Opinion ID: 816403
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: sawyer’s retaliation claim

Text: “To establish a claim of retaliation under Title VII . . . a plaintiff must prove that he engaged in statutorily protected activity, he suffered a materially adverse action, and there was some causal relation between the two events.” Goldsmith v. Bagby Elevator Co., 513 F.3d 1261, 1277 (11th Cir. 2008) (emphasis omitted). “After the plaintiff has established the elements of a claim, the employer has an opportunity to articulate a legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for the challenged employment action as an affirmative defense to liability.” Id. If the employer meets this burden, the plaintiff must show that the proffered reasons are merely a pretext for discrimination. See id. Sawyer satisfied the first two elements of her retaliation claim. She engaged in a statutorily protected activity when she filed a complaint with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission in December 2004 alleging discrimination against her managers. See Hairston v. Gainesville Sun Pub. Co., 9 F.3d 913, 920 (11th Cir. 1993). After that, she suffered a materially adverse action when she was suspended from work without pay for one week during September of 2005. See id. The question, then, is whether Sawyer produced sufficient evidence to establish a causal connection between her complaint and her suspension. The EPA says it suspended Sawyer because she refused to participate in a work project in South Carolina despite being told repeatedly that her participation 3 Case: 11-15454 Date Filed: 01/31/2013 Page: 4 of 6 was mandatory and that her failure to participate would “result in appropriate disciplinary action.” Sawyer argues that this explanation is pretextual because her non-participation was based on her good-faith belief that the project involved improper contact with private sector contractors and, in any event, her nonparticipation “would not typically, without more, be grounds for a week-long unpaid suspension of an employee with no prior formal disciplinary history.” We are not persuaded by either of Sawyer’s arguments. First, the record is unequivocal that Sawyer received a number of assurances that the project was in compliance with EPA guidelines, and that her managers would take full responsibility if it turned out that they had somehow “missed something” in this regard. Second, her only proof that her suspension was atypical is a 1985 EPA memo directing supervisors to “first consider informal measures which are nonpunitive in nature” before considering disciplinary actions such as a suspension. But the record is equally clear that Sawyer’s managers did engage such informal measures in their attempts to secure her cooperation in the pilot. Specifically, they admonished her in writing at least five times in the weeks leading up to the project that her participation was mandatory and that failure to participate would result in formal disciplinary action. Thus, Sawyer has not produced sufficient evidence that the EPA’s stated reasons for suspending her were pretextual and the district court properly granted summary judgment on this claim. 4 Case: 11-15454 Date Filed: 01/31/2013 Page: 5 of 6