## IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

_______________



### m 99-60191

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### MOSSIE R. PHIPPS,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

VERSUS



### UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI MEDICAL CENTER

and

CATHLEEN REID, Individually and as a Superior and as an Official of the University of Mississippi Medical Center,

Defendants-Appellees.

_________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi
(3:98-CV-186-BN)

_________________________

November 10, 1999

Before DAVIS, SMITH, and BARKSDALE, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM: *

Mossie Phipps, a black female, seeks

reversal of a summary judgment entered against her on her various claims of racial

discriminat i on brought under title VII and 42
U.S.C. §§ 1981, 1983, and 1985. We review

a summary judgment de no vo

. F reeman v. City of Dallas

, 1 86 F.3d 601, 606 (5th Cir.
1999). Because Phipps fails to raise a genuine

issue of material fact that her disc harge was motivated by race, we affirm. Phipps was a registered nurse with

defendant University of Mississippi Medical

C ent er. One morning, she was being supervised by defendan t nurse Cathleen Reid

and attended to patient Nat haniel Barnes. Although Barnes was discharged no later than

10:00 a.m., Phipps made entrie s in her

progre ss notes for Barnes claiming work at

7:55 a.m., 8:0 0 a.m., 10:00 a.m., and 12:00 p.m. That same day , the medical

center 

### SS through its Associate Direct or of
Human Resources, who also is

black 

### SS concluded that Phipps had falsified a patient’s medical records, and there fore

terminated her.

Phipps responds that her conduct was either

“a mistake or at worse constitutes her prognosis that the patient, who is a diabetic,

will remain a diabetic at 12 . . . and will

con t inue to show no signs and symptoms of hypoglycemia or hype rglycemia.” Thus, Phipps admits t he fact of her misconduct and * Pursuant to 5 T H C IR

. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not be

p ublished and is not precedent except under th e limited circumst a nces set forth in 5 TH C IR

. R. 47.5.4.

## 2

offers nothing more than a bare and unsupported allegation that she did not intend

to mislead. She then claims that her discharge was motivated by race. Of ten other Medical

Center employees who have been caught for

the same act of falsifying medical records,
however, all ten 

### SS

including five white employees 

### SS

were also discharged.

Unable to fin d disparate treatment as compared to this most similarly-situated group of whites 

### SS

the five also accused of falsifying

medical records 

### SS

Phipps attem

pts to contrast

her treatment with that of a group of w hite employees who were charg ed wi th d ifferent

offenses and were not imme diately fired. Essentially, Phipps demands trial to determine

whether those other offe nses were of equal,
less, or greater signifi cance than her own
misconduct, in hopes of showing that those

white employees were situated similarly to (or worse than) was she.

Phipps cannot show how the term s o f her discharge permit an inference of rac ism. Far from irrational, the decision to discharge her was premised on a l egi timate, nondiscriminatory reason

. See Walton v.

Bisco Indus., Inc.

, 119 F.3d 368, 370 (5th Cir.
1997); St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks , 509

U.S. 502, 510-11 (1993); Texas Dep’t of Community Affairs v. Burdine

, 450 U.S. 248,
252-55 (1981).

The medical center apparently was acting

out of int olerance of an employee’s misrep resentation and deception. An employer

is entitled to grade various forms of employee

misconduct to its own liking, so long as it does

not do so on account of

race or som e other prohibited b asis. S ee Bodenheimer v. PPG
Indus., Inc.

, 5 F.3d 955, 958 ( 5t h Cir. 1993) (holding that to win summary j udgment, an “employer need only articulate a lawful reason, regardless of what i t s persuasiveness may or

may not be”). Applying our familiar burdenshift ing ana l ysis, see St. Mary’s

, 509 U.S.

at 510-11, we co nclude that, having failed to

make a sufficient evidentiary showing that the stated nondiscriminatory purpose was pretextual, Phipps cannot survive the motion for summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.