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Parties Involved:
Gino Adamson
Appellant
City of Birmingham, Alabama
Appellee

Document Text:

[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 24-11201

Non-Argument Calendar

____________________

GINO ADAMSON, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

versus

CITY OF BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, 

Defendant-Appellee.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Alabama

D.C. Docket No. 2:21-cv-00902-AMM

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2 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

____________________

Before NEWSOM, HULL, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

Gino Adamson appeals the district court’s order granting 

summary judgment in favor of his former employer, the City of 

Birmingham, Alabama, on his claims of disability discrimination 

and retaliation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”)

and race discrimination and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil 

Rights Act of 1964. After review of the record and the parties’ 

briefs, we affirm. 

I. BACKGROUND

The district court’s order comprehensively sets forth the 

relevant facts and a thorough analysis. Because we write for the 

parties, who are already familiar with the facts, we recount only so 

much of the facts and procedural history as is necessary to 

understand our opinion.

Adamson worked as a police officer for the City of 

Birmingham Police Department (“the City”) assigned to patrol. 

On April 24, 2020, shortly after the COVID pandemic began, 

Adamson was on duty inside an area hospital. When hospital staff 

complained, Adamson was instructed by a superior officer to put 

on a face mask per the hospital’s policy. When Adamson refused, 

he was relieved by another officer. Adamson was sent to Internal 

Affairs, where he gave a statement and then was returned to service 

the same day. 

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24-11201 Opinion of the Court 3

On May 1, 2020, the City issued a pandemic-related protocol 

that required all employees to wear a cloth face covering if they 

could not maintain six feet of social distancing while working. 

Adamson advised his supervisors that his anxiety, later diagnosed 

as post-traumatic stress disorder (“PTSD”), prevented him from 

wearing a face mask due to feelings of suffocation. Adamson was 

placed on leave on May 4. 

On May 27, 2020, Adamson submitted a reasonable 

accommodation request form along with a doctor’s note proposing 

that Adamson be allowed to wear a face shield or work a “desk job”

that did not require a mask. As a result, on June 3, Adamson was 

temporarily reassigned from patrol to the intake desk at the City’s 

jail, where he could wear a face shield. 

In September 2020, Adamson filed a charge of 

discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity 

Commission (“EEOC”), alleging the City discriminated and 

retaliated against him based on his race and disability. 

Almost five months later, in February 2021, Adamson was 

served a “Notice of Determination Hearing.” The notice alerted 

Adamson of possible personnel action for disobeying his 

supervisor’s April 24, 2020 order to wear a mask while on duty at 

the hospital. That hearing was never held, however, and Adamson 

was never disciplined for refusing to wear a mask. 

In August 2021, Adamson retired from the City’s police 

department. 

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4 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

II. DISTRICT COURT PROCEEDINGS 

Adamson sued the City, alleging claims of disability 

discrimination and retaliation under the ADA and race 

discrimination and retaliation under Title VII. Following 

discovery, the City moved for summary judgment, which the 

district court granted. 

As to Adamson’s reasonable accommodation claim, the 

district court concluded that no reasonable jury could find a failure 

to accommodate because it was undisputed that Adamson was 

permitted to wear a face shield at the jail. 

As to his disability disparate treatment claim, the district 

court concluded, under the McDonnell Douglas framework,1 that

Adamson presented no evidence that: (1) the City reassigned him 

to the jail or took any other allegedly adverse action because of his 

disability, rather than as a reasonable accommodation; or (2) that 

the City’s reasons for its actions were pretextual and that the real 

reason was disability discrimination. 

As to Adamson’s Title VII race discrimination claim, the 

district court concluded that: (1) Adamson, who is white, failed to 

identify a valid comparator—a non-white officer engaged in the 

same conduct—for purposes of a prima facie case under McDonnell 

Douglas; and alternatively (2) he did not present a “convincing 

mosaic” of circumstantial evidence of discriminatory intent. 

1 McDonnell Douglas Corp v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). 

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The district court concluded Adamson established a prima 

facie case of ADA retaliation because he was reassigned to the jail 

within a “week or so” of requesting a face-mask accommodation. 

However, Adamson failed to present evidence that the City’s 

proffered reason for the reassignment—patrol work required a face 

mask but the jail’s more controlled environment permitted use of 

a face shield with less risk of exposure to the public and the patrol 

force—was pretextual. 

Finally, as to Adamson’s Title VII retaliation claim, the 

district court concluded that the period of nearly five months 

between Adamson’s protected activity—the filing of his EEOC 

charge—and his allegedly adverse action—merely receiving the 

“Notice of Determination Hearing”—was too long to establish 

temporal proximity or but-for causation. 

III. DISCUSSION

A. ADA Failure-to-Accommodate Claim

The district court did not err in granting summary judgment 

on Adamson’s failure-to-accommodate claim.2 Adamson 

requested that he not “be forced to wear a mask and be able to 

return to work.” Both he and his doctor suggested as an 

2 We review de novo the grant of summary judgment, drawing all reasonable 

inferences in the light most favorable to the non-moving party. Todd v. Fayette 

Cnty. Sch. Dist., 998 F.3d 1203, 1214 (11th Cir. 2021). The movant is entitled 

to summary judgment 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).

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6 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

accommodation wearing a face shield instead of a mask. His 

doctor also suggested that the City could accommodate Adamson’s 

disability by moving him to a desk job where he could work 

without a mask. Relying on this request, the City temporarily 

reassigned Adamson to the jail’s intake desk where he could wear 

a face shield instead of a mask while pandemic protocols were in 

place. 

Adamson does not dispute that at the jail he was permitted 

to continue working as a police officer without having to wear a 

face mask. See Holly v. Clairson Indus., LLC, 492 F.3d 1247, 1256 

(11th Cir. 2007) (explaining that an accommodation is reasonable 

under the ADA if it enables the employee to perform the essential 

functions of the job). Even crediting Adamson’s claim that his 

request to return to his job was a specific request to return to 

patrol, the City was required to provide a reasonable 

accommodation, which it did, and was not required to provide 

Adamson’s specific preferred accommodation. See D’Onofrio v. 

Costco Wholesale Corp., 964 F.3d 1014, 1022 (11th Cir. 2020) (“[A]n 

employer is not required to accommodate an employee in any 

manner that the employee desires—or even provide that 

employee’s preferred accommodation.”). The ADA recognizes 

“reassignment” as a possible reasonable accommodation. See 42 

U.S.C. § 12111(9)(B); Frazier-White v. Gee, 818 F.3d 1249, 1255 (11th 

Cir. 2016). Given that there is no evidence supporting a finding 

that the City denied Adamson a reasonable accommodation, the 

district court did not err in granting summary judgment on his 

failure-to-accommodate claim.

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24-11201 Opinion of the Court 7

B. ADA Disparate Treatment Claim

Because Adamson relied on circumstantial evidence to 

prove his ADA disparate treatment claim, the district court applied 

the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. Under that 

framework, once the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of 

disability discrimination and the employer articulates a legitimate 

nondiscriminatory reason for its actions, the plaintiff must show 

that the employer’s reason was pretext for disability 

discrimination. Todd v. Fayette Cnty. Sch. Dist., 998 F.3d 1203, 1216-

18 (11th Cir. 2021). To prove pretext, the plaintiff must show both 

that the proffered reason is false and that the real reason is disability 

discrimination. Akridge v. Alfa Ins. Cos., 93 F.4th 1181, 1196 (11th 

Cir. 2024). 

The City proffered that it reassigned Adamson to the jail 

because he requested an accommodation not to wear a face mask 

during the pandemic, and the City determined that the jail was “a 

more controlled environment” than patrol “that would allow for 

the use of a face shield.” In particular, the City believed a face 

shield would not provide enough safety to the public or the patrol 

force because officers on patrol were required to move from 

location to location, responding to calls, and to enter homes, 

businesses, and hospitals. The district court concluded that 

Adamson “developed no evidence that the City’s reason was 

pretextual.”3 

3 The district court considered three additional employment actions that 

Adamson claimed were disability discrimination—limiting his movements at 

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8 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

While Adamson testified that some desk jobs at the precinct 

involved less exposure to other people than at the jail, he did not 

identify any particular job that was available in May 2020. And 

assignment decisions depended on availability and “staffing levels,” 

which the pandemic was disrupting at that time. Furthermore, the 

Police Chief testified that employees performing desk jobs at the 

precinct “still had to wear a mask.” It is axiomatic that Adamson 

cannot show pretext by substituting his business judgment for the 

City’s or “by simply quarreling with the wisdom of [its] reason.” 

See Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Devs., Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1265-66 (11th Cir. 

2010). 

Adamson did not present evidence that would allow a jury 

to find that the City’s reason for reassigning him to the jail was false 

and that the real reason was his PTSD. Thus, the district court did 

not err in granting summary judgment to the City on his disparatetreatment claim.4 

the jail, giving him different days off than other officers at the jail, and not 

returning all of his personal leave hours used in May before his reassignment. 

The district court concluded Adamson had not shown the City’s proffered 

reasons for these actions were pretextual. On appeal, because Adamson does 

not challenge the district court’s pretext analysis as to these other actions, we 

limit our review to Adamson’s reassignment to the jail. See Sapuppo v. Allstate 

Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678, 681 (11th Cir. 2014). 

4 Adamson never argued in the district court that he presented a “convincing 

mosaic” of circumstantial evidence of disability discrimination. To the extent 

he raises such an argument here for the first time, for the reasons discussed 

above, the circumstantial evidence Adamson relies upon would not otherwise 

permit an inference of discriminatory intent. 

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24-11201 Opinion of the Court 9

C. Title VII Race Discrimination Claim

Adamson challenges the district court’s determination that 

he failed to present any evidence of valid comparators, one of the 

elements of a prima facie case of race discrimination under the 

McDonnell Douglas framework. 

To establish the comparator element of a prima facie case, 

Adamson needed to present evidence that the City treated similarly 

situated non-white employees more favorably. See Lewis v. City of 

Union City (“Lewis I”), 918 F.3d 1213, 1220-21 (11th Cir. 2019) (en 

banc). To be a valid comparator, the non-white employee must be 

“similarly situated in all material respects,” such as someone who 

“engaged in the same basic conduct (or misconduct) as the 

plaintiff,” was subject to the same employment policies as the 

plaintiff, had the same supervisor, and “share[d] the plaintiff’s 

employment or disciplinary history.” Id. at 1226-28.

Adamson submitted several photographs of unnamed black 

officers “in the field” who were not wearing masks when the City’s 

mask requirement was in effect and testified that these officers 

were not disciplined or reassigned. All of the photographs were 

taken outside. Two photographs show groups of officers, both 

black and white, who are unmasked. Adamson also testified that 

two black officers, Officers Reese and Hunt, failed to wear a mask 

at roll call but were not “written up.” 

None of this evidence establishes a comparator who was 

“similarly situated in all material respects.” See id. First, it is 

undisputed that Adamson was never disciplined for failing or 

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10 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

refusing to wear a mask. Thus, to the extent black officers were 

not disciplined for failing to wear a mask, they were not treated any 

differently than Adamson. 

Second, the district court correctly pointed out that there 

was no evidence any other officer, like Adamson, requested an 

accommodation to be exempt from the mask requirement while 

on patrol. When asked at his deposition whether any of the black 

officers requested an accommodation related to the mask 

requirement, Adamson responded, “[N]ot to my knowledge.” 

Adamson also admitted he had no personal knowledge of the black 

officers’ disciplinary histories or who their commanding officers 

were at the time. Thus, Adamson failed to present evidence 

establishing that any of the black officers were similarly situated for 

purposes of his prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas. 

We also agree with the district court’s alternative conclusion 

that Adamson failed to present a “convincing mosaic” of 

discriminatory intent. See Lewis v. City of Union City (“Lewis II”), 934 

F.3d 1169, 1185 (11th Cir. 2019). The only other evidence 

Adamson relies on to prove race discrimination is the fact that all 

but one of his supervisors were black, including the Police Chief 

and the City’s Chief Compliance Officer who handled his 

accommodation request. But the mere fact that Adamson is white 

and his supervisors were black does not support a reasonable 

inference of discriminatory intent. See id. at 1185.

Because Adamson failed to present evidence of a valid 

comparator or any other evidence from which a jury could 

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24-11201 Opinion of the Court 11

reasonably infer discriminatory intent, the district court properly 

granted summary judgment to the City on his Title VII race 

discrimination claim. 

D. ADA Retaliation Claim

ADA retaliation claims based on circumstantial evidence are 

analyzed under the McDonnell Douglas framework. Todd, 998 F.3d 

at 1219.5 As part of the prima facie case, the plaintiff must show that 

his protected conduct—here Adamson’s ADA accommodation 

request—and the adverse employment action—his reassignment 

to the jail—were “causally related.” Id. This element “requires a 

showing of but-for causation.” Frazier-White, 818 F.3d at 1258. The 

causation element of the prima facie case can be established through 

a “very close” temporal proximity. Brown v. Ala. Dep’t of Transp., 

597 F.3d 1160, 1182 (11th Cir. 2010).

If the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the employer can 

overcome the presumption of retaliation by articulating a 

legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for the challenged action. Todd, 

5 Adamson’s ADA retaliation claim was based on his reassignment to the jail 

after making his accommodation request. His Title VII retaliation claim was 

based on his hearing notice received after he filed his EEOC charge. On 

appeal, Adamson’s brief makes a passing reference to his EEOC charge in his 

statement of the facts. But the portion of the brief devoted to retaliation does 

not mention his EEOC charge at all, much less rely on it as an instance of 

protected conduct or argue that he presented sufficient evidence for a jury to 

find that the City retaliated against him for filing it. Thus, on appeal Adamson 

forfeited any challenge to the district court’s entry of summary judgment on 

his Title VII retaliation claim. See Sapuppo, 739 F.3d at 681.

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990 F.3d at 1219. If the employer carries that burden, then the 

plaintiff must show that the employer’s proffered reason is “a 

pretextual ruse designed to mask retaliation.” Id. (quotation marks 

omitted). At this stage of the burden-shifting analysis, “temporal 

proximity by itself generally cannot prove that an employer’s 

proffered reasons are pretextual.” Id.

Here, Adamson was reassigned to the jail on June 3, 2020, 

seven days after he submitted his accommodation request on 

May 27, 2020.6 Adamson contends his reassignment to the jail was 

punishment for making an accommodation request about his 

refusal to wear a face mask on patrol. While this temporal 

proximity may be close enough to satisfy the causation 

requirement for a prima facie case, it is not sufficient by itself to 

prove that the City’s reason for reassigning him to the jail was 

pretext. See id. 

None of Adamson’s evidence shows that the City’s proffered 

reason was false or that the real reason was to retaliate for his 

accommodation request. As the district court aptly pointed out, 

this is especially true here where the City’s proffered reason for 

6 The parties dispute whether Adamson’s reassignment to the jail was

sufficiently adverse. We need not resolve this issue, however, because even 

assuming (as the district court did) that Adamson’s reassignment constituted 

an adverse employment action for prima facie case purposes, the district court 

correctly concluded that Adamson’s ADA retaliation claim failed at the pretext 

stage.

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24-11201 Opinion of the Court 13

Adamson’s reassignment was to grant his accommodation request, 

not deny it. 

Adamson identifies the two decisionmakers as the Police 

Chief and the City’s Chief Compliance Officer. That Compliance 

Officer testified that the jail was an appropriate option for 

Adamson’s reassignment because the jail “was under the police 

department” and police officers were assigned to work there. She 

said that she was unaware of claims that assignment to the jail was 

punishment. Similarly, the Police Chief testified that the jail was 

“just a normal assignment for any officer” and that he did not view 

it as punishment. 

In addition, both decisionmakers explained—consistently 

with each other and with their emails discussing Adamson’s 

request—that Adamson was reassigned to place him in a more 

controlled environment where his use of a face shield in lieu of a 

mask would pose less risk to the general public and the patrol force. 

Further, the fact that Adamson interacted with some members of 

the public inside the jail is not inconsistent with the City’s proffered 

reason.7 

Adamson points to his evidence that patrol officers 

considered reassignment to the jail a form of punishment when an 

officer was disciplined. None of this evidence involves a pandemic7 Adamson emphasizes that the two decisionmakers disagreed as to which one 

of them made the ultimate decision to reassign him. This fact is immaterial 

because both agreed on the reason for the reassignment.

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14 Opinion of the Court 24-11201

related reassignment to accommodate a request not to wear a face 

mask. In any event, this fact has no bearing on whether the City’s 

reason was pretextual. The pretext inquiry centers on the 

decisionmaker’s beliefs, not those of the employee. Todd, 998 F.3d at 

1218. Adamson presented no evidence that either decisionmaker 

regarded his reassignment to the jail as a punishment, rather than 

an ADA accommodation. 

Adamson’s evidence also does not raise a reasonable 

inference of retaliatory intent under the “convincing mosaic” 

approach. The close temporal proximity here does not amount to 

a “suspicious timing” given that the reassignment was a prompt 

response to Adamson’s accommodation request. See Berry v. 

Crestwood Healthcare LP, 84 F.4th 1300, 1311-12 (11th Cir. 2023). 

And Adamson does not point to any “ambiguous statements,” 

“systematically better treatment of similarly situated employees” 

or other circumstantial evidence usually associated with a 

“convincing mosaic” argument. See id.

IV. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, we find no error in the district court’s 

order granting summary judgment in favor of the City on 

Adamson’s ADA and Title VII claims. 

AFFIRMED.

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