Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-14-07051/USCOURTS-caDC-14-07051-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Greg Burley
Appellant
National Passenger Rail Corp.
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued March 20, 2015 Decided September 18, 2015 

No. 14-7051 

GREG BURLEY, 

APPELLANT

v. 

NATIONAL PASSENGER RAIL CORP., DOING BUSINESS AS 

AMTRAK, 

APPELLEE

Appeal from the United States District Court 

for the District of Columbia 

(No. 1:11-cv-01222) 

John F. Karl, Jr. argued the cause and filed the briefs for 

appellant. Kristen Grim Hughes entered an appearance. 

Andrew G. Sakallaris argued the cause for appellee. 

With him on the brief was Jonathan C. Fritts. 

Before: TATEL, KAVANAUGH and PILLARD, Circuit 

Judges. 

Opinion for the Court filed by Circuit Judge PILLARD. 

 

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PILLARD, Circuit Judge: Gregory Burley, an AfricanAmerican train engineer, claims that his employer, the 

National Passenger Railroad Corporation (Amtrak), 

discriminated against him because of his race in violation of 

Title VII and the District of Columbia Human Rights Act. 

After the engine Burley was driving passed a stop signal at 

the rail yard and was forced off the rails by a safety derailer, 

Amtrak fired him and suspended his engineer certificate. The 

district court granted Amtrak’s motion for summary 

judgment. Burley contends that was error because Amtrak’s 

entire investigation of the derailment was so patently flawed, 

and the discipline it imposed on him so disproportionate, that 

a jury could infer that Amtrak engaged in intentional racial 

discrimination. Amtrak defends the discipline on the ground 

that passing a signal in a work area is a serious infraction 

likely to cause serious injury or death to workers on or around 

the tracks, even if no one was injured in this case and the 

property damage was only modest. Amtrak also relies on the 

undisputed evidence that the official who decided on the 

severity of the discipline was unaware of Burley’s race. We 

have carefully examined the record and Burley’s arguments. 

Because no jury could reasonably conclude based on the 

evidence in the record that Amtrak was motivated by Burley’s 

race to take the adverse actions of which he complains, we 

affirm. 

I. Background 

At the time of the accident, Burley worked as an engineer 

at Amtrak’s Ivy City Maintenance Facility, a rail yard in 

Washington, D.C., where he moved rail cars around the 

facility as needed for maintenance and repair. Burley’s work 

was governed by the Northeast Operating Rules Advisory 

Committee Operating Rules (NORAC Rules). NORAC Rule 

16 states that the engineer must not allow the train to pass a 

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blue signal—a type of rail-yard stop sign indicating that 

workers may be on or near the track ahead and that continuing 

forward may cause serious injury or death. A blue signal 

typically consists of a blue metal flag and a flashing blue light 

to make it visible in the dark, but an engineer must stop for a 

blue signal even if there is no blue light. Blue signals may be 

accompanied by derailers, which are additional safety devices 

to protect track workers. Sometimes a blue light that 

accompanies a blue signal flag is affixed to a nearby wall, and 

sometimes a blue light is attached to the signal itself. When, 

for whatever reason, an engine fails to stop for a blue signal, a 

derailer, if present and in an “applied” position, forces the 

engine off the track before it hits anyone. NORAC Rule 

104(d) requires engineers to know the locations of permanent 

derailers and prohibits an engineer from operating over an 

applied derailer. 

In the early morning darkness of October 20, 2007, the 

engine Burley was driving at the Ivy City yard derailed. 

Burley was working with Conductor Jerry Ebersole, a white 

male, and Assistant Conductor Lawrence Mahalak. Near the 

end of their shift, the crew was instructed to move a train car 

that had undergone maintenance work on Track 7 in the 

Service and Inspection Building. As the engine approached 

Track 7 to retrieve the repaired car, Ebersole instructed 

Mahalak to dismount the engine and walk ahead in order to 

prepare the car to be towed out. Ebersole threw switches on 

the track, boarded the train, and instructed Burley to go 

forward. 

As the train moved along Track 7, Ebersole dismounted 

the slowly moving train, intending to walk ahead of the train 

to the Service and Inspection Building. Ebersole stepped 

down from the front edge of the engine where Burley could 

not see him, and did not tell Burley that he had left the train or 

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that the engine was approaching an applied derailer on the 

track. It is undisputed that Burley’s view of the derailer just 

ahead was blocked, given his position on the engine and the 

curve of the track. According to Burley, he did not see any 

blue signal on the track as he approached, and he noticed that 

the blue lights on the outside of the service building were not 

illuminated (as they should have been if a blue signal were 

displayed on the track). Shortly after Ebersole exited the 

train, Burley ran over the derailer and the train derailed. 

Nobody was hurt, and the property damage was not extensive. 

Because of the potential for harm to track workers, 

however, it is undisputed that Amtrak considers any bluesignal infraction to be extremely serious. Leslie David Smith, 

Burley’s supervisor in the Transportation Department and the 

senior Amtrak supervisor on duty at the time of the 

derailment, who is white, convened an incident committee to 

investigate. The other two members of the committee, an 

assistant superintendent in the Mechanical Department and a 

track supervisor in the Engineering Department, are African 

American. Smith inspected the scene, took photographs, 

interviewed the crew, and discussed the incident with other 

members of the Transportation Department. J.A. 153-55, 

405-06. Smith recounted that he observed a blue flag and a 

blue light, still flashing, underneath the derailed engine. He 

concluded in the committee report that the blue signal was 

displayed on the track at the time of the derailment, and that 

Burley had passed through the blue signal and over the 

derailer. Smith reported that Ebersole had exited the engine 

before the derailment. Smith apparently remained unaware, 

however, that Ebersole failed to tell Burley when Ebersole left 

the engine. Smith concluded that Burley violated safety rules.

Amtrak brought formal disciplinary charges against 

Burley and Ebersole. Each of them requested a “waiver”—a 

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dispensation available under Amtrak’s disciplinary rules to an 

employee who accepts responsibility for a rule violation and 

forgoes the right to a formal investigation in exchange for a 

lesser penalty. Amtrak granted Ebersole’s request for a 

waiver, but denied Burley’s. A hearing officer then held a 

formal disciplinary hearing on the charges against Burley. At 

the hearing, Burley’s union represented him, and he had an 

opportunity to testify and cross-examine Amtrak’s witnesses. 

The hearing officer, relying in large part on Smith’s 

testimony, concluded that the evidence demonstrated that the 

blue signal was correctly displayed and that the charges 

against Burley had been proven. 

Amtrak transmitted the incident committee’s report and 

the formal hearing record to Daryl Pesce, Amtrak’s General 

Superintendent of the Mid-Atlantic Division, who was 

responsible for imposing discipline. Pesce was unaware of 

Burley’s race. He reviewed the hearing officer’s decision, the 

hearing transcript, and Smith’s report and concluded that 

Burley’s “carelessness in disregarding a Blue Signal created 

the risk of serious injury or death and thus warranted 

termination” and a thirty-day suspension of his engineer 

certificate. Pesce Decl. (J.A. 249). 

Burley appealed internally to Amtrak’s Director of Labor 

Relations, who denied the appeal, and then externally to 

Special Board of Adjustment 948, which concluded that 

Burley committed the violation, but reinstated him (with 

seniority but without back pay). Burley appealed the 

suspension of his engineer’s certificate to the Federal Railroad 

Administration’s Locomotive Engineer Review Board. The 

Locomotive Engineer Review Board found a lack of 

substantial evidence that a blue signal was properly displayed 

before the derailment, and therefore overturned the 

certification suspension. 

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After exhausting other remedies, Burley sued Amtrak for 

racial discrimination, seeking, among other relief, two years’ 

worth of back pay. The district court granted summary 

judgment to Amtrak, Burley v. Nat’l Passenger Rail Corp., 33 

F. Supp. 3d 61 (D.D.C. 2014), and Burley timely appealed. 

II. Legal Standards 

 Our review of a district court’s grant of summary 

judgment is de novo. Calhoun v. Johnson, 632 F.3d 1259, 

1261 (D.C. Cir. 2011). 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 moving party is entitled to summary 

judgment if the nonmoving party “fails to make a showing 

sufficient to establish the existence of an element essential to 

that party’s case, and on which that party will bear the burden 

of proof at trial.” Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322 

(1986). A dispute about a material fact is “‘genuine’ . . . if the 

evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict 

for the nonmoving party.” Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 

477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986). In considering a motion for 

summary judgment, the court views the evidence in the light 

most favorable to the nonmoving party and draws all 

reasonable inferences in its favor. Calhoun, 632 F.3d at 1261. 

This court, like the district court, may not make credibility 

determinations or weigh the evidence. Id. 

 Amtrak’s position is that it disciplined Burley based on 

an investigation showing what it considers to be an extremely 

serious infraction of safety rules, and that Burley’s race had 

nothing to do with it. In a Title VII action, once an employer 

has offered a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the 

challenged employment decision, the court’s inquiry focuses 

on “one central question: Has the employee produced 

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sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find that the 

employer’s asserted non-discriminatory reason was not the 

actual reason and that the employer intentionally 

discriminated against the employee on the basis of race, color, 

religion, sex, or national origin?” Brady v. Office of the 

Sergeant at Arms, 520 F.3d 490, 494 (D.C. Cir. 2008). To 

answer that question at the summary judgment stage, the court 

assesses whether “there is evidence from which a reasonable 

jury could find that the employer’s stated reason for the firing 

is pretext” and that “unlawful discrimination was at work.” 

Barnett v. PA Consulting Grp., Inc., 715 F.3d 354, 358 (D.C. 

Cir. 2013). The analysis is the same for Burley’s claim under 

the District of Columbia Human Rights Act (DCHRA). See

id. Burley’s Title VII claims and DCHRA claims thus rise 

and fall together. 

Burley seeks to show that Amtrak’s proffered reason for 

its discipline of Burley was pretextual. He contends that 

Smith’s investigation arrived at conclusions so erroneous and 

contrary to the evidence—especially concerning the location 

and condition of any blue signal—as to suggest 

discrimination. The investigation’s failure to examine what 

Burley characterizes as key, exculpatory videotape evidence 

was, in Burley’s view, itself a ground on which a jury could 

find that Amtrak discriminated. Burley asserts that the 

investigation as a whole was little more than a shoddy coverup for the real, discriminatory reason for his discipline. 

A plaintiff can establish that an employer’s stated reason 

for the adverse employment action was a pretext for 

discrimination by showing that “the employer is making up or 

lying about the underlying facts that formed the predicate for 

the employment decision.” Brady, 520 F.3d at 495. “If the 

jury can infer that the employer’s explanation is not only a 

mistaken one in terms of the facts, but a lie, that should 

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provide even stronger evidence of discrimination.” Aka v. 

Wash. Hosp. Ctr., 156 F.3d 1284, 1293 (D.C. Cir. 1998) (en 

banc). A plaintiff might also establish pretext with evidence 

that a factual determination underlying an adverse 

employment action is egregiously wrong, because “if the 

employer made an error too obvious to be unintentional, 

perhaps it had an unlawful motive for doing so.” Fischbach 

v. D.C. Dep’t of Corr., 86 F.3d 1180, 1183 (D.C. Cir. 1996). 

An employer’s investigation that is so unsystematic and 

incomplete that a factfinder could conclude that the employer 

sought, not to discover the truth, but to cover up its own 

discrimination can also permit a factfinder to find pretext. 

See Mastro v. Potomac Elec. Power Co., 447 F.3d 843, 855 

(D.C. Cir. 2006). Our purpose in smoking out pretextual 

employer rationales is to discern whether prohibited 

discrimination may be a real reason for the challenged action. 

A false “mistake” or obvious omission can itself bespeak 

discrimination. 

Burley also points to the relatively lenient treatment of 

other, white employees whom he views as similarly situated 

to him as confirmation that his discipline was unjustifiably 

harsh based on his race. Evidence suggesting that the 

employer treated similarly situated persons who were not the 

same race as the plaintiff more favorably than it treated the 

plaintiff can also be probative of discrimination. See Brady, 

520 F.3d at 495. 

III. Analysis

 Burley contends that the summary judgment record could 

support a conclusion that Amtrak’s stated reason for 

disciplining him was pretextual, that Smith’s investigation 

was racially motivated, and that Smith’s tainted investigation 

affected Amtrak’s subsequent decisions to discipline him. 

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Specifically, Burley contends that Smith conducted an 

incomplete and unfair investigation and presented misleading 

and false conclusions that disproportionately laid the blame 

on Burley as compared to Ebersole, the white conductor on 

duty. Burley asserts that the less harsh discipline Amtrak 

imposed on white employees for what he characterizes as 

comparable disciplinary infractions confirms that its treatment 

of him was racially biased. 

To succeed on his claim, Burley must establish that his 

race was a motivating factor in Amtrak’s adverse action 

against him. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 

530 U.S. 133, 148-49 (2000). As is frequently true, even of 

successful discrimination cases, there is no direct evidence 

here—neither documentary nor testimonial—of racial bias. 

Indeed, there is no evidence that Amtrak’s final decision 

maker on Burley’s discipline, General Superintendent Pesce, 

was even aware of Burley’s race. Burley does not dispute that 

Pesce was unaware that Burley is African American; rather, 

he contends that Smith’s discriminatory animus infected the 

disciplinary process such that discrimination was a significant 

cause of the discipline Pesce imposed. Pesce was, in Burley’s 

view, an unwitting but effective agent of Smith’s 

discrimination. 

Burley thus invokes a combination of a cat’s paw theory 

and circumstantial evidence of racial discrimination. The 

Supreme Court set forth the standard for prevailing on a cat’s 

paw theory in Staub v. Proctor Hospital, 131 S. Ct. 1186 

(2011).1

 The plaintiff in Staub did not contend that the 

 

1

 Although Staub was not a Title VII case—it involved 

discrimination based on the employee’s military obligations in 

violation of the Uniformed Services Employment and 

Reemployment Rights Act of 1994, 38 U.S.C. § 4311—we have 

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manager who made the ultimate decision to fire him harbored 

the prohibited motive, but that his direct supervisors did, and 

that those supervisors’ bias influenced the ultimate decision 

maker. Id. at 1190. Staub held that a plaintiff could prevail 

on such a theory “if [1] a supervisor performs an act 

motivated by [discriminatory] animus, [2] that is intended by 

the supervisor to cause an adverse employment action, and 

...[3] that act is a proximate cause of the ultimate 

employment action.” Id. at 1194. Because Burley’s case 

founders on the absence of evidence raising a reasonable 

inference that Smith was motivated even in part by racial 

discrimination, we need not separately analyze the causal 

factors. 

A. 

Smith’s conclusions should not be credited, Burley 

asserts, because Smith drew falsely inculpatory inferences 

against Burley from the physical evidence and witness 

accounts at the scene. The principal evidence on which 

Smith’s investigative committee relied to conclude that 

Burley violated the safety rules was that, shortly after the 

accident, Smith found (and photographed) a visibly bent blue 

signal alongside a detached blinking blue light underneath the 

derailed engine. J.A. 155-56, 358-59. Based on what he saw 

and what eyewitnesses reported, Smith inferred that a blue 

signal had been correctly displayed. J.A. 366-67. 

Burley seeks to impugn Smith’s conclusion by noting 

that Smith did not see the derailment, whereas Burley was 

present and observed no blue signal. Burley also contends 

that if a blue flag and light had been in place and an engine 

struck them, they would have been destroyed, not merely bent 

 

acknowledged its relevance in the Title VII context. See Hampton 

v. Vilsack, 685 F.3d 1096, 1102 (D.C. Cir. 2012). 

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as Smith reported. In Burley’s view, the Locomotive 

Engineer Review Board’s conclusion that substantial evidence 

did not show that the blue signal was properly displayed is yet 

another sign that Smith’s contrary conclusion was racially 

motivated. 

 Burley’s analysis of the record falls short of identifying 

grounds on which a factfinder reasonably could conclude that 

Amtrak’s stated rationale for disciplining him was a pretext 

for racial discrimination. We fully credit that a jury might 

fairly believe Burley’s testimony that he did not see any blue 

signal in place. We accept that a plaintiff’s own firsthand 

observations of relevant facts are probative evidence, and that 

we must not set them aside merely because they come from a 

party who necessarily has a stake in the outcome. The 

Locomotive Engineer Review Board’s assessment of the 

weight of the evidence bolsters Burley’s contention that there 

was no blue signal in place and suggests that a jury might 

similarly conclude that Smith erred in determining that Burley 

had crossed a displayed blue signal. In the circumstances of 

this case, however, the plausibility of those differing 

observations and inferences is not, without more, grounds on 

which a reasonable jury could conclude that Smith was so far 

off base as to suggest that he acted with a racial motive. 

B. 

Burley next argues that bias can be inferred because 

Smith intentionally failed to disclose a mitigating fact about 

the derailment in his investigative report and hearing 

testimony. According to Burley’s uncontradicted testimony, 

train conductor Ebersole stepped off the engine without 

warning him, leaving Burley unaware that Ebersole was not in 

a position to signal to Burley that there was a displayed blue 

signal and an applied derailer on the track ahead. J.A. 517-

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18. According to Burley, if Ebersole had told him that he was 

exiting the train, the accident would not have happened. 

Smith never mentioned in either his investigative report or his 

testimony at Burley’s disciplinary hearing, however, the fact 

that Burley did not know that Ebersole was out of position at 

the time of the accident. Burley argues that is because Smith 

consciously omitted it for racially discriminatory reasons. 

Burley’s argument fails because there is no evidence that 

Smith knew Burley was unaware of Ebersole’s position. 

Ebersole did not tell Smith when Smith interviewed him 

shortly after the incident that he left the train without telling 

Burley. J.A. 633-41. Burley did not testify at his deposition 

that he or anyone else to his knowledge ever told Smith that 

Burley was unaware that Ebersole was out of position. 

Burley’s union representative did not cross-examine Smith at 

Burley’s disciplinary hearing about Smith’s failure to include 

that fact in his report. Smith testified at his deposition that he 

did not know that Ebersole had exited the train without 

informing Burley. J.A. 161. Burley’s counsel, by postargument letter, notes that “[t]here is no direct evidence in the 

record that Smith knew,” see Burley 28(j) Letter (Mar. 26, 

2015), and despite the opportunity for Burley and his 

representative to develop the point, the record is devoid of 

even a circumstantial basis from which to infer that Smith 

knew when he investigated and testified at Burley’s hearing 

that Burley thought Ebersole was still on the train with him at 

the time of the accident and so would have warned him of any 

signal or applied derailer ahead. Smith’s withholding of 

mitigating evidence of which he was unaware could not 

support a determination that Smith acted with racial bias. 

 

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C. 

Burley next contends that a reasonable jury could 

conclude that Smith’s investigation was so incomplete, 

unsystematic, or biased as to suggest that Smith discriminated 

against Burley on the basis of his race. An investigation that 

“lack[s] the careful, systematic assessments of credibility” of 

the witnesses and evidence “one would expect in an inquiry 

on which an employee’s reputation and livelihood depended” 

may give rise to an inference that the employer’s reasons are a 

pretext for discrimination. Mastro, 447 F.3d at 855. A 

reasonable jury can conclude that an employer’s reasons were 

pretextual and that discrimination was afoot if a plaintiff can 

show that an employer’s “investigation, which was central to 

and culminated in [the plaintiff’s] termination, was not just 

flawed but inexplicably unfair.” Id. 

Smith took a number of steps one would expect of an 

investigator who sincerely sought to determine what actually 

happened. Within hours of the event, Smith interviewed all of 

the relevant witnesses and took their written statements. He 

formed an incident committee, inspected the accident site, and 

took photos. Smith questioned Burley and the other people 

who were working at or near the site of the derailment about 

precisely what had happened, and wrote a report that resulted 

in significant formal charges against both Burley and 

Ebersole. 

Burley has identified one investigatory step he contends 

Smith should have taken but did not: Smith should have 

reviewed videotape of the derailment. It is unclear, however, 

whether any such videotape existed. The union representative 

who appeared on Burley’s behalf at his disciplinary hearing 

contended that he was “told” in advance of the hearing “that 

security camera video of the incident existed” and that the 

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employee responsible for monitoring the recording equipment 

later told him “that AMTRAK had erased the tapes.” J.A. 332 

¶ 4. Another employee testified in a deposition that “there 

should have been video of everything that went on,” “that if 

there was a derailment, [a group of Amtrak personnel] looked 

at those videos,” and that “nine times out of ten” Smith would 

have reviewed videotape if there was a derailment. J.A. 420, 

422, 423. But that witness acknowledged that he never saw 

any video of the derailment at issue here, did not see Smith 

view the video, did not know how many cameras there were 

or where they were placed, and did not know how long any 

tapes would be preserved. He asserted “I’m not the video 

man,” and identified by name and home town the long-term 

Amtrak employee who “was in control of the whole video 

system from beginning to the end of it.” J.A. 420. Burley did 

not seek to depose that employee or anyone at Amtrak who 

could speak authoritatively about video recordings, if any, of 

the yard when the derailment occurred. 

Even assuming that a relevant video recording existed, 

Smith’s failure to review it does not support an inference that 

Smith’s actions were motivated by race. Burley has not 

identified any fact that he believes the recording would have 

revealed that might have affected the disciplinary 

proceedings. The key factual omission Burley cites in 

Smith’s investigation was Smith’s failure to take into account 

that Burley was unaware that Ebersole had departed the 

engine. Smith acknowledged that Ebersole was not on the 

engine. Even a clear and well lit video taken at close range 

would not have revealed what Burley knew about Ebersole’s 

whereabouts. Smith’s investigation was not unreliable or 

otherwise “inexplicably unfair” without the video recording. 

See Mastro, 447 F.3d at 855. In the absence of any reason to 

think that a videotape could have revealed any material 

information, no reasonable jury could conclude that failing to 

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obtain and review it was an error so obvious it must have been 

intentional. See Fischbach, 86 F.3d at 1183.2

D. 

Finally, Burley claims that Amtrak disciplined him 

significantly more harshly than other, similarly situated white 

employees whom he asserts committed infractions of 

comparable or greater gravity, and that such differential 

treatment could lead a reasonable jury to find that Amtrak 

acted with a racially discriminatory motive. Burley first 

points to Ebersole, the white conductor who was involved in 

the same derailment, whom Burley claims bore more 

responsibility for it than he did. Amtrak denied Burley’s 

request for a waiver and terminated him. By contrast, Amtrak 

granted Ebersole a waiver and suspended him for only fifteen 

days. Burley also identifies six white engineers who received 

more lenient discipline than he did for infractions he views as 

more serious. Amtrak’s more lenient treatment of Ebersole, 

and of white engineers in other incidents comparable to his 

own, Burley contends, evinces Amtrak’s racially 

 

2

 The non-probativeness of potential video evidence to the issue 

Burley seeks to dispute defeats Burley’s request for a spoliation 

inference. Burley argues that Amtrak’s failure to produce any 

videotape of the derailment warrants a negative inference that 

Amtrak destroyed videotapes because they were favorable to 

Burley. We have recognized that “a negative inference may be 

justified where the defendant has destroyed potentially relevant 

evidence.” Gerlich v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice, 711 F.3d 161, 170 

(D.C. Cir. 2013). But, in addition to failing to make the case that 

there were any tapes of the derailment that were destroyed, Burley 

identifies no factual ground for concluding that Smith’s failure to 

review tapes was such an obvious error as to support a 

discrimination finding, so no spoliation inference is warranted. 

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discriminatory motive and should have precluded summary 

judgment in Amtrak’s favor. 

The primary flaw in Burley’s attempt to show pretext 

through comparator evidence is that it is undisputed that the 

Amtrak supervisors who denied the waiver and disciplined 

Burley did not know his race. The only individuals involved 

in Burley’s disciplinary process with the power to grant or 

deny a waiver were General Superintendent Pesce and 

Superintendent Michael Sherlock, Pesce’s immediate 

subordinate. Either Pesce or Sherlock denied Burley’s waiver 

request, though the record does not make clear who. (The 

record on the waiver issue is sparse because the collective 

bargaining agreement prohibited Amtrak from keeping formal 

records about waiver decisions, and nobody at Amtrak recalls 

deciding Burley’s or Ebersole’s waiver request.) Pesce 

decided Burley’s punishment after his disciplinary hearing. 

Burley’s race could not have influenced either the decision to 

deny Burley a waiver or the decision to discharge him and 

suspend his engineer’s certificate, for it is undisputed that 

neither Pesce nor Sherlock knew Burley’s race. See J.A. 195, 

282-83 ¶ 59, 300 ¶ 59. 

Burley counters with his cat’s paw theory: Even without 

knowing Burley’s race, Pesce and Sherlock discriminated 

against him because they relied on Smith’s investigation and 

hearing testimony and thereby unwittingly gave effect to 

Smith’s bias in meting out the discipline. See Griffin v. 

Washington Convention Ctr., 142 F.3d 1308, 1312 (D.C. Cir. 

1998). As we explain above, however, that theory fails 

because Burley has not introduced evidence that could 

persuade a reasonable jury that Smith discriminated against 

Burley. 

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Burley does not dispute that Amtrak took blue signal 

violations particularly seriously in order to protect the safety 

of employees working on and around the tracks. Pesce and 

Sherlock each testified that he would have denied an 

engineer’s waiver request in the case of a blue signal 

violation, especially where the engineer did not accept 

responsibility, because of the severity of such an infraction. 

J.A. 183-84, 195. Pesce testified that, for the same reason, 

termination and suspension of the engineer’s certificate was 

the appropriate discipline under those circumstances. 

Burley invokes comparator evidence in an effort to 

undercut those explanations. A plaintiff can establish pretext 

masking a discriminatory motive by presenting “evidence 

suggesting that the employer treated other employees of a 

different race . . . more favorably in the same factual 

circumstances.” Brady, 520 F.3d at 495. Amtrak’s more 

lenient disciplinary treatment of white employees who 

violated Amtrak rules does not support the inference that 

Pesce and Sherlock discriminated against Burley on account 

of his race, however, because the white employees he 

identifies are not similarly situated to him. To prove that he is 

similarly situated to another employee, a plaintiff “must 

demonstrate that [he] and the allegedly similarly situated . . . 

employee were charged with offenses of comparable 

seriousness.” Holbrook v. Reno, 196 F.3d 255, 261 (D.C. Cir. 

1999) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see 

Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 846-47 (7th Cir. 2012). 

“A plaintiff must also demonstrate that ‘all of the relevant 

aspects of [his] employment situation were nearly identical to 

those of the [other]’ employee.” Holbrook, 196 F.3d at 261 

(quoting Neuren v. Adduci, Mastriani, Meeks & Schill, 43 

F.3d 1507, 1514 (D.C. Cir. 1995)). Factors that bear on 

whether someone is an appropriate comparator include the 

similarity of the plaintiff’s and the putative comparator’s jobs 

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and job duties, whether they were disciplined by the same 

supervisor, and, in cases involving discipline, the similarity of 

their offenses. See Coleman, 667 F.3d at 847. 

Ebersole is not an apt comparator because Burley has 

failed to demonstrate that he and Ebersole were similarly 

situated. Burley and Ebersole had different roles and, 

consequently, bore different responsibility for causing the 

derailment. As a conductor, Ebersole was responsible for 

overseeing the train and the crew; Burley, the engineer, was 

responsible for operating the engine. The rules required that 

Ebersole stay in a position where he could signal Burley; they 

required that Burley stop the train if the conductor was not in 

a position to signal to him. J.A. 336. Ebersole’s 

responsibility, if any, for the derailment derived from his 

failure to be in position. Burley’s responsibility, in contrast, 

stemmed from his driving the train over an applied derailer. 

Given the undisputed evidence of their distinct roles and the 

different nature of their violations, Burley has not genuinely 

disputed the reasonableness of Amtrak’s decision to treat 

Burley as more culpable for the accident than Ebersole. 

The other comparator evidence also fails to defeat 

Amtrak’s summary judgment motion because Burley is 

unable to demonstrate either that other white employees were 

found to have committed offenses of comparable seriousness, 

or that they were differently disciplined by the same 

supervisors who disciplined Burley. Not one of the white 

engineers he identified crossed a blue signal. Most did not 

commit offenses of even arguably comparable seriousness. 

Only one derailed a train, and he was not disciplined by Pesce 

or Sherlock. Burley’s proffered comparator evidence thus 

cannot permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that 

Amtrak’s nondiscriminatory reason for disciplining Burley for 

passing a blue signal more harshly than it disciplined other, 

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white employees who committed different infractions was a 

pretext for discrimination. 

Burley contends that the mere fact that two employees 

had different titles and duties does not necessarily undermine 

the probative value of their different treatment. Burley is, as a 

general matter, correct. He relies on cases, including 

Coleman, 667 F.3d at 849, in which employees with different 

responsibilities and titles nonetheless engaged in similar 

conduct and were governed by the same rules and standards. 

But Burley’s situation is different. Burley’s conduct as 

Amtrak reasonably understood it at the time, together with the 

high stakes of a blue signal violation, carried enhanced 

culpability. For all of these reasons, Amtrak’s more serious 

discipline of Burley as compared to the other, white 

employees he identifies as putative comparators could not 

support a jury conclusion that Amtrak discriminated against 

Burley based on his race. 

 Drawing every justifiable inference in Burley’s favor, as 

we must, we find no basis in the record upon which a 

reasonable factfinder could conclude that whatever 

investigative flaws or unfairness Burley may have suffered 

relating to this incident were so unexplained or otherwise 

striking as to suggest that Amtrak was motivated by Burley’s 

race to discipline him. 

* * *

For the foregoing reasons we affirm the decision of the 

district court. 

 So ordered. 

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