Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03996/USCOURTS-ca8-04-03996-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Colleen C. Quick
Appellant
Wal-Mart Stores
Appellee

Document Text:

1

The Honorable Fernando J. Gaitan, Jr., United States District Judge for the

Western District of Missouri. 

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 04-3996

___________

Colleen C. Quick, *

*

Appellant, *

* Appeal from the United States

v. * District Court for the

* Western District of Missouri.

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., *

*

Appellee. *

___________

Submitted: December 15, 2005

Filed: March 24, 2006

___________

Before WOLLMAN, LAY, and RILEY, Circuit Judges.

___________

WOLLMAN, Circuit Judge.

Colleen Quick appeals from the district court’s1

 grant of summary judgment to

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (Wal-Mart) on her pregnancy-based employment discrimination

claim. Quick alleges violations of the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, 42 U.S.C. §

2000e(k), and the Missouri Human Rights Act, Mo. Rev. Stat. §§ 213.010-213.095.

We affirm.

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Quick worked at the Cameron, Missouri, Wal-Mart from 1993 until she was

terminated on August 7, 2000. In September 1995, Quick began working in WalMart’s photo lab, which was managed by Mary Stewart. When Stewart left her

position in 1996, Wal-Mart promoted Quick to photo lab manager. Quick’s duties

included supervising the associates in the photo division and instructing them as to

Wal-Mart’s policies. 

The Wal-Mart photo lab operates under its own management hierarchy. The

photo lab manager reports directly to the district manager for the photo division rather

than to the store manager. In 1999, Debra Hoover became the district manager of the

photo division and Quick’s direct supervisor. David Smart was the store manager at

the Cameron, Missouri, Wal-Mart from 1998 until Quick’s termination. 

To increase business at the Cameron Wal-Mart, Stewart offered certain

organizations and individuals two-for-one pricing on film development. Stewart

maintained a list of eligible customers in a notebook in the photo lab. As photo lab

manager, Quick continued this practice and added two high schools to the list of

participants. 

In January 2000, Wal-Mart advised its employees in the photo lab division that

the district manager for the photo division must approve the use of the “second set free

promotion.” J.A. at 473-74. With this policy, Wal-Mart intended to eliminate the

photo lab manager’s discretion to unilaterally implement promotions or discounts.

Quick stated in her affidavit, “Wal-Mart management announced that the club cards,

key chains, and two-for-one promotions would be discontinued. I understood the

policy to mean that with approval, I could continue offering two-for-one photos.” J.A.

at 316. Quick never asked Hoover for permission to continue the discount. 

In February 2000, a photo lab associate met with Hoover to complain about

Quick’s work habits. Around the time of the complaint, Hoover and Smart met with

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Quick to discuss associate complaints, photo lab issues, and Quick’s vacation and

maternity leave. During that meeting, Hoover and Smart told Quick that it was not

“good management sense” to take twelve weeks of maternity leave. J.A. at 86. They

also criticized Quick for planning to take vacation time in March and April of 2000.

Quick took a twelve-week leave of absence for the birth of her child beginning

on May 12, 2000. Two weeks before Quick’s planned return from maternity leave,

Hoover met with Quick and told her that she did not expect Quick to return. Hoover

also asked whether Quick had made child care arrangements. Quick assured Hoover

that she would return to work as scheduled and that she had already arranged for day

care. Sometime after this meeting, Hoover met with the associates in the photo lab to

discuss helping Quick transition from leave back to her management position. 

Teresa Delano, a photo lab manager from the Excelsior Springs Wal-Mart,

served as interim photo lab manager from about July 7, 2000, until Quick returned to

work. Shortly after Delano started working at the Cameron Wal-Mart photo lab, a

customer asked for the two-for-one discount on film development. Delano knew that

Wal-Mart eliminated special pricing in the photo lab and refused to give the discount.

In response to the customer’s persistence, Delano asked a photo lab associate about

the discount and learned that Quick maintained a two-for-one discount for certain

customers. Delano reported this information to Hoover and gave Hoover the notebook

containing the list of eligible customers. Prior to Delano’s report, neither Smart nor

Hoover knew that Quick was offering this discount.

Hoover investigated Quick’s practice of special discounts. Several associates

in the photo lab division confirmed that Quick instructed them to offer discounts to

the customers listed in the notebook. Hoover asked Scott Matchell, the district loss

prevention supervisor, to interview Quick. Matchell interviewed Quick when she

returned from maternity leave on August 7, 2000. Matchell recommended that Quick

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be terminated because she admitted violating Wal-Mart policy and because her

conduct amounted to a theft of services and implicated her integrity. 

Hoover contacted Barbara Kulwicki, regional personnel manager for the WalMart photo division. Pursuant to company policy, the regional personnel manager

must approve a district manager’s decision to terminate management employees.

Hoover explained that Quick admitted to intentionally violating Wal-Mart’s policies.

Kulwicki directed Hoover to terminate Quick. At a second meeting on August 7,

2000, Smart terminated Quick for gross misconduct. 

We review de novo the district court’s grant of summary judgment, viewing the

evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Zhuang v. Datacard

Corp., 414 F.3d 849, 854 (8th Cir. 2005). Summary judgment is proper only where

there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment

as a matter of law. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c); Zhuang, 414 F.3d at 854. 

Quick contends that the district court erred in granting summary judgment on

her pregnancy discrimination claim against Wal-Mart because she presented direct

evidence of unlawful discrimination. Specifically, she argues that the criticism she

received for taking twelve weeks of maternity leave and Hoover’s statement that she

did not expect Quick to return from maternity leave constituted direct evidence of

discrimination. We disagree. “[D]irect evidence is evidence showing a specific link

between the alleged discriminatory animus and the challenged decision, sufficient to

support a finding by a reasonable fact finder that an illegitimate criterion actually

motivated the adverse employment action.” Griffith v. City of Des Moines, 387 F.3d

733, 736 (8th Cir. 2004) (internal quotations omitted). Direct evidence of

employment discrimination must be distinguished from stray remarks in the

workplace, statements by nondecisionmakers, or statements by decisionmakers

unrelated to the decisional process. Clearwater v. Indep. Sch. Dist. No. 166, 231 F.3d

1122, 1126 (8th Cir. 2000). When Hoover and Smart told Quick that it was a bad

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management decision to take twelve weeks of leave, it was in the context of a broader

management meeting addressing a myriad of associate complaints and photo lab

issues. Further, this meeting was held five months before Quick was terminated.

Even when coupled with Hoover’s later statement that she was surprised that Quick

would be returning from work, these statements are not sufficiently related to Quick’s

termination to constitute direct evidence of discriminatory motive. Because she has

failed to establish a causal link between management’s statements and her termination,

we conclude that Quick has not presented direct evidence of pregnancy

discrimination. 

Quick has also failed to establish indirect evidence of unlawful pregnancy

discrimination. To survive summary judgment under the burden-shifting approach of

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), the plaintiff must establish

a prima facie case of employment discrimination. Id. at 802. If established, the

employer may advance a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee’s

discharge. Id. The burden of production then returns to the plaintiff to show that the

employer’s reason is a pretext for pregnancy discrimination. Id. at 804. 

Assuming that Quick presented a prima facie case under McDonnell Douglas,

we must consider whether Wal-Mart presented a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason

for Quick’s termination. Wal-Mart asserts that Quick was terminated for knowingly

violating company policy by offering two-for-one discounts to certain customers for

film development. In her affidavit, Quick acknowledged that the use of two-for-one

discounts had been discontinued in January 2000 and that she interpreted the policy

to mean that, with management’s approval, she could continue giving the discount.

The parties agree that Quick never sought express permission from Hoover or any

other manager after Wal-Mart announced that it was discontinuing certain photo lab

promotions. Accordingly, we conclude that Wal-Mart presented a legitimate,

nondiscriminatory reason for Quick’s termination.

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This case, then, turns on whether Quick presented a trial-worthy claim of

pretext. We conclude that she did not. At first glance, the timing of Wal-Mart’s

decision to terminate seems suspicious, but “we have been hesitant to find pretext or

discrimination on temporal proximity alone.” Sprenger v. Fed. Home Loan Bank of

Des Moines, 253 F.3d 1106, 1114 (8th Cir. 2001). Quick was terminated the day she

returned from maternity leave, but that termination followed Wal-Mart’s discovery

and investigation of the two-for-one discount, Hoover’s consultations with Kulwicki

and Matchell, and management’s two meetings with Quick. Even considering the

temporal proximity in conjunction with management’s comments addressed above and

Quick’s allegation that Wal-Mart conducted an insufficient investigation and offered

inconsistent explanations for her termination, the evidence Quick presented did not

sufficiently undermine Wal-Mart’s justification to create a material question of fact

as to pretext. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court’s entry of summary

judgment was appropriate.

The judgment is affirmed.

LAY, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

I dissent. Once again, our court is faced with an employment discrimination

case where there are facts in dispute. Rather than submitting this conflict to a jury, the

majority decides the facts as a matter of law. In my opinion, this is a violation of the

Plaintiff’s rights and the question of credibility should be submitted to a jury. I

therefore dissent.

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