center portion of the testing. It is conceded that his initial 

score was erroneous, but he still did not meet the 70-point threshold for

promotion eligibility upon a scoring revision nor was he one of the top seven 

candidates for promotion to Sergeant. Further, the record does not support 

Officer Hernandez’s assertion that he deserved the addition of three 

educational points to his revised 67.41 score, which would have pushed him 

across the 70-point threshold. Instead, those additional points are relevant if 

an applicant has reached the minimum score of 70.4 

Beyond the question of his score, Officer Hernandez had the burden of 

producing sufficient evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could 

conclude that METRO’s explanation for not promoting him was pretextual. An 

employee’s showing that he was “clearly better qualified is enough to prove 

that [his] employer’s proffered reasons are pretextual.” Price v. Fed. Express 

Corp., 283 F.3d 715, 723 (5th Cir. 2002) (citations omitted). In contrast to the 

minimal burden that a plaintiff bears when establishing his prima facie case, 

 

published and in effect approximately seven months before Officer Hernandez applied for 

promotion to Lieutenant. The district court did not err on this issue.

4 The VME Testing Training and Consulting Booklet clearly sets forth a rule that 

“[c]andidates who successfully complete each phase of the promotional process with a score 

of 70 or higher will be awarded additional points to the final score for the highest education 

level attained.” Because Officer Hernandez did not meet the minimum threshold of 70, he 

did not qualify for the additional education points.

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a plaintiff must produce “substantial evidence of pretext.” Auguster v. 

Vermilion Par. Sch. Bd., 249 F.3d 400, 402–03 (5th Cir. 2001). “Our job as a 

reviewing court conducting a pretext analysis is not to engage in secondguessing of an employer’s business decisions.” LeMaire v. La. Dep’t. of Transp. 

& Dev., 480 F.3d 383, 391 (5th Cir. 2007). 

Officer Hernandez claims that METRO’s actions in this case are 

reflective of the type of inconsistencies that we have held to be pretextual in 

similar circumstances. Specifically, he asserts that METRO’s response when 

African-American police officers complained of the testing process is 

inconsistent when compared to its response to Officer Hernandez’s complaint 

to Chief Rodriguez about his test scores. Yet, Officer Hernandez has not 

adduced any evidence that METRO’s varied responses were the result of the

agency’s failure to follow its own internal policies. In fact, METRO’s decision 

to overhaul its promotion system based on systematic concerns versus an 

individual’s complaints about scoring errors is not the sort of “unexplained 

inconsistency” from which a jury could infer pretext.5 Burrell v. Dr.

Pepper/Seven Up Bottling Grp., 482 F.3d 408, 415 (5th Cir. 2007).

Officer Hernandez has also failed to offer evidence that would permit a 

reasonable jury to conclude that METRO’s stated reasons are “false or

unworthy of credence, and thus pretextual.” Burton v. Freescale 

Semiconductor, Inc., 798 F.3d 222, 233 (5th Cir. 2015) (quotation marks and 

citation omitted). Other than speculation and his own subjective belief that 

METRO’s decision was discriminatory, Officer Hernandez does not point to any 

summary judgment evidence, let alone “substantial evidence,” that race had 

 

5 Courts regularly “decline[] to serve as a super-personnel department that 

reexamines an entity’s business decisions.” Holcomb v. Powell, 433 F.3d 889, 897 (D.C. Cir. 

2006) (citation and quotation marks omitted); see also Hudson v. Chicago Transit Auth., 375 

F.3d 552, 561 (7th Cir. 2004). We agree with our sister circuits on this approach.

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anything to do with him being passed over for promotion to Sergeant. See 

Auguster, 249 F.3d at 403. 

In sum, because Officer Hernandez has not put forth evidence that 

METRO’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for not promoting him were 

pretextual, the district court properly granted summary judgment in METRO’s 

favor. 

II. Title VII retaliation claim

Officer Hernandez also appeals the district court’s dismissal of his 

retaliation claim. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, a plaintiff must 

show that: “(1) he participated in an activity protected by Title VII; (2) his 

employer took an adverse employment action against him; and (3) a causal 

connection exists between the protected activity and the adverse employment 

action.” McCoy, 492 F.3d at 556–57. “Title VII retaliation claims must be 

proved according to traditional principles of but-for causation, not the lessened 

[motivating factor] causation test[.]”6 Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 

133 S. Ct. 2517, 2533 (2013). This heightened standard “requires proof that 

the unlawful retaliation would not have occurred in the absence of the alleged 

wrongful action or actions of the employer.” Id. We also employ the McDonnell 

Douglas burden-shifting framework to analyze Title VII retaliation claims. 

Long v. Eastfield Coll., 88 F.3d 300, 304–05 (5th Cir. 1996).

Because our review of the district court’s decision is de novo, we need not 

decide if the lower court was correct in its determination that Officer 

 

6 We recently noted the existence of a circuit split “regarding whether the Supreme 

Court’s holding in [Nassar] requires a plaintiff to show but-for causation as part of [his] prima 

facie case of retaliation, or only at the third step of the McDonnell Douglas framework. . . .” 

Smith v. Bd. of Supervisors of S. Univ., No. 16-30097, 2016 WL 4254380, at *2 n.4 (5th Cir. 

Aug. 11, 2016). As in Smith, we need not resolve this issue because Officer Hernandez fails 

to meet his burden even under the most favorable standard. 

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Hernandez failed to establish his prima facie case of retaliation. Instead, we 

begin with an analysis of whether METRO met its burden to introduce 

evidence of a legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for Officer Hernandez’s nonpromotion. As with Officer Hernandez’s claim for discrimination, METRO 

offers that it did not promote him to the rank of Sergeant because he did not 

meet the 70-point threshold and because Officer Hernandez was not one of the 

top seven eligible candidates. Once METRO produces a legitimate, 

nonretaliatory reason for failing to promote Officer Hernandez, the burden 

shifts back to Officer Hernandez to raise an issue of material fact showing that 

METRO’s offered reason is in fact pretext for the real retaliatory purpose. 

Outley v. Luke & Assocs., 840 F.3d 212, 219 (5th Cir. 2016). Officer Hernandez 

must demonstrate that his non-promotion “would not have occurred but for 

[METRO’s] retaliatory motive.” Id. (quotation marks omitted).

Officer Hernandez has also failed to meet his summary judgment burden

on his Title VII retaliation claim. In response to METRO’s legitimate, 

nonretaliatory reason, Hernandez appears to rely on the temporal proximity 

between his 2011 lawsuit against METRO and his 2012 non-promotion to 

Sergeant to establish causation. We have held that “temporal proximity 

between protected activity and alleged retaliation is sometimes enough to 

establish causation at the prima facie stage.”7 Porter v. Houma Terrebonne 

Hous. Auth. Bd. of Comm’rs, 810 F.3d 940, 948 (5th Cir. 2015). However, the 

burden has now shifted to a heightened standard of “but-for” causation, for 

 

7 “The cases that accept mere temporal proximity between an employer’s knowledge 

of protected activity and an adverse employment action as sufficient evidence of causality to 

establish a prima facie case uniformly hold that the temporal proximity must be ‘very close.’” 

Clark Cnty. Sch. Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 273 (2001). Here, a period of twelve months 

passed between Officer Hernandez’s first Title VII action and 2012 applications for promotion 

to Lieutenant and Sergeant, such that the temporal proximity between Officer Hernandez’s 

protected activity and his adverse employment action is insufficient to support an inference 

of causality.

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which temporal proximity, without more, will not suffice. Strong v. Univ. 

Healthcare Sys., L.L.C., 482 F.3d 802, 808 (5th Cir. 2007). 

Although Officer Hernandez did present evidence of a 2011 lawsuit, 

which the district court considered protected Title VII activity, he failed to 

demonstrate any connection, let alone the requisite but-for causation, between 

his protected activity in 2011 and his non-promotion in 2012. See Nassar, 133 

S. Ct. at 2533. The fact that Officer Hernandez was not promoted based on his 

low overall ranking, which he achieved during an external vendor’s anonymous 

testing process, directly undermines his argument that his protected activities 

were a but-for cause of his adverse employment action. At most, Officer 

Hernandez offers his subjective belief of retaliation, which we have repeatedly 

held is insufficient to warrant relief. Aryain v. Wal-Mart Stores Tex. LP, 534

F.3d 473, 487 (5th Cir. 2008) (citations omitted). 

For the reasons discussed above, we conclude that Officer Hernandez has 

not met his burden to show that a genuine issue of material fact exists as to 

whether METRO’s offered legitimate reason was a pretext for retaliation. 

AFFIRMED. 

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