Opinion ID: 2790185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Pre-Termination Adverse Employment Actions

Text: When a plaintiff offers only circumstantial evidence to prove her Title VII claim, as Plaintiff does here, we employ the burden-shifting framework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). See Crawford v. City of Fairburn, 482 F.3d 1305, 1308 (11th Cir. 2007); Brown v. Alabama Dep’t of Transp., 597 F.3d 1160, 1181 (11th Cir. 2010). Under this framework, a plaintiff bears the burden of establishing a prima facie case, which creates a rebuttable presumption that the employer acted illegally. To establish a prima facie Title VII disparate treatment claim, a “plaintiff must show that she (1) was a member of a protected class, (2) was qualified for the job, (3) suffered an 8 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 9 of 31 adverse employment action, and (4) was replaced by someone outside the protected class or that her employer treated similarly situated employees outside of her class more favorably.” Cuddeback v. Fla. Bd. of Educ., 381 F.3d 1230, 1235 (11th Cir. 2004). To establish a prima facie Title VII retaliation claim, a plaintiff must show that: (1) she engaged in statutorily protected activity; (2) she suffered a materially adverse action; and (3) causation. Chapter 7 Trustee v. Gate Gourmet, Inc., 683 F.3d 1249, 1258 (11th Cir. 2012). Once a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden of production shifts to the employer to articulate a legitimate, non-discriminatory, non-retaliatory reason for its action. Crawford, 482 F.3d at 1308 (applying framework in disparate treatment context); Brown, 597 F.3d at 1181 (applying framework in retaliation context). The employer need not persuade the court that it was actually motivated by the proffered reason, only that the reason existed and was legitimate. Crawford, 482 F.3d at 1308. If the employer articulates one or more reasons, the presumption of discrimination is rebutted, and the burden of production shifts back to the plaintiff to offer evidence that the employer’s stated reason was a pretext for illegal discrimination. Id. If the employer proffers multiple reasons, the plaintiff must rebut each one to survive summary judgment. Id. In both discrimination and retaliation claims, a plaintiff must show that she suffered a specific “adverse action.” See Cuddeback, 381 F.3d at 1235 (plaintiff 9 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 10 of 31 must show she “suffered an adverse employment action” in a prima facie Title VII discrimination claim); Chapter 7 Trustee, 683 F.3d at 1258 (plaintiff must show she “suffered a materially adverse action” in a prima facie Title VII retaliation claim). Being fired is, of course, an adverse action. But any other action by an employer that falls short of actually terminating the employee can constitute an adverse action only if it “in some substantial way, alter[s] the employee’s compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, deprive[s] her of employment opportunities, or adversely affect[s] her status as an employee.” Crawford v. Carroll, 529 F.3d 961, 970 (11th Cir. 2008) (quoting Gupta v. Fl. Bd. of Regents, 212 F.3d 571, 587 (11th Cir. 2000)). To be considered adverse, the action must cause “a serious and material change in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.” Id. at 970–71 (emphasis added). Title VII “does not require proof of direct economic consequences in all cases,” but “the asserted impact cannot be speculative and must at least have a tangible adverse effect on the plaintiff’s employment.” Davis v. Town of Lake Park, 245 F.3d 1232, 1239 (11th Cir. 2001). This Court applies an objective test and asks “whether a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position would view the employment action in question as adverse.” Hinson v. Clinch Cnty., Ga. Bd. of Educ., 231 F.3d 821, 829 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted and alteration adopted). For an action to be “adverse” in the retaliation context, it “must be harmful to the point that [it] could well dissuade 10 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 11 of 31 a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination.” Burlington Northern & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 57 (2006). Plaintiff argues that the district court erred in finding that no adverse actions occurred as a result of the Hospital (1) taking away her scheduling duties, which had earned her an additional $20,000 per year and (2) assigning her fewer shifts than she requested during the month after she had returned from her second leave of absence. She also argues that the district court erred in denying relief on her claim that the Hospital discriminated and retaliated against her when it denied her a promotion to the Director/Chief position.
As noted, the Hospital relieved Plaintiff of her scheduling duties shortly after Plaintiff announced in late November 2011 that she would be taking a twomonth leave of absence. Plaintiff contends that the Hospital’s action constituted an adverse action that it took to retaliate against her for having filed an EEOC charge around the same time period. The district court acknowledged that removing Plaintiff’s scheduling duties, for which she earned additional pay at the rate of around $20,000 per year, could potentially constitute an adverse employment action under Title VII. But it also concluded that Plaintiff was hard-pressed to 11 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 12 of 31 fault the Hospital because it was Plaintiff who brought about this result by voluntarily taking a lengthy leave of absence. 5 The district court is correct. It is difficult to understand how an employee who has taken a leave of absence can then complain when her employer takes her at her word and reassigns the duties she would normally perform. Whatever adversity she suffered, it was Plaintiff who brought it on herself by deciding to take a leave of absence. A reasonable person would not consider the reassignment of such duties in these circumstances to be an adverse action by the employer. See Hinson, 231 F.3d at 829. To the contrary, a reasonable person would understand that her employer must necessarily reassign such duties while she is absent from her job. Thus, we affirm the district court’s conclusion that Plaintiff suffered no actionable adverse employment action as a result of the reassignment of her scheduling duties while Plaintiff was on leave. 6 5 The district court further explained that Plaintiff’s scheduling duties “were not independent from her role as a physician at the hospital” because the former was not a salaried position, and Plaintiff was paid her regular hourly rate for creating the schedule. Thus, when she took a leave of absence, “she abandoned the scheduling duty.” Specifically, for all her duties, Plaintiff’s pay structure was based on the number of hours she worked. 6 Plaintiff has not asserted that she requested a reinstatement of scheduling duties once she returned from her two leaves of absence, nor has she explicitly argued that the Hospital’s failure to reinstate those duties constituted gender discrimination or retaliation. Nevertheless, to the extent that Plaintiff makes such an argument, we note that she has offered no evidence of disparate treatment of a similarly situated comparator. Further, numerous complaints by coworkers about Plaintiff’s unfairness in making scheduling assignments constitute a neutral, non-discriminatory reason for transferring these scheduling duties to the Director, and Plaintiff has not shown that this explanation is a pretext for discrimination. 12 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 13 of 31
Before her return from her second leave of absence, Plaintiff emailed Dr. Lee and requested that she be given fourteen night-shifts for June 2011. After the schedule was published, Plaintiff was unhappy to learn that she had received only twelve shifts, whereas some other doctors had been given more shifts. She emailed Dr. Lee demanding an explanation. Dr. Lee responded, explaining that inherent difficulties in creating a schedule to accommodate the preferences of all doctors on staff had led to Plaintiff’s particular schedule for that month. He noted that in each 24-hour period, there are five day-shifts and only two night-shifts. For that reason, day-shift doctors are always scheduled for a few additional shifts, and Plaintiff had requested to continue working exclusively night-shifts, as she had done throughout her employment at the Hospital. Additionally, several day-shift physicians had requested vacation time that month, resulting in fewer day-shifts physicians taking on extra day-shifts. Dr. Lee also mentioned that, as Plaintiff was aware, individual doctors’ requests could not be honored “100% of the time despite [his] best efforts.” Finally, Dr. Lee apologized and noted, “Schedule issues are specifically brought up at every monthly Team meeting, so everyone can have some input into how we can improve this complicated process together.” The following month, Plaintiff was assigned fifteen night-shifts, and she has not alleged that she was dissatisfied with her shift assignments on any occasion 13 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 14 of 31 other than this one isolated month. But nonetheless she argues that, by giving her two fewer shifts than she had requested for one month (costing her $4,064 in income), the Hospital acted adversely toward her and did so in retaliation for her having filed internal and EEOC complaints. In light of the difficulties and vagaries of accommodating a particular doctor’s shift preferences in any given month, we conclude that the Hospital’s failure, on one month only, to give Plaintiff the number of shifts she had requested, did not constitute an adverse action because this decision did not cause a serious and material change in the terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, which is what is required before an employer’s action can be deemed to be adverse. Crawford, 529 F.3d at 970–71. Nor can we conclude that a reasonable person in Plaintiff’s position would view this isolated action as adverse or that it would dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. See Hinson, 231 F.3d at 829; Burlington Northern, 548 U.S. at 57. Out of the many months that Plaintiff had worked at the Hospital, she complains that in only one month did she happen to receive fewer shifts than she requested. Moreover, even if one assumed that this June 2011 shift assignment constituted an adverse action, Dr. Lee’s explanation provided a neutral, non-discriminatory, non-retaliatory reason for the number of shifts assigned. Crawford, 482 F.3d at 1308; Brown, 597 F.3d at 1181. 14 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 15 of 31
As to Plaintiff’s final allegation of a pre-termination adverse action, she contends that by not promoting her to the Director position after Dr. Severyn retired, the Hospital discriminated against her based on her gender. The district court refused to consider Plaintiff’s non-promotion claim concluding that Plaintiff failed to sufficiently plead the issue. We disagree. Plaintiff’s complaint alleges: “[T]he refusal to allow [Plaintiff] to apply for the position of Medical [D]irector or Chief and when she did so anyway, the refusal to even give her an interview . . . was motivated by [P]laintiff’s gender.” We will assume that this language was sufficient to plead a claim based on the Hospital’s decision not to promote Plaintiff. See Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 (2009) (internal quotations omitted) (“To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.”). But even though the claim may have sufficiently been pled, Defendant is entitled to summary judgment. 7 “Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, to prevail on a claim of failure to promote, a plaintiff may establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination by showing that: (1) she is a member of a protected class; (2) 7 See Kernel Records Oy v. Mosley, 694 F.3d 1294, 1309 (11th Cir. 2012) (“[We] may affirm the judgment of the district court on any ground supported by the record, regardless of whether that ground was relied upon or even considered by the district court.”). 15 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 16 of 31 she was qualified and applied for the promotion; (3) she was rejected despite her qualifications; and (4) other equally or less qualified employees who were not members of the protected class were promoted.” Wilson v. B/E Aerospace, Inc., 376 F.3d 1079, 1089 (11th Cir. 2004). Assuming without deciding that Plaintiff established a prima facie case of gender discrimination, Plaintiff is not entitled to relief on this claim. The only admissible evidence in support of Plaintiff’s gender discrimination claim is her assertion that Dr. Severyn told her she should not apply for the Director position because she is “too confrontational” and “too direct.” 8 Plaintiff took Severyn to actually mean that she should not apply because she is a woman. To the contrary, there is ample evidence that Plaintiff was very confrontational, under even the strictest interpretation of that word. An employer could reasonably conclude that supervisory duties and Plaintiff’s extremely confrontational personality would make for a volatile mix. 8 In her brief, Plaintiff repeatedly asserts that Dr. Severyn informed her that she should not apply because she was a woman. This assertion is contradicted by Plaintiff’s own sworn, deposition testimony, in which she stated that Severyn advised her not to apply because she was too confrontational and direct. At oral argument, Plaintiff’s counsel conceded that the only evidence supporting the contrary assertion in her brief is the deposition testimony of Ray Kendrick recounting Plaintiff’s statement to Kendrick that Severyn had told Plaintiff she would not get the job due to her gender. Plaintiff does not attempt to explain why her statement to Kendrick is non-hearsay, is subject to some hearsay exception, or is otherwise admissible to show that Severyn actually made this statement. That being so, the only admissible evidence in the record, which is supplied by Plaintiff’s own sworn testimony, is that Severyn’s comments were as described in text. 16 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 17 of 31 In addition, the Hospital presented further evidence that its reasons for not choosing Plaintiff as Director were non-discriminatory and non-pretextual. First, the Hospital sought for its Director someone with prior supervisory experience. Plaintiff has presented no evidence of previous direct supervisory leadership experience. In contrast, Dr. Sareli had leadership experience serving as chief resident, class representative in medical school, and “director for satellites and subspecialty programs” at the Penn Sleep Center. Dr. Lee, the Interim Director, served as Medical Director of Surgical Critical Care in Trauma Services prior to his term as CCD Director. Moreover, in discrimination claims based on a failure to promote, a plaintiff cannot prove pretext by merely showing she was more qualified than the person who received the position. Springer v. Convergys Customer Mgmt. Grp. Inc., 509 F.3d 1344, 1349 (11th Cir. 2007). Instead, a plaintiff must show “that the disparities between the successful applicant’s and [her] own qualifications were of such weight and significance that no reasonable person, in the exercise of impartial judgment, could have chosen the candidate selected over the plaintiff.” Id. (quoting Cooper v. Southern Co., 390 F.3d 695, 732 (11th Cir. 2004), cert. denied, 546 U.S. 960 (2005) (internal quotations omitted)). Plaintiff does not meet this standard. As noted, any objective observer would readily conclude that Dr. Sareli’s leadership experience clearly dwarfed Plaintiff’s. 17 Case: 13-14848 Date Filed: 03/31/2015 Page: 18 of 31 Finally, the Hospital presented evidence that it had decided not to hire as the new Director any current employee from within the CCD, given the internal discord and rancor between existing employees there. The Hospital concluded that no internal candidate within the CCD could command the respect necessary to lead as Director. The Hospital adhered to this decision by hiring outside the Department. This justification constitutes an additional non-discriminatory reason for not promoting Plaintiff, which Plaintiff has failed to show is was pretextual.