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File Name: 15a0515n.06

Case No. 14-2401

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT

TRICIA BASCH,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

KNOLL, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

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ON APPEAL FROM THE UNITED 

STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR 

THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF 

MICHIGAN 

BEFORE: CLAY and SUTTON, Circuit Judges; WATSON, District Judge.*

SUTTON, Circuit Judge. After employing Tricia Basch for over a decade, Knoll, Inc., a 

furniture maker, discharged her. Basch filed this lawsuit, raising several employment-related 

grievances against Knoll. The district court granted Knoll’s motion for summary judgment on 

all of Basch’s claims. Basch challenges one ruling on appeal: the district court’s rejection of her 

retaliation claim under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). We affirm.

Basch held various jobs at Knoll during her time there. She took various approved leaves 

under the FMLA during her time there. And she was warned and disciplined for various issues, 

including absenteeism, aggressive behavior, and insubordination during her time there. 

 

* The Honorable Michael H. Watson, United States District Judge for the Southern District of Ohio, sitting 

by designation.
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Tricia Basch v. Knoll, Inc.

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At the time of the discharge, Basch worked as a coordinator in the “paint lines”

department. R. 59 at 1. Her primary duty was “kitting”—organizing paint orders into baskets to

prepare them for painting. R. 40-1 at 4, 9. On November 9, 2011, she delivered a kitted basket 

to a co-worker, who rejected the basket because it was arranged incorrectly. The co-worker took 

the issue to Basch’s supervisor, Kristie Walker. Raising her voice, Walker told Basch to re-kit 

the basket. Without re-kitting the basket, Basch walked away and attempted to call two other

managers over the next several minutes while Walker repeatedly told her to re-kit the basket. 

Basch never did so.

Faced with Basch’s continued refusal, Walker took Basch to the human resources 

department and asked for assistance from other managers. One manager told Basch that she 

needed to do what she was told. Basch, who still had not made any effort to re-kit the basket,

asked to take FMLA leave due to stress (triggered by her encounter with Walker). The plant’s 

human resources manager told Basch that she could not take leave because she was being 

suspended. Two days later, the company discharged Basch. 

Basch filed this lawsuit, bringing nine claims under a variety of laws: the Americans 

with Disabilities Act, the FMLA, Title VII, and Michigan state law. The district court granted

summary judgment to Knoll across the board. Basch v. Knoll, Inc., No. 1:13-CV-76, 2014 WL 

911865, at *1 (W.D. Mich. Mar. 10, 2014). Basch appeals only the FMLA claim. We review 

afresh a district court’s grant of summary judgment, Int’l Union v. Cummins, Inc., 434 F.3d 478, 

483 (6th Cir. 2006), asking whether Knoll is entitled to judgment as a matter of law because “no 

genuine dispute as to any material fact” stands in the way, even after giving Basch the benefit of 

all reasonable inferences from the record. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). 
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Tricia Basch v. Knoll, Inc.

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As relevant here, the FMLA says that “[i]t shall be unlawful for any employer to 

discharge . . . any individual for opposing any practice made unlawful by this subchapter.” 

29 U.S.C. § 2615(a)(2). Basch claims she was fired for trying to take FMLA leave “[b]ecause of 

a serious health condition that ma[de] [her] unable to perform the functions of [her] position.” 

29 U.S.C. § 2612(a)(1)(D). A burden-shifting test applies to such claims. Edgar v. JAC Prods., 

Inc., 443 F.3d 501, 508 (6th Cir. 2006); see McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 

(1973). Under that familiar test, Basch first must make out a prima facie case of retaliation. 

Skrjanc v. Great Lakes Power Serv. Co., 272 F.3d 309, 315 (6th Cir. 2001). If she does so, Knoll 

must articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the alleged retaliatory act. Id. And if 

the company gives such a reason, the employee must show that the employer’s rationale is 

pretextual. Id. 

Like the district court before us, we conclude that Basch has not met her burden in the 

first and last part of the analysis. She did not make out a prima facie case of retaliation, and she 

did not show that Knoll’s rationale for discharge (insubordination) is pretextual. 

Prima facie case. In order to make out a prima facie case of retaliation, Basch must 

show: (1) that she “availed herself of a protected right under the FMLA”; (2) that she “suffered 

an adverse employment action”; and (3) “that there was a causal connection between the exercise 

of her rights under the FMLA and the adverse employment action.” Edgar, 443 F.3d at 508. At 

a minimum, she comes up short on causation. 

She has not shown a causal connection between the exercise of her FMLA rights and the 

termination of her employment. Even if we assume for the sake of argument that temporal 

proximity (between a protected act and an adverse action) by itself may establish causation at the 

prima facie phase of a case, that could only be “[w]here an adverse employment action occurs 
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very close in time after an employer learns of a protected activity.” Mickey v. Zeidler Tool & 

Die Co., 516 F.3d 516, 525 (6th Cir. 2008). That did not happen here.

Any such claim of proximity would look to one or the other of the certifications for 

intermittent leave (May 2009 and May 2011), as that was when the series of FMLA events began 

and when Knoll “learn[ed] of [the] protected activity.” Id. (emphasis added). When “some 

time”—here, two-and-a-half years or six months—“elapses between when the employer learns of 

a protected activity and the subsequent adverse employment action, the employee must couple 

temporal proximity with other evidence of retaliatory conduct to establish causality.” Id. Basch 

has no such “other evidence.” Knoll repeatedly granted Basch’s FMLA requests over a period of 

two-and-a-half years. And Basch provides no additional evidence that Knoll discharged her 

because she declared an intent to take FMLA leave on November 9th. In the absence of a 

cognizable claim of causation, her prima facie case must fail.

Pretext. Also unavailing is her claim of pretext. After Knoll offered a legitimate, 

nondiscriminatory rationale for discharging Basch—“insubordinat[ion] to [her] supervisor” and a 

“prior history of insubordination,” R. 34-2 at 2—Basch was required to show that these

explanations were pretextual. She failed to do so. 

Basch could show that Knoll’s insubordination rationale was pretextual in one of three 

ways: that it “(1) ha[d] no basis in fact; (2) did not actually motivate the action; or (3) w[as]

insufficient to warrant the action.” Seeger v. Cincinnati Bell Tel. Co., 681 F.3d 274, 285 (6th 

Cir. 2012). As to the first possibility, she did not demonstrate that Knoll’s reason for discharging 

her had no basis in fact. Mike Sale, the highest authority at the plant, made the discharge 

decision based on discussions with management staff who informed him of the November 9th 

incident. R. 34-1 at 2–3. Sale was concerned that such insubordination “could . . . idle 15 or 
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more employees for a period of time”—a fair basis in fact for discharging Basch. Id. at 2. 

Basch’s disciplinary history also provided grounds for discharge. Id. at 3. Some highlights of 

that history include: insubordination (for which she received a written warning), R. 33-3 at 2; 

“abusive, aggressive, threatening and inappropriate” behavior (for which she was suspended for 

three days), R. 32-4 at 2; and absenteeism twice in one month (for which she received two 

warnings), R. 32-5 at 2; R. 33-1 at 2.

As to the second possibility, Basch failed to demonstrate that something other than 

insubordination motivated the discharge. Basch points to her FMLA status and the proximity of 

her FMLA claims to her termination. But even if we accept for the sake of argument that

temporal proximity could establish a prima facie case, it “cannot be the sole basis for finding 

pretext.” Donald v. Sybra, Inc., 667 F.3d 757, 763 (6th Cir. 2012). 

As to the third possibility, Basch failed to show that her insubordination was insufficient 

to warrant her discharge. Under Knoll’s rules of conduct, “[i]nsubordination, including failure to 

carry out definite instructions or assignments” is an activity that is considered “extremely serious 

misconduct [that] may result in immediate discharge.” R. 32-2 at 2. Insubordination alone thus 

could rightly lead to a discharge. 

Attempting to fend off this conclusion, Basch raises several contrary arguments. First, in 

support of her prima facie case, she argues that proximity in time between her discharge and her 

use of FMLA leave establishes causation. More specifically, she contends that the proper 

measure of proximity is two days—the time between her final request for FMLA leave and her 

discharge. Appellant’s Br. 16. But that is the wrong yardstick. Knoll did not “learn[] of [her] 

protected activity,” Mickey, 516 F.3d at 525, on November 9th. Her employer knew that Basch 
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had FMLA intermittent leave certification and had used it to take leave over the past several

years. 

Second, Basch submits that three months—from her August 2011 week of leave to her 

November 2011 discharge—is the proper measure of proximity for purposes of her prima facie 

case. Even if we accepted Basch’s timeline, our conclusion would remain the same. Absent 

other evidence, three months does not suffice to support a finding of causation. See Mickey, 516 

F.3d at 525. Basch cites no case to the contrary in the FMLA context.

Third, Basch contends that three other incidents support her prima facie claim of

causation. But her version of these events does not “present[] a sufficient disagreement to 

require submission to a jury,” and the evidence is “so one-sided” that we must uphold the district 

court’s grant of summary judgment. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251–52 

(1986). She first cites her own statement that “FMLA people [at Knoll] . . . were getting fired 

left and right for being on FMLA.” Appellant’s Br. 21; R. 40-1 at 29. But Basch’s own 

generalization—absent any corroborating evidence or promise to present it—does not suffice to

survive summary judgment. See Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249.

She adds that Kristie Walker, her supervisor, created a “retaliatory atmosphere” through 

various acts. Appellant’s Br. 21. But even if Walker was antagonistic toward Basch, that does 

not establish causation between the decision to discharge Basch (made by Mike Sale) and 

Basch’s repeated exercise of FMLA rights over a two-and-a-half year period. 

Basch adds that Walker used an evaluation form, R. 42-2 at 2, to harass her due to her use 

of FMLA leave. Appellant’s Br. 22. This, too, does not work. In her deposition, Basch 

indicated that Walker and another manager used the evaluation form to alert Basch to some 
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Tricia Basch v. Knoll, Inc.

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necessary areas of improvement, that Basch improved in those areas, and that no further mention 

was made of the evaluation. R. 40-1 at 37–38.

Fourth, Basch argues that the given reason for her discharge—insubordination—was 

pretextual. She claims that she never refused to re-kit the basket, she told Walker that she was 

going to do it, and testimony from another co-worker indicates that the incident was “not an 

instance of extremely serious misconduct.” Appellant’s Br. 24 (internal quotation marks 

omitted). These assertions do not establish pretext. The problem is, Basch does not contest two 

critical facts: (1) that Walker told her to re-kit the basket multiple times, and (2) that she never 

did so (even if she planned to do so sometime in the future). R. 40-1 at 38–40. That suffices for 

a discharge under Knoll’s regulations because it is a “failure to carry out definite instructions or 

assignments.” R. 32-2 at 2. Because Basch does not dispute Sale’s view that her disruption had 

the potential to force fifteen other employees to stand idle, R. 34-1 at 2, the incident obviously 

could have serious consequences. 

For these reasons, we affirm.