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

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NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

____________

No. 14-3591

____________

TIMOTHY E. STOUGH,

Appellant

v.

CONDUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES, INC.

____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Middle District of Pennsylvania

(D.C. No. 1-12-cv-02545)

District Judge: Honorable William W. Caldwell

____________

Submitted Under Third Circuit LAR 34.1(a)

April 29, 2015

Before: FISHER, HARDIMAN and ROTH, Circuit Judges.

(Filed: May 19, 2015)

____________

OPINION*

____________

 

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does 

not constitute binding precedent.

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HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

Timothy Stough appeals the District Court’s summary judgment rejecting his 

claims of disability discrimination. We will affirm.

I

In 2007, Stough informed his employer, Conductive Technologies, Inc., that he 

had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. In September 2009, Conductive learned 

that Stough had been having an affair with one of his subordinates. Stough received a 

written warning, a 10-day suspension, an order to cease contact with the employee in 

question, and a transfer to a nonsupervisory position. In April 2011, Conductive created a 

new executive position and filled it with an internal candidate. Conductive’s president, 

Matthew Musho, stated that Stough was never considered for the position because his 

affair exhibited “a lack of judgment” and he “lacked the technological skills necessary” 

to do the job. App. 103–04. In March 2012, Stough filed a charge against Conductive 

with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, alleging that he had been 

discriminated against on the basis of his Parkinson’s disease. 

After the EEOC notified him of his right to sue, Stough sued Conductive in the 

U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania. Alleging violations of the 

Americans with Disabilities Act, Stough claimed that he had been demoted, passed over 

for a promotion, harassed, and subjected to unfair performance evaluations because of his 

disability. Fact discovery began in August 2013, with a deadline of February 27, 2014. At 

about 3:30 p.m. on February 27, Stough filed a motion for an extension of time to 

complete discovery, which the District Court denied. After Conductive moved for 

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summary judgment in March 2014, Stough filed a motion for permission to conduct 

additional discovery in order to respond adequately to Conductive’s motion. The District 

Court denied Stough’s motion and granted Conductive summary judgment, holding that 

Stough’s demotion and failure to promote claims were time-barred and that his hostile 

work environment claim failed as a matter of law. Stough v. Conductive Techs., Inc., 

2014 WL 3421069 (M.D. Pa. July 11, 2014). Stough filed this timely appeal.1

II

“The conduct of discovery is a matter for the discretion of the district court and its 

decisions will be disturbed only upon a showing of an abuse of this discretion.” 

Wisniewski v. Johns-Manville Corp., 812 F.2d 81, 90 (3d Cir. 1987). Our review of 

summary judgments, on the other hand, is plenary, id. at 83, and summary judgment is 

appropriate only if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is 

entitled to judgment as a matter of law,” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

A

Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(d) permits a litigant who “cannot present facts 

essential to justify its opposition” to a motion for summary judgment to request that the 

district court permit additional discovery. “We have interpreted this provision to require 

‘a party seeking further discovery in response to a summary judgment motion [to] submit 

an affidavit specifying, for example, what particular information is sought; how, if 

uncovered, it would preclude summary judgment; and why it has not previously been 

 

1 The District Court had jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1331. We have jurisdiction 

under 28 U.S.C. § 1291.

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obtained.’” Pa. Dep’t of Pub. Welfare v. Sebelius, 674 F.3d 139, 157 (3d Cir. 2012) 

(alteration in original) (quoting Dowling v. City of Philadelphia, 855 F.2d 136, 139–40 

(3d Cir. 1988)).

We hold that the District Court did not abuse its discretion in finding the materials 

submitted by Stough inadequate to warrant relief under Rule 56(d). Stough admitted that 

the first time he sought to conduct the requested discovery—depositions of six witnesses 

associated with Conductive—was on February 26, 2014, one day before the expiration of 

the time allotted for fact discovery. The next afternoon, just hours before the deadline, 

Stough requested an extension of time from the District Court. Counsel’s only 

explanation for this tardy effort is that “severe winter weather during February 2014” 

caused “considerable and unprecedented scheduling issues.” App. 364. But inclement 

weather during the last month of the discovery phase does not explain counsel’s failure to 

even initiate the scheduling process at any point during the previous six months. See 

Lunderstadt v. Colafella, 885 F.2d 66, 71 (3d Cir. 1989) (affirming the denial of a motion 

to delay summary judgment for additional discovery because the movants failed to 

sufficiently explain their lack of diligence). Because Stough did not support his Rule 

56(d) motion by adequately specifying why the discovery materials sought “ha[d] not 

previously been obtained,” the District Court did not err in denying his motion. Dowling, 

855 F.2d at 140.

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B

With respect to the District Court’s summary judgment for Conductive, Stough 

claims the Court erred by holding that his demotion and failure to promote claims were 

untimely and that his hostile work environment claim fails as a matter of law. We 

disagree.

Before initiating an employment discrimination suit under the ADA, Stough was 

required to file a charge with the EEOC within 300 days. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-5(e)(1),

12117(a). Stough filed his EEOC charge “[o]n or about March 12, 2012,” App. 27,

meaning any claims accruing before May 17, 2011 were untimely. Stough’s alleged 

demotion took place in late 2009, and he was passed over for Conductive’s new 

executive position in April 2011. The District Court therefore correctly held that these 

claims were time-barred.2

Stough’s hostile work environment claim, meanwhile, fails on the merits. In his 

brief, Stough refers to several incidents he perceived as harassment and mistreatment.

Stough Br. 7–11, 29–32. He alleges that a Conductive board member told him after he 

was disciplined for his workplace romance that his new position was “not so bad 

considering [his] condition and all and no decrease in salary,” App. 113; that he was 

 

2 Stough argues that his claims were timely because his demotion and 

nonpromotion were parts of a “continuing violation.” Stough Br. 25–29 (citing Nat’l R.R. 

Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101 (2002)). We reject this argument because (1) 

Stough makes no meaningful effort to link these incidents to discriminatory treatment 

taking place within the relevant 300-day window, and (2) we have previously held, in 

interpreting Morgan, that demotion and failure to promote are “discrete acts” that “cannot 

be aggregated under a continuing violations theory.” O’Connor v. City of Newark, 440 

F.3d 125, 127 (3d Cir. 2006).

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unfairly downgraded on a performance evaluation because of the affair; that Musho gave 

him a booklet on Parkinson’s disease around the time he was not promoted; that Musho, 

speaking privately with another Conductive executive, explained his decision not to 

promote Stough by stating, “[H]e’s got Parkinson’s,” App. 116; that he was reprimanded 

for missing a meeting; that Conductive’s human resources manager sent him a letter 

asking him to complete a questionnaire in order to receive additional medical leave; and 

that other Conductive employees spoke negatively about him in meetings.

We agree with the District Court that these allegations of mistreatment and the 

evidence Stough has adduced to support them are insufficient to avoid summary 

judgment. A prima facie hostile work environment claim requires, inter alia, that the 

claimant was subject to harassment on the basis of his disability and that “the harassment 

was sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter the conditions of [his] employment and to 

create an abusive working environment[.]” Walton v. Mental Health Ass’n of Se. Pa., 168 

F.3d 661, 667 (3d Cir. 1999). Several of Stough’s allegations are irrelevant because they 

appear to be wholly unrelated to his disability (e.g., the assertions that he was harassed

and unfairly evaluated on the basis of his affair, the reprimand for missing a meeting, and

the negative chatter about him by other employees). See id. (“The fact that [the 

employer’s behavior] may have been offensive does not indicate that it was based on [the 

plaintiff’s] disability.”). Some allegations are insufficiently severe, even when aggregated 

with the others, to rise to the level of a hostile work environment (e.g., the board 

member’s alleged “not so bad” comment and the matter of the Parkinson’s disease 

booklet). Cf. Faragher v. City of Boca Raton, 524 U.S. 775, 788 (1998) (“[O]ffhand 

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comments[] and isolated incidents (unless extremely serious) will not amount to 

discriminatory changes in the ‘terms and conditions of employment.’”). And the 

remainder are duplicative of his time-barred demotion and failure to promote claims (e.g., 

the allegation that Musho nixed his promotion on the basis of his Parkinson’s diagnosis).

Viewing the record evidence in the light most favorable to Stough, we cannot say a 

reasonable jury could rule in his favor on his hostile work environment claim.

* * *

The judgment of the District Court will therefore be affirmed.

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