1996 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

4-30-1996

Geraci v. Moody-Tottrup Intl

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 95-3335

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Recommended Citation

"Geraci v. Moody-Tottrup Intl" (1996). 1996 Decisions. Paper 206.

http://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/thirdcircuit_1996/206
 UNITED STATES COURT 

OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

 

No. 95-3335 

 

PATRICIA MCGUIRK GERACI, 

 

 Appellant 

 

 

 v. 

 

MOODY-TOTTRUP, INTERNATIONAL, INC. 

 

 

(Caption amended as per Clerk's order dated 11-9-95.) 

 

 

ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA 

(D.C. Civ. No. 94-01093) 

 

 

Argued January 31, 1996 

Before: GREENBERG, NYGAARD, Circuit Judges and 

LAY, Senior Circuit Judge298

(Opinion Filed: April 30, 1996) 

 

DAVID J. LOZIER, ESQUIRE 

(Argued) 

Cohen & DeRenzo 

Two Chatham Center 

Suite 985 

Pittsburgh, PA 15219 

Attorney for Appellant 

ELIZABETH A. MALLOY, ESQUIRE 

(Argued) 

Klett, Lieber, Rooney & Schorling 

One Oxford Centre 

40th Floor 

Pittsburgh, PA 15219-6498 

Attorney for Appellee 

 
OPINION OF THE COURT 

 

NYGAARD, Circuit Judge. 

 Patricia McGuirk Geraci sued her employer, alleging that she 

had been unlawfully terminated because she was pregnant. The 

district court granted summary judgment to Geraci's employer 

because she had not shown that the employer knew Geraci was 

pregnant when it terminated her. The district court held that 

given this evidentiary hiatus, Geraci could not make out a prima 

facie case of pregnancy discrimination. We will affirm. 

I. 

 The facts of this case are set forth in the district court's 

thorough opinion, and we need only summarize. See Geraci v. 

Moody-Tottrup Int'l, Inc., 905 F. Supp. 241, 243-45 (W.D. Pa. 

1995). Moody-Tottrup is in the business of inspecting pipe and 

other materials. It hired Geraci in 1987 as a Clerk Typist but 

consistently promoted her, until she became an Inspection 

Coordinator in 1991. It appears from the record that Geraci was 

an exemplary employee during her tenure at Moody. 

 In the last week of 1992, Geraci suspected that she was 

pregnant and performed a home pregnancy test; the results were 

positive. She decided not to inform management at that time, 

however, fearing that she would not receive her annual raise 

scheduled for January or February. Geraci did tell six of her 

twenty co-workers (none of whom were members of management), but 

specifically asked them not to tell her superiors. There is no 
evidence that any of them did so, nor that management was 

otherwise informed of Geraci's pregnancy at that time. 

 In late January 1993, management laid Geraci off because of 

a decline in company revenue. It is undisputed that Moody 

decided to lay Geraci off in mid-December, before Geraci herself 

knew she was pregnant, but that it delayed telling her so as not 

to ruin her holidays. 

 When she was laid off, Geraci asked whether Moody would 

rehire her should business improve. Moody management advised her 

that she would not be rehired, and that she should look for 

another job. Geraci then told Moody that she was pregnant. Moody 

continued her health care benefits until after the baby was born 

and gave her three weeks severance pay. 

 A few months later, an advertisement appeared in the local 

newspaper for what appeared to be the same position from which 

Geraci had been terminated. According to Moody, this position 

arose to fill a large Malaysian contract, but the "Malaysian 

people" wanted an inspection coordinator with "hands-on" 

experience, which Geraci lacked. In any event, Geraci did not 

apply for this position, believing that it would be futile. Moody 

asserts that because the Malaysian contract did not materialize, 

the position was never filled. 

 In June 1994, after exhausting her administrative remedies, 

Geraci filed this suit in district court, alleging that Moody 

terminated her in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act 

of 1964, specifically 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(a)(1), 2000e(k). After 

discovery, Moody moved for summary judgment, asserting that, 
because there was no evidence that anyone in management knew 

Geraci was pregnant (either when Moody decided to terminate her 

or when it informed her of its decision), Moody could not have 

unlawfully discharged her because of her pregnancy. The district 

court agreed. See Geraci, 905 F. Supp. at 245-48. 

II. 

A. 

 Geraci has no direct evidence of unlawful discrimination. 

Instead, she bases her suit on the familiar burden-shifting 

framework first enunciated by the Supreme Court in McDonnell 

Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S. Ct. 1817 (1973) and 

Texas Dep't of Comm. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-56, 

101 S. Ct. 1089, 1093-95 (1981). Under that framework, Geraci 

must first make out a prima facie case of unlawful 

discrimination. Once she has done so, the burden of production 

then shifts to Moody to proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory 

reason for discharging her, at which point the presumption of 

discrimination arising from the prima facie case drops away, 

leaving the burden on Geraci to prove that Moody's proffered 

reasons were pretextual. 

 Here, Moody argues that we need not consider its reasons for 

terminating Geraci or whether they were pretextual, because 

Geraci failed to meet her threshold burden. We therefore begin 

by determining the elements of the prima facie case of pregnancy 

discrimination, aware that, if Geraci failed to raise a genuine 

issue of material fact as to any of those elements, summary 
judgment was properly granted. E.g., Fowle v. C & C Cola, 868 

F.2d 59, 62 (3d Cir. 1989). 

B. 

 Were Geraci alleging that Moody terminated her solely 

because she is a woman, she could make out her prima facie case 

by merely showing that she is a member of a protected class, that 

she was qualified for her position, and that she was discharged 

"under conditions that give rise to an inference of unlawful 

discrimination." Burdine, 450 U.S at 253, 101 S. Ct. at 1093. 

Although often overlooked, the requirement that the adverse 

employment action occur "under circumstances that give rise to an 

inference of unlawful discrimination" is a critical one that 

weighs heavily in this case. 

 The McDonnell Douglas-Burdine burden-shifting framework was 

created because only rarely will a plaintiff have direct evidence 

of discrimination. Gone are the days (if, indeed, they ever 

existed) when an employer would admit to firing an employee 

because she is a woman, over forty years of age, disabled or a 

member of a certain race or religion. To allow those genuinely 

victimized by discrimination a fair opportunity to prevail, 

courts will presume that, once the plaintiff has shown the above 

elements, unlawful discrimination was the most likely reason for 

the adverse personnel action. The elements of that prima facie 

case, however, must not be applied woodenly, but must rather be 

tailored flexibly to fit the circumstances of each type of 

illegal discrimination. See McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802 
n.13, 93 S. Ct. at 1824 n.13; Torre v. Casio, Inc., 42 F.3d 825, 

830 (3d Cir. 1994). 

 The traditional McDonnell Douglas-Burdine presumption quite 

properly makes no reference to the employer's knowledge of 

membership in a protected class because, in the vast majority of 

discrimination cases, the plaintiff's membership is either patent 

(race or gender), or is documented on the employee's personnel 

record (age discrimination). This case, however, is different. 

We cannot presume that an employer most likely practiced unlawful 

discrimination when it does not know that the plaintiff even 

belongs to the protected class. The employer's knowledge, in 

this class of cases, is a critical element of the plaintiff's 

prima facie case. Indeed, it is counterintuitive to infer that 

the employer discriminated on the basis of a condition of which 

it is wholly ignorant, and in this situation the bare McDonnell 

Douglas presumption no longer makes sense. 

 In other cases involving personal attributes not obvious to 

the employer, courts have regularly held that the plaintiff 

cannot make out a prima facie case of discrimination unless he or 

she proves that the employer knew about the plaintiff's 

particular personal characteristic. An employee's religion, for 

example, is often unknown to the employer, and we have 

accordingly required employees to inform their employers of their 

religious beliefs in order to make out a prima facie case of 

discrimination based on failure to make reasonable 

accommodations. See Protos v. Volkswagen, Inc., 797 F.2d 129, 

133 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 972, 107 S. Ct. 474 (1986). 
The same rule applies when the plaintiff alleges that she was 

discharged on account of her religion. See Beasley v. Health 

Care Serv. Corp., 940 F.2d 1085, 1088 (7th Cir. 1991). 

 Likewise, disabilities are often unknown to the employer, 

and, because of that, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the 

defendant employer knew of the disability to state a prima facie 

case of unlawful discharge. See Hedberg v. Indiana Bell Tel. 

Co., 47 F.3d 928, 932-33 (7th Cir. 1995). In Hedberg, a case 

filed under the Americans With Disabilities Act, a manager 

claimed he was dismissed because he had a life-threatening 

disease, but the court held that he must show that the employer 

knew of his illness, reasoning that an employer cannot fire 

someone because of a disability it knows nothing about. Id.; 

accord Morisky v. Broward County, No. 95-4808, 1996 WL 137386, *3 

(11th Cir. Apr. 11, 1996) (per curiam); Landefeld v. Marion Gen. 

Hosp., 994 F.2d 1178, 1181-82 (6th Cir. 1993) (Rehabilitation Act 

of 1973). 

 Pregnancy, of course, is different in that its obviousness 

varies, both temporally and as between different affected 

individuals. It is difficult to imagine that an employer would 

not be aware that an employee is in the later stages of her 

pregnancy; at least if the employer sees the employee. When the 

pregnancy is apparent, or where plaintiff alleges that she has 

disclosed it to the employer, then a question of the employer's 

knowledge would likely preclude summary judgment. If the 

pregnancy is not apparent and the employee has not disclosed it 

to her employer, she must allege knowledge and present, as part 
of her prima facie case, evidence from which a rational jury 

could infer that the employer knew that she was pregnant. 

III. 

 The application of this legal framework to the facts of 

Geraci's case need not detain us long. Geraci was not visibly 

pregnant; indeed, even Geraci herself did not know until shortly 

before she told her coworkers. She did not tell Moody 

management, and she requested that the six friends and co-workers 

to whom she disclosed her pregnancy not tell management. 

 Geraci argues that because she told six out of twenty coworkers that she was pregnant and that her pregnancy became a 

"common topic of discussion in the office," management must have 

known it before they terminated her. But her managers filed 

declarations disclaiming knowledge, and Geraci presented no 

evidence to the contrary. Geraci deposed only one of those coworkers whom she told of her pregnancy, and he testified that he 

did not tell management that she was pregnant. Thus, Geraci 

would have us remand this case for trial on the sheer speculation 

that one or more of the people she entrusted with highly personal 

information violated her confidence and that members of Moody 

management lied about their lack of knowledge. This is simply 

insufficient to create a genuine issue of material fact. See

Hedberg, 47 F.2d at 932 (speculation about employer's knowledge 

of disability does not create a genuine issue of material fact; 

"instead, it creates a false issue, the demolition of which is a 

primary goal of summary judgment"). 
 Moody also points to undisputed evidence in the record that 

it decided to lay Geraci off before even she knew she was 

pregnant. Again, Geraci offers only speculation that Moody must 

have really made its decision to terminate her in January rather 

than in December. For the reasons already set forth, we must 

reject that speculation. 

 Finally, Geraci relies on Fuentes v. Perskie, 32 F.3d 759, 

765 (3d Cir. 1994), for the proposition that a "pattern of 

discrimination" and evidence that defendant's asserted nondiscriminatory reason was a pretext, supports an inference that 

defendant knew that she was pregnant. That contention is 

illogical and unsupported by that case. 

 In Fuentes, we did say that a pattern of discrimination 

could support an inference of pretext, but we did not hold that 

evidence of pretext makes out the plaintiff's prima facie case. 

Indeed, such a holding would make no sense. Essentially, Geraci 

argues that because Moody had treated women (including pregnant 

women) badly in the past, it must have known that Geraci was 

pregnant, because she was treated badly. This is flawed 

reasoning which warrants no discussion. 

 All of Geraci's remaining contentions go to the issue of 

pretext and given our conclusion that she has failed to make out 

a prima facie case of pregnancy discrimination, we need not 

discuss them. 

IV. 
 We find error in neither the district court's reasoning nor 

its conclusion that Geraci failed to state a prima facie case. We 

will therefore affirm its summary judgment. 

 

298Honorable Donald P. Lay, Senior Judge of the United States 

Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, sitting by designation.