Opinion ID: 6331804
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The associate success plan’s end date

Text: By its terms, the associate success plan started on March 7, 2016 and ended June 6, 2016. Perez was terminated four days later, June 10, 2016. Perez contends Staples failed to extend the plan to account for his jury service. According to Perez, the district court erred by concluding that the plan was extended to accommodate his jury service. But the undisputed evidence shows that he was terminated four days after the plan’s scheduled end date, the same number of days that he served as a juror. Perez also maintains that the district court erred by not finding that Staples should have extended the plan by the number of holidays and vacation days he took during the plan’s term. Yet, the district court correctly concluded that even if Staples had that requirement, no evidence existed that the company’s deviation from it related to Perez’s jury service. And the court found that Perez knew when he entered into the plan that he had scheduled vacation during its term, and he was aware of the difficulty his scheduled time off could cause. So, Perez could have asked that the plan’s end date be adjusted accordingly, but he did not. Perez oﬀers another argument—that Staples began the process to terminate him before the plan ended, as evidenced by Coha’s June 2–3, 2016 emails to his superior Watson that Perez was falling short of the associate success plan’s requirements. This contention also fails, though, as Coha’s report was based only on Perez’s performance under the plan, and he did 20 No. 21-2601 not ask for permission to ﬁre Perez. Coha’s actions did not amount to a termination before the end of the plan, and the district court correctly rejected Perez’s assertion that Staples retaliated against him before the end of the plan.