United States Court of Appeals

For the Eighth Circuit

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No. 15-2321

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Donna Morrow

lllllllllllllllllllll Plaintiff - Appellant

v.

Zale Corporation

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

Zale Store 1491; John Daugherty

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendants

Zale Delaware, Inc.

lllllllllllllllllllll Defendant - Appellee

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Appeal from United States District Court 

for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Little Rock

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 Submitted: March 9, 2015

Filed: March 15, 2016

[Published]

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Before WOLLMAN, ARNOLD, and SMITH, Circuit Judges. 

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PER CURIAM.

Donna Morrow appeals the district court’s grant ofsummary judgment in favor

of her former employer, Zale Corporation, on her Title VII claim of gender

discrimination. We reverse the grant of summary judgment, and remand the case to

the district court for further proceedings.

We conclude that the summary judgment record presented a genuine issue of

material fact as to whether John Daugherty was sufficiently involved in the decision

to terminate Ms. Morrow to qualify as a decision maker, given that the evidence

showed that he participated in the investigation leading up to her termination, and that

he was the one who ultimately told her she was terminated. We also conclude that

the summary judgment record presented a genuine issue of materialfact asto whether

Mr. Daugherty had earlier told Ms. Morrow that she should step down because she

was “a female” and “a single mom,” that it was “a man’s world,” and that she needed

to “man up.” Because we construe such comments, if made by a decision maker, as

direct evidence of a discriminatory animus, we further conclude that under a mixedmotive analysis, Ms. Morrow may be entitled to some of the remedies she sought in

her complaint, and that summary judgment was inappropriately granted. See

Simmons v. New Pub. Sch. Dist. No. Eight, 251 F.3d 1210, 1213-15 (8th Cir. 2001)

(summary judgment was inappropriate where decision maker’s statements that “a

woman can’t handle [plaintiff’s] job” and that plaintiff was “a woman in a man’s job”

provided direct evidence that gender discrimination played part in adverse decision;

because direct evidence of gender discrimination existed, case was governed by

mixed-motive analysis), abrogated on other grounds by Torgerson v. City of

Rochester, 643 F.3d 1031 (8th Cir. 2011); see also Richardson v. Sugg, 448 F.3d

1046, 1057 (8thCir. 2006) (under mixed-motive analysis, once plaintiff demonstrates

that illegal criterion was motivating factor in employment decision, employer may

come forward with affirmative defense that it would have made same decision absent

illegal criterion; this affirmative defense does not absolve employer of liability, but

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restricts remedies available to plaintiff); Mohr v. Dustrol, Inc., 306 F.3d 636, 641 (8th

Cir. 2002) (noting that direct-evidence inquiry is not limited to those formally

entrusted with decision-making duties; if reasonable fact finder could conclude that

official was closely involved in adverse decision, then comments made by that

official are relevant to direct-evidence analysis), abrogated on other grounds by

Desert Palace, Inc v. Costa, 539 U.S. 90 (2003).

Accordingly, we reverse the grant of summary judgment as to Ms. Morrow’s

claim of gender discrimination, and we remand the case to the district court for

further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

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