[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 20-10448

Non-Argument Calendar

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D.C. Docket No. 1:15-cv-02718-ELR

CHERLYN MITCHELL, 

Plaintiff-Appellant,

 versus

PRESBYTERIAN HOMES OF GEORGIA, INC., 

c/o Calvin Court 

479 E. Paces Ferry Rd 

Atlanta, GA 30305, 

THOM ROCHENBACH, 

Carlyle Place 

5300 Zebulon Rd. 

Macon, GA 31216 

a.k.a. Tom Rokenback, et. al,

Defendants-Appellees.

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________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Georgia

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(November 23, 2020)

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, MARTIN and BRANCH, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: 

Cherlyn Mitchell appeals the denial of her motion to reconsider the summary 

judgment in favor of Presbyterian Homes of Georgia and against her complaint of 

racial discrimination and retaliation involving the termination of her lease of an 

apartment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 59(e). Mitchell moved for reconsideration based on 

a second affidavit prepared by Mary Jasper, a former employee of Presbyterian 

Homes. The district court denied the motion because the new affidavit was 

“entirely inconsistent with . . . and contradicted” Jasper’s first affidavit, filed two 

years earlier, with “no explanation as to why [she] . . . completely changed her 

testimony” or why the affidavit “could not have been provided originally.” We 

affirm.

When Presbyterian Homes moved for summary judgment in November 

2017, it filed an affidavit of Jasper, who had succeeded Karen Lucas as its housing 

director. Jasper stated that the company rented apartments “without regard to race, 

color, or national origin” and that neither Ms. Lucas nor any other apartment 

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employee “ma[de] any racially negative comments about any resident,”

“discourage[d] African-Americans from renting,” “conspire[d] to deny AfricanAmericans housing,” or “treat[ed] [Mitchell] or any other African-American in a 

disparate manner.” Jasper stated that “[i]t was clear . . . Ms. Mitchell and Ms. 

Lucas did not like each other, but [she] did not observe any conduct by Ms. Lucas 

directed at Ms. Mitchell that was discriminatory” and that “Ms. Lucas was firm 

with all resident[s] without regards to their race and/or any other protected class.”

Jasper also stated that Mitchell’s apartment lease was terminated “due to [her] 

numerous . . . violations” of rules governing “housekeeping, parking, and extended 

absences from the apartment” and “her failure to comply after being warned.” 

Jasper stated that Mitchell “failed multiple inspections . . . due to clutter blocking 

her doorway that created a potential fire hazard”; she “was away from her 

apartment for more than 120 days in violation of House Rules and HUD 

Guidelines”; and her “car was towed from the premises due to her continued . . . 

parking . . . up front by the office in the handicap space . . . [when] informed to 

park . . . in the back of the property.” Jasper stated that “Mitchell created a hostile 

environment during her tenancy” and that Jasper “agreed with the decision to 

terminate” Mitchell’s lease because she “refused . . . to comply with the rules like 

everyone else.”

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During the following two years, the district court extended the deadlines for 

Mitchell to respond to the motion for summary judgment and for the parties to 

conduct discovery. But Mitchell never sought to depose Jasper. Later, Presbyterian 

Homes fired Jasper. On September 30, 2019, the district court granted summary 

judgment in favor of Presbyterian Homes.

On October 28, 2019, Mitchell moved for reconsideration and attached a 

new affidavit from Jasper that stated that an employee “performed the last room 

inspection of Plaintiff Mitchell’s apartment . . . to generate grounds for termination 

of [her] lease.” Jasper also averred that Lucas and other employees treated “white, 

or Caucasian, residents” differently than Mitchell. Jasper recounted that two white 

men “parked in handicapped spaces or in other prohibited parking areas . . . and 

they were not cited for parking violations nor did they have their vehicles towed” 

and that at least four female “white residents fail[ed] their room inspection,” but

she stated that “Lucas did not take action to evict such residents.” Jasper also stated 

that “multiple African-American residents complained . . . [about] disparate, 

unfair, and racist treatment by Defendant Lucas”; that Lucas “publicly denigrated”

Jasper “in the presence of multiple white residents,” but never “sp[oke] to a white 

employee . . . in this abusive, disrespectful and offensive manner”; and that Lucas 

“treat[ed] an African-American resident . . . differently than she treated white 

residents after” Lucas “observed [the resident’s] grandchildren . . . were black.”

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But Jasper’s new affidavit offered no explanation for the inconsistent statements in 

her earlier affidavit.

The district court did not abuse its discretion by denying Mitchell’s motion.

The only argument that Mitchell makes is that the district court erred when it 

refused to credit Jasper’s second affidavit as creating a genuine issue of material 

fact, but a party cannot “create such an issue with an affidavit that merely 

contradicts, without explanation, previously given clear testimony.” Van T. Junkins 

& Assocs., Inc. v. U.S. Indus., Inc., 736 F.2d 656, 657 (11th Cir. 1984). Jasper’s 

second affidavit flatly contradicted her earlier sworn statements that Lucas had not 

discriminated against Mitchell or any other resident. And Jasper’s second affidavit

offered no explanation for the glaring inconsistencies in her first and second 

affidavits nor for her delay in changing her testimony. The district court was 

entitled to treat Jasper’s new affidavit as a sham and to disregard it.

We AFFIRM the denial of Mitchell’s motion for reconsideration.

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