UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT

________________ _________________ CARISSA NEALIS, Plaintiff - Appellant,

v. COXCOM, LLC, Defendant - Appellee. No. 17-5042 (D.C. No. 4:16-CV -00078-C VE-TLW) (N.D. Okla.)

________________ _________________ ORDER AND JUDGMENT *

________________ _________________ Before BRISCOE , HARTZ , and McHUGH , Circuit Judges.

________________ _________________ Carissa Nealis appeals the district cour t’s grant of summary judgment in favor of her former employer CoxCom, LLC (Cox) , on her complaint alleging retaliatory discharge in violation of Title VII of the Ci vil Rights Act of 1964. The district court ruled Nealis failed to pr esent evidence of a causal re lation between her alleged protected activity and Cox’s termination of her employment. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and affirm.

* After examining the briefs and appellate record, th is panel has determined unanimously that oral argument would not ma terially assist in the determination of this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding precedent, except under the doctr ines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral estoppel. It may be cite d, however, for its persuasi ve value consistent with Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. FILED United States Court of Appeals Tenth Circuit 

### April 24, 2018
Elisabeth A. Shumaker Clerk of Court2 I. BACKGROUND A. Nealis’s Employment with Cox. Cox, a telecommunications company, hired Nealis in August 2007 as a realtor sa les representative in its Tulsa, Oklahoma office. She became an account executive in 2009. In that job, she reported to sales manager Tom McPherson, who in turn report ed to director of sales Tim Jenney until 2013, when Jenney was replaced by Christopher Shipman. In June 2012, Nealis reported an in cident to Jenney and to Cox human resource partner Melissa Cruts. Nealis repo rted that during a sale s-team business trip for which a bus and van had been chartered, a Cox manager, Shelly Stauffer, got out of the van, pounded on the bus door, and or dered Mark Palzer, whom she supervised, to move from the bus to the van. Nealis thought Stauffer, a wh ite woman, had done this because Palzer was white . Nealis told Jenner and Cr uts that Stauffer once told someone her group had enough white men in the group, and she wished she could hire more young African-Americans. Nealis stated in her summary-judgment af fidavit it was her understanding that in December 2012, Palzer filed a race and age discrimination claim with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission listing Nea lis as a potential witness to the bus incident and diversity comment. The r ecord does not contain any evidence that Nealis was, in fact, a witness for Palzer. In February 2013, Nealis applied to be a strategic service manager, but was not selected. She submitted her resignation, but the vice president of Cox Business, Randy Chandler met with her and encouraged her to stay, which she did. In June3 2013, Cox terminated Palzer. Nealis contends she made comments to management about Stauffer’s discriminatory treatment of him, and states the la st time she recalls making such a complaint was in August 2013, when she made a comment to McPherson. In October 2013, Cox terminated the em ployment of an employee for violating its conflict of interest policy. Cox human resources partner Erin Vierthaler testified this employee told her Nealis had a similar conflict; thou gh that employee denies he named anyone. At Vierthaler’s request, Mc Pherson asked Nealis to disclose any potential conflicts she had. Nealis disclo sed that her domestic partner and two uncles owned telecom businesses that we re used by Cox customers. On November 6, 2013, human resources manager Heather Romeike directed Vierthaler to conduct an investigation into Nealis’s potential conflicts. This investigation revealed that Nealis ow ned and operated one of these telecom businesses, Tulsa Telecommunications, with her partner. Vierthaler submitted her report in December 2013 to Cox’s vice president of human resources, Becky Ordoyne, who determined Nealis had a conflict of interest. Vierthaler th en informed McPherson, Shipman, and Rome ike that Nealis had a conflic t of interest because she had access to Cox’s current and prospectiv e customer lists and could refer Cox’s customers to Tulsa Telecommunications. On December 16, 2013, Vierthaler recomm ended Nealis be terminated because Nealis owned, operated, and financially benefited from Tulsa Telecommunications,4 which competes with Cox. Chandler, Mc Pherson, Shipman, and Romeike approved Nealis’s termination the next day. B. District Court Proceedings. Nealis filed suit, alleging her termination was in retaliation for her protected activity of asserting Stauffer di scriminated against Palzer. 1 The district court noted that Nealis did not present clear evidence of any protected activity after her June 2012 co mplaint about the bus incident between Stauffer and Palzer. The only evidence of ac tivity after that was Nealis’s general and conclusory assertion that she made “add itional complaints to management” about “unlawful employment discrimination and hara ssment” relating to Palzer, Aplt. App., Vol. III, at 689, but Nealis did not identify what she said or to whom she complained. See Hinds v. Sprint/United Mgmt. Co ., 523 F.3d 1187, 1203 n.13 (10th Cir. 2008) (“A vague reference to discri mination and harassment without any indication that this misconduct was motivated by [criteria prohi bited by Title VII] does not constitute protected activity and will not support a re taliation claim.” (bracket and internal quotation marks omitted)). No netheless, the district cour t assumed that Nealis had engaged in protected ac tivity in August 2013. The district court ruled that Nealis fa iled to establish any causal connection between her alleged protected activity in August 2013 and her termination in December 2013. The court rule d that Nealis failed to pr esent any evidence other than this temporal link. Becau se the temporal link was to o remote to infer a causal

1 Nealis also alleged claims for reta liatory failure to promote and gender discrimination, but has abandoned those claims.5 connection, and Nealis failed to present additional causal evidence, the district court ruled Nealis failed to estab lish a prima facie case of reta liatory discharge and granted summary judgment in favor of C ox. Nealis timely appealed. II. ANALYSIS A. Legal Standards. We review th e district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, “view[ing] all eviden ce and draw[ing] reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favor able to the nonmoving party.” Foster v. Mountain Coal Co ., 830 F.3d 1178, 1186 (10t h Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). “Summary judgment is only appropriate when there are no genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Id . (internal quotation marks omitted). Because Nealis relies on circumstantial evidence to prove her retaliation claim, we follow the analytical framework described in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green , 411 U.S. 792, 802–04 (1973). Foster , 830 F.3d at 1186. Under this framework, a plaintiff alleging retaliator y discharge under Title VII mu st first establish a prima facie case of retaliation by presenting evidence that (1) “[s]he engaged in protected opposition to discrimination”; (2) she suffe red an adverse action that a reasonable employee would have found material; and (3 ) “a causal connection exists between the protected activity and the ma terially adverse action.” Hansen v. SkyWest Airlines , 844 F.3d 914, 925 (10th Cir. 2016) (internal quotation marks omitted). She must establish that her protected activity was a “but-for” ca use of the alleged adverse6 action by the employer. Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar , 570 U.S. 338, 360 (2013). If a plaintiff establishes a prima facie ca se of retaliation, the employer must proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reas on for the adverse action. If it does so, the burden shifts back to th e plaintiff to prove the prof erred reason is a pretext.
Hansen , 844 F.3d at 925. In examining pretex t, “the relevant i nquiry is not whether the employer’s proffered reasons were wise , fair or correct, but whether it honestly believed those reasons and acted in good faith upon those beliefs.” Lobato v. N.M. Env’t Dep’t , 733 F.3d 1283, 1289 (10th Cir. 2013) (bracket and internal quotation marks omitted). B. Causal Connection. Only the causa l connection element of the prima facie case is at issue here. In or der to establish a causal conn ection, Nealis “must present evidence of circumstances that justify an inference of re taliatory motive.” Ward v. Jewell , 772 F.3d 1199, 1203 (10th Cir. 2014) (i nternal quotation marks omitted). “The evidence of but-for causa tion must be based on more than mere speculation, conjecture, or surmise.” Id . (internal quotation marks omitted). Courts may infer a causal connection “[ i]f the protected conduct is closely followed by the adverse action.” Id . “We have held that a one and one-half month period between protected activity and a dverse action may, by itself, establish causation[, but] a three-month period, standi ng alone, is insufficient to establish causation.” Foster , 830 F.3d at 1191 (bracket and inte rnal quotation marks omitted).7 Here, the summary judgment facts are that Nealis’s last alleged opposition to discrimination was in a meeting with Mc Pherson in August 2013, but she was not terminated until four months later, in December 2013. We agree with the district court that this four-month period is too l ong to permit an inference of retaliation, without more. Where a considerable lengt h of time has elapsed between a protected activity and an adverse employment action, a plaintiff wishing to survive summary judgment must “present additional eviden ce tying the adverse employment actions” to the plaintiff’s protected activity. Ward , 772 F.3d at 1203 (internal quotation marks omitted). Nealis fail ed to present any such additional evidence. Nealis argues on appeal she establishe d the causal connection by the temporal proximity between her alleged protected conduct in August 2013 and October 6, 2013, when the process of termina ting her was set in motion. Citing Marx v. Schnuck Markets, Inc. , 76 F.3d 324, 329 (10th Cir. 1996), she asserts temporal proximity can be measured from the time the employer ta kes an action that sets in motion the alleged retaliatory discharge. Th at is an overly broad reading of Marx

. Marx held that a causal connection can be shown when th e “pattern of retaliatory action” closely follows the protected activity and only later culminates in discharge. Id . In Marx , the pattern began when the employer first took written disciplinar y action against the plaintiff. Id . But here, Cox simply asked Nealis to disclose any conflicts in October. To constitute retaliation, the employer must take a “materially adverse” action that “well might have dissuaded a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Burlington N. & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White , 548 U.S. 53, 688 (2006) (internal quotation ma rks omitted). Asking Nealis to disclose her potential conflicts in October 2013 does not qualify as a retaliatory action, nor does Cox’s commencement of an intern al investigation of poten tial wrongdoing in November 2013. See Lincoln v. Maketa , 880 F.3d 533, 543 (10th Cir. 2018) (holding, as to a First Amendment retaliation cl aim, that courts do not c onsider standard workplace investigations to be materially adverse employment actions). Nealis also argues that the district court erred by not considering pretext evidence to supply the additi onal evidence needed to show a causal connection at the prima facie stage. 2 We will not consider this argum ent because Nealis never raised it before the district court. If a theory is not raised in the district court, we usually hold it forfeited and refuse to consider it unless a party seeks plain-error review on appeal. See Richison v. Ernest Grp., Inc ., 634 F.3d 1123, 1128 (10t h Cir. 2011). “[T]he failure to argue for plain error and its appl ication on appeal . . . marks the end of the

2 Although this court has sometimes acknowledged that pretext evidence can be considered when assessing whether th e employee has establ ished a prima facie case when that evidence i ndeed gives rise to an inference of actionable discriminatory intent, see Wells v. Colo. Dep’t of Transp ., 325 F.3d 1205, 1218 (10th Cir. 2003), we have al so made clear that plainti ffs must still produce sufficient probative evidence to establis h their prima facie case, see Barlow v. C.R. England, Inc ., 703 F.3d 497, 505 (10th Cir. 2012) (“If th e plaintiff does not establish a prima facie case, [her] en tire case fails.”). We have also held that c ourts must not conflate evidence tending to cast doubt on the employe r’s stated reasons for an employment decision with the plaintiff’ s prima facie burden of es tablishing an inference of retaliation in the first instance. Adamson v. Multi Cmty. Di versified Servs., Inc ., 514 F.3d 1136, 1144 (10th Cir. 2008) (holding that plai ntiffs may not “gain the benefit of [an] inference [o f retaliatory intent] without having to establish it,” and a plaintiff hoping to prove her prima facie case by attacki ng the employer’s reason for his termination must still s how “a demonstrable nexus be tween aspersions cast on an employer’s stated reasons a nd invidious intent.”).9 road for an argument for reversal not fi rst presented to the district court.” Id . at 1131. Nealis does not acknowledge he r theory is new, nor does she address plain error, and thus has forfeited her newl y-raised argument that the district court should have considered evidence of pret ext at the prima-fa cie stage of the McDonnell-Douglas analysis. We agree with the district court that Nealis did not present sufficient evidence to establish a prima facie case of retaliat ory discharge under Title VII. The judgment is affirmed.

Entered for the Court
Mary Beck Briscoe Circuit Judge