Opinion ID: 618676
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Same Decision Defense

Text: Because protected speech could not substantially cause an adverse action if the employer would have taken that action in any event, a defendant can rebut a prima facie showing of retaliation by demonstrating by a preponderance of the evidence that it would have taken the same adverse employment action `even in the absence of the protected conduct.' Morris, 196 F.3d at 110(quoting Mount Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 287, 97 S.Ct. 568, 50 L.Ed.2d 471 (1977)). Under this standard, at this stage of the proceedings, Appellees are entitled to summary judgment if they can show that a reasonable jury would have to find by a preponderance of the evidence that Appellees would have dismissed Nagle even had they not learned of her Virginia speech. Appellees specifically point to Cosgrove v. Federal Home Loan Bank of New York, Nos. 90-civ-6455 (RPP), 92-civ-4225 (RPP), 1999 WL 163218 (S.D.N.Y. Mar. 23, 1999), as directly analogous to the present case. In Cosgrove, a bank examiner claimed her employer had impermissibly fired her for reporting to the FBI improper lending practices that the examiner had discovered in an investigation. The plaintiff in that case had received numerous indications (several memoranda, evaluations, and warnings per year) that her work failed to meet her employer's standards and that her interpersonal skills were interfering with her job performance. Id. at -. The district court concluded in Cosgrove that, although the plaintiff's FBI report may have constituted protected speech, the plentiful documentation of her ongoing problems showed as a matter of law that her employer would have fired her irrespective of the FBI report. Id. at . Unlike Cosgrove, however, Appellees themselves have characterized evaluations of Nagle during her probationary period as ranging from fair to positive. Fried testified that official in-classroom observations [of Nagle] were positive. Also in contrast to the plaintiff in Cosgrove, Nagle had not received years of warnings about problems with her interpersonal skills. On the contrary, Castar testified that, besides a complaint from the school psychologist regarding Nagle's choice of a particular book to read with her class, [t]here weren't complaints about Nagle. He further testified that, as the school implemented a new teaching model that integrated special education students into the mainstream student population, other teachers told [him] that they would not teach in this program unless [Nagle] was the special ed teacher there. Defendants have, in sum, provided no evidence of ongoing problems with Nagle's work or work relationships of the sort documented in Cosgrove. According to Fried's testimony, his decision not to recommend Nagle for tenure rested not on an accumulation of negative evaluations and problems but on what he heard from third parties about Nagle's behavior at a single meeting in December 2006. At that meeting, Nagle had intimated that she knew she would not be granted tenure and had become so upset that she cried and left the room for a while to calm down. At one pointand in tension with some of the other testimony regarding the effect of the Virginia eventsFried testified that he came to the conclusion that [Nagle] should not receive tenure because of her behavior at the meeting. Fried did not himself attend this meeting but learned of it from conversations with Castar and Esposito. Viewing this record in the light most favorable to Nagle, we cannot find as a matter of law that Fried would have made his decision irrespective of learning of Nagle's report of abuse in Virginia. There was no pattern of bad evaluations, complaints, and warnings, as there was in Cosgrove. There was no specific instance of misconduct. All this is in direct contrast with most of the cases Appellees cite to support their position. Moreover, there is no documentation of Fried's decision-making process prior to learning of Nagle's Virginia speech. While it is certainly possible that an employee's behavior at a single meeting can be so egregious as to merit dismissal, we do not think that crying and leaving the room to calm down suffices, as a matter of law, to overcome a prima facie showing of retaliation. The record raises genuine issues of material fact as to why Appellees acted as they did, and [s]ummary judgment is precluded where questions regarding an employer's motive predominate in the inquiry regarding how important a role the protected speech played in the adverse employment decision. Morris, 196 F.3d at 110. [11]