Opinion ID: 176714
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Retaliation for Vera's Sexual Harassment Complaint Against Rodriguez

Text: Vera cites the close temporal proximity between Rodriguez being informed of Vera's sexual harassment complaint against him on May 18, 2005 and his decision to change her leave status from Leave Without Pay to AWOL on May 23, 2005 as evidence of retaliation. As we have cautioned in the past, however, [t]iming may bear on the question of causation in a retaliation claim, but . . . a `narrow focus [on timing may] ignore[ ] the larger sequence of events and also the larger truth.' Freadman, 484 F.3d at 100-01 (quoting Soileau, 105 F.3d at 16). In this instance, the larger sequence of events reveals that Rodriguez had been corresponding with his human resources advisor about Vera's absences since January, that in February he had monitored Vera's movements when she was at the office and wrote her a letter of counseling relating to her December/January absence, and that earlier in May he had issued Vera a notice of proposed suspension due to her failure to follow established leave procedures. Rodriguez's decision to change Vera's absence to AWOL, however poorly explained, is consistent with his previous actions, which show that he was focused on her lack of proper documentation for that absence, that he had requested additional documentation, and that he had warned Vera that she could be suspended for her failure to comply with established leave procedures. In the same May memorandum in which he changed the status of her December/January absence, Rodriguez changed Vera's March absence from AWOL to Leave without Pay, further contradicting the theory that he was acting out of a desire to punish Vera for filing her harassment complaint. Given the series of adverse actions Rodriguez took in response to Vera's December/January absence, it would not be reasonable for a jury to conclude, based only on the temporal proximity of one of those adverse actions to the date on which Rodriguez learned of the complaint, that the action was motivated by retaliatory intent. Vera's remaining claims of adverse actions suffer from the same infirmity, namely, a lack of causal connection with her sexual harassment complaint. The additional events Vera cites all occurred late in the summer of 2005, when she had been absent for several months. As described previously, Vera was suspended in early August for being AWOL after being informed a week earlier that her continued absence was in violation of established leave procedures. In late August, she was called back to work in a letter warning that her numerous absences were unreasonable and that she must report to duty or provide medical documentation identifying duties which can be performed and current limitations, despite a note from her doctor stating that she was not ready to return. Finally, after returning to work briefly, she suffered a breakdown. After being absent again for almost a month, she was fired. It is undisputed that Vera did not report to work from late March 2005 until she was requested to return in late August 2005. Her hours absent far exceeded her hours worked for the first eight months of 2005. Her supervisors were clearly perturbed by Vera's absences and the record shows that they discussed how to deal with a situation in which an employee was not reporting to work and had not had her leave officially approved by management. There is, admittedly, a factual dispute over whether Vera was or was not complying with the intricacies of established leave procedures. That dispute, however, is not material to Vera's claim of retaliation for her sexual harassment complaint. The requests that Vera provide more extensive documentation of her illness and of what work functions she could no longer carry-out began with Rodriguez's request in February 2005, when he knew nothing of her complaint against Morales and before her complaint against him. The activity of her supervisors in discussing what to do about her absence over the summer, once she had been absent for several months, is wholly consistent with Rodriguez's initial communications with human resources about Vera and with his initial memoranda to Vera herself demanding additional documentation for her absences and cautioning her about the potential consequences of her failure to comply. Moreover, Vera's altercation with another supervisor, Contreras, in September 2004, supports the government's proffered explanation for her firingnamely, that she was absent without leave and had been insubordinate.