Opinion ID: 2318487
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Opportunity to Compete

Text: Kumar next claimed that he was discriminated against when WASA denied him the opportunity to compete for the position of Director of Procurement. The trial court agreed with appellees that Kumar failed to put forth a prima facie case on this issue because he presented no evidence as to what action WASA took with respect his application. The only evidence on record was that he applied for the position, emailed a confirmation of his application to the human resources manager, and when he was called in to Carter's office to resign or be terminated two hours later, the human resources manager was in the hallway near Carter's office. Though Kumar spends much of his brief discussing his qualifications for the position and Carter's alleged animus towards him, he failed to present any evidence that Carter even knew of his application at the time of his termination. Because Kumar presented no evidence of a decision not to consider his application independent of the decision to terminate him, he has failed to provide the jury with a sufficient basis upon which to determine whether appellees' actions with respect to his application were based on the characteristic that placed [him] in a protected class. Brown, supra, 844 A.2d at 1120-23 (holding that judgment as a matter of law was proper where plaintiff failed to put on evidence of who made the decision[,] ... what it was based on, and whether it was for an impermissible purpose....). Accordingly, we conclude that the trial court did not err in granting judgment as a matter of law on this claim.