Opinion ID: 2977184
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retaliatory-Termination Claims

Text: Graham appeals the grant of summary judgment on his claims of retaliatory termination in violation of 42 U.S.C. 2000e-3(a). Absent direct evidence, this claim is analyzed under the 8 The parties dispute whether Graham has appealed the grant of summary judgment on his state-law retaliation claims under Ohio Rev. Code § 4112.02. These types of state and federal claims can be considered together. Staunch, 511 F.3d at 631; Knox, 375 F.3d at 457. Graham’s state-law claims survive or fail with his federal claims. 9 McDonnell Douglas framework detailed above. See Abbott v. Crown Motor Co., 348 F.3d 537, 542 (6th Cir. 2003). To proceed on this claim, Graham must establish a prima facie case of retaliation by producing evidence that: “(1) he . . . engaged in protected activity, (2) the employer knew of the exercise of the protected right, (3) an adverse employment action was subsequently taken against the employee, and (4) there was a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action.” Niswander v. Cincinnati Ins. Co., 529 F.3d 714, 720 (6th Cir. 2008). Graham asserts that he repeatedly complained to Rankin about discriminatory conduct toward AfricanAmericans and that Rankin fired him shortly thereafter.9 Assuming that Graham has established a prima facie case, we conclude that he cannot “demonstrate by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reason offered by [Best Buy] was in fact only a pretext to mask retaliation.” Id. Best Buy asserts that Graham was terminated because he attempted to abuse the employee-discount policy. As in the discrimination context, Graham has provided no evidence that his dismissal was retaliatory and that Best Buy’s proffered legitimate reason was pretextual. Summary judgment requires the nonmoving party to “set out specific facts showing a genuine issue for trial,” and Graham has failed to do that. Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(e)(2). 9 The district court opinion rejected Graham’s retaliation claim on the grounds that he only showed a temporal link between his complaints and his termination and that such a connection is insufficient to establish a causal link. However, this court has held that “[w]here an adverse employment action occurs very close in time after an employer learns of a protected activity, such temporal proximity between the events is significant enough to constitute evidence of a causal connection for the purposes of satisfying a prima facie case of retaliation.” Mickey v. Zeidler Tool & Die Co., 516 F.3d 516, 525 (6th Cir. 2008). We explained that “if an employer immediately retaliates against an employee upon learning of his protected activity, the employee would be unable to couple temporal proximity with any such other evidence of retaliation because the two actions happened consecutively, and little other than the protected activity could motivate the retaliation.” Id. 10