Opinion ID: 4527882
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Brandt's Retaliation Claim

Text: As we previewed earlier, Brandt also faults the district court for granting summary judgment on his claim that Landry (at LaPlante's urging) rejected his application for reinstatement in retaliation for Brandt's letter to Commissioner Ponte and his complaint to the MHRC. But this claim fails as well. To show retaliation, a plaintiff has to prove that he complained about discrimination (or otherwise undertook protected conduct) and his employer took a material adverse action against him because of it. Planadeball v. Wyndham Vacation Resorts, Inc., 793 F.3d 169, 175 (1st Cir. 2015) (quoting Medina–Rivera v. MVM, Inc., 713 F.3d 132, 139 (1st Cir. 2013)). Once the plaintiff makes out this prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant - 26 - to articulate a legitimate, non-retaliatory explanation for its actions, and if it does, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to show that the defendant's explanation is a pretext for unlawful retaliation. Id. In other words, a retaliation claim follows the McDonnell Douglas dance. See id. Unlike with a status-based discrimination claim, a plaintiff alleging retaliation can't rely on a mixed-motives theory; he must show 'but-for' causation — that is, that [he] 'would [] have [been rehired] in the absence of the' protected complaints. Roy v. Correct Care Sols., LLC, 914 F.3d 52, 70–71 (1st Cir. 2019) (quoting Univ. of Texas Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 360 (2013)). For reasons we've already outlined, Brandt can't do so. To wit: neither Landry nor LaPlante knew about the MHRC complaint before they put the kibosh on Brandt's rehire bid10 — and even if 10 Brandt argues in passing that, based on LaPlante's testimony that his contacts in the field clued him in to FCI Berlin's hiring status, and Landry's comment that LaPlante was in touch with [what's going on in] the world of corrections, a reasonable jury could infer that LaPlante must have known about Brandt's November 2013 MHRC charge. But under the circumstances, that is not a reasonable inference. Maine statute provides that [p]rior to the conclusion of [a MHRC] investigation, all information possessed by the commission relating to the investigation is confidential and may not be disclosed, except by the commission and its employees . . . as is reasonably necessary to further the investigation. Me. Rev. Stat. tit. 5, § 4612. Below, Brandt did not contend the MHRC's investigation concluded before MDOC refused to rehire him. And he did not deny MDOC's statements that LaPlante was not aware of the [MHRC charge] and was [not] consulted or involved with responding to [it]. His - 27 - Landry and LaPlante somehow learned that Brandt's complaint to Ponte concerned race discrimination,11 Brandt hasn't produced any evidence their stated reasons for rejecting his 2014 application (that given Brandt's history, they were concerned he'd jump ship after a few months, and they thought he didn't give a straight answer about the hiring freeze) were pretextual. To do so, Brandt would have to show that these stated reasons added up to not only a sham, but a sham intended to cover up [a retaliatory] motive. Robinson, 950 F.3d at 25; see also Kouvchinov, 537 F.3d at 67. And as we've already explained, on this record, he can't do so.12 failure to contest those statements isn't surprising; there's no evidence LaPlante was involved in the probation-side hiring process, so there's no reason to think LaPlante would have learned about the charge until Brandt added his failure-to-rehire claim (which, of course, was after Landry failed to rehire him). 11 The district court concluded that [g]iven the letter's plain discussion of racially biased hiring and Landry's spotty memory of the ensuing conference call, a reasonable jury could conclude, despite Landry's . . . protestations, that Landry learned through the conference call with Commissioner Ponte that the letter discussed racial discrimination. Brandt, C.A. No. 15-461-NT, slip op. at . We don't quibble with this finding, since we agree with the district court's ultimate conclusion that Brandt failed to produce evidence showing that pretext or retaliatory animus motivated his rejection many months later. 12Of course, the nine-month lapse between Brandt's complaint to Ponte and when Landry rejected his reemployment application can't show but-for causation on its own. See Ahern v. Shinseki, 629 F.3d 49, 58 (1st Cir. 2010) (Without some corroborating evidence suggestive of causation . . . a gap of several months cannot alone ground an inference of a causal connection between a complaint and an allegedly retaliatory action.). - 28 -