Opinion ID: 58529
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Mathis’s retaliation claim

Text: Mathis also asserts that he was fired in retaliation for complaining about the sexual harassment he experienced from his supervisor. To prove retaliation under Title VII, Mathis must demonstrate that (1) he “engaged in statutorily protected activity, (2) an adverse employment action occurred, and (3) the adverse action was causally related to the plaintiff’s protected activities.” Gregory, 355 F.3d at 1279 (quoting Little v. United Technologies, Carrier Transicold Div., 103 F.3d 956, 959 (11th Cir. 1997)). The only one of these prongs at issue here is the third, whether there is a causal relationship between the protected activity–complaining about McGahey–and Mathis’s termination over five months later. Mathis does not have to establish a causal relationship that would rise to the level of direct evidence, but he must demonstrate that his internal complaint and his 8 ultimate termination are “not wholly unrelated.” Simmons v. Camden County Bd. of Educ., 757 F.2d 1187, 1189 (11th Cir. 1985). Temporal proximity may establish a causal relationship between protected activity and an adverse action, but here more than five months elapsed between Mathis’s complaint on August 17, 2003 and his termination on January 23, 2004. There can be no inference of causation on the basis of these two distant events alone. See Wascura v. City of South Miami, 257 F.3d 1238, 1245 (11th Cir. 2001) (three and a half month gap too remote to prove causation through temporal proximity). Furthermore, the reason for firing Mathis is clearly his subsequent, post-complaint violations of the company’s attendance policy.4 3. Mathis’s race discrimination claim under § 1981 Mathis’s final claim is for race discrimination under § 1981, which follows the same framework as discussed above for a discrimination claim under Title VII. Howard v. B.P. Oil Co., 32 F.3d 520, 524 n.2 (11th Cir. 1994). To the extent that Mathis’s race discrimination claim relies on the same set of allegedly similarly situated comparators used to establish his claim for sex discrimination, his race 4 To the extent that Mathis raises his “down time” claim as evidence of retaliation, we reject this argument because it was untimely before the district court and there is no evidence of any causal relationship between withheld down time and Mathis’s sexual harassment complaint. 9 discrimination claim also fails for the reasons discussed above. Mathis also argues that because he was not promptly paid his accrued vacation time upon termination that he was discriminated against on the basis of his race.5 However, any delay Mathis suffered in receiving his accrued vacation time was not a sufficiently adverse action to state a claim for race discrimination under § 1981. See Gupta v. Fla. Bd. of Regents, 212 F.3d 571, 589 (11th Cir. 2000) (holding that employer’s delay in processing employee’s visa application was not adverse action). Thus, Mathis’s § 1981 vacation pay claim also fails.6