NOT FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BILL BARRIER, 

Plaintiff-Appellant, 

 v. 

CITY OF THE DALLES, a municipality, 

Defendant-Appellee.

No. 21-35305 

D.C. No. 3:18-cv-01084-AC 

MEMORANDUM*

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Michael H. Simon, District Judge, Presiding

Submitted March 11, 2022**

Portland, Oregon

Before: GRABER, BEA, and M. SMITH, Circuit Judges.

Appellant Bill Barrier appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment 

in favor of the City of The Dalles on Barrier’s claim of workers’ compensationrelated employment discrimination pursuant to Oregon Revised Statutes (“O.R.S.”)

* This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent 

except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.

** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision 

without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2).

FILED

MAR 21 2022

MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
2 

section 659A.040.

1

 Barrier also challenges the exclusion, as inadmissible hearsay, 

of interrogatory responses of nonparty Joseph Greiman, responses that were made 

in a previous workers’ compensation-related employment discrimination lawsuit 

against the City. For the following reasons, we affirm.

The parties are familiar with the facts of the case, so we do not recite them 

here, save when necessary. In federal court, claims of employment discrimination 

pursuant to O.R.S. section 659A are analyzed under the three-part burden shifting 

framework of McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). Dawson 

v. Entek Int’l, 630 F.3d 928, 934–35 (9th Cir. 2011).

Barrier argues that the district court erred in ruling that Barrier failed to raise 

a genuine dispute as to whether the City’s legitimate reason for terminating him was 

pretextual. Barrier points to two pieces of evidence as creating a material dispute of 

fact: (1) the proximity of timing between his fourth workers’ compensation claim 

(February 13, 2017) and his termination (May 22, 2017), and (2) the excluded 

interrogatory responses of Greiman submitted in an earlier workers’ compensationrelated employment discrimination lawsuit against the City.

To the extent the district court excluded Greiman’s interrogatory responses 

1

Jurisdiction over this claim was supplemental—federal question jurisdiction in the 

district court was satisfied by the fact that Barrier also asserted a claim of 

discrimination arising under the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”). Barrier 

does not appeal the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the City 

on the ADA claim.
3 

because they are hearsay, it erred. See Sandoval v. County of San Diego, 985 F.3d 

657, 666 (9th Cir. 2021). Any error was harmless, however, because we affirm the 

district court’s alternative ruling that the interrogatory responses do not raise a 

genuine dispute regarding whether the City’s proffered reason for terminating 

Barrier was pretextual, as the interrogatory responses concerned a materially 

different lawsuit that was filed seven years prior to the filing of the instant case. The 

temporal proximity between when Barrier filed his fourth workers’ compensation 

claim and when he was fired, without more, is insufficient to show pretext. 

Hashimoto v. Dalton, 118 F.3d 671, 680 (9th Cir. 1997). Moreover, the persuasive 

value of the temporal proximity evidence is undercut by the fact that Barrier’s 

supervisor began preparing a disciplinary memo concerning Barrier weeks before

Barrier filed his fourth workers’ compensation claim. This disciplinary memo was 

prepared in response to complaints received in December 2016 and January 2017

that Barrier had been “rude and unprofessional” to City residents in responding to a 

snowstorm. This memo summarized Barrier’s many disciplinary infractions while 

working for the City, including a November 2013 incident in which Barrier 

threatened a City financial advisor that if Barrier’s retirement portfolio did not 

perform better, Barrier would bring a gun to their next meeting. In response to this 

incident, Barrier was put on notice that any future violation of “any City policy, 

including the Appropriate Conduct policy, will be grounds for termination of your 
4 

employment with the City.”

AFFIRMED.