Opinion ID: 75766
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Retaliation and Discriminatory Discharge

Text: 7 Rojas claims that she was fired from her position as Chief Veterinary Assistant because of her sex and in retaliation for complaining about a sex-based disparity in pay. Because Rojas has presented only circumstantial evidence of discrimination, we will analyze her claims under the familiar McDonnell Douglas framework. 2 See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). We will assume, without deciding, that Rojas can establish a prima facie case of unlawful discrimination and retaliation. Once the prima facie case is established, the burden shifts to the defendant to present a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its act. See id. at 1824. Florida has offered several reasons for firing Rojas: poor work performance, failure to follow department procedures, tardiness, and turning over her work as supervisor to subordinates. 8 Because Florida has met its burden of presenting a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its act, Rojas bears the burden of showing that the reasons offered were merely pretext. See id. at 1825. Rojas asserts that she is in fact a good employee and that Beguiristain fabricated evidence indicating that she was not a good employee to conceal his discriminatory motive. 9 In analyzing claims like Rojas's, we must be careful not to allow Title VII plaintiffs simply to litigate whether they are, in fact, good employees. The factual issue to be resolved is not the wisdom or accuracy of Florida's conclusion that Rojas was an unsatisfactory employee. We are not interested in whether the conclusion is a correct one, but whether it is an honest one. Like all Title VII cases where pretext is an issue, the question the factfinder must answer is whether Florida's proffered reasons were a coverup for a ... discriminatory decision. McDonnell Douglas, 93 S.Ct. at 1826. We are not in the business of adjudging whether employment decisions are prudent or fair. Instead, our sole concern is whether unlawful discriminatory animus motivates a challenged employment decision. Damon v. Fleming Supermarkets of Fla., Inc., 196 F.3d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir.1999). 10 Rojas's evidence of pretext is insufficient to allow her to take her case to a jury. Rojas only presents one piece of evidence that is arguably persuasive in establishing pretext: a comment made by Beguiristain to Lane — not to Rojas or about Rojas — that Lane did not deserve her job (a higher-ranking and different job than the job Rojas held) because Lane was a woman. 3 Remarks such as this one — isolated and unrelated to the challenged employment decision — are not direct evidence of discrimination. See Schoenfeld, 168 F.3d at 1266. We have said, however, that such comments can contribute to a circumstantial case for pretext. 11 In Ross v. Rhodes Furniture, Inc., 146 F.3d 1286 (1998), we determined that potentially discriminatory comments that were not directly related to the employment decision could contribute to a circumstantial showing of discriminatory intent. See id. at 1291. The facts of Ross, however, are clearly distinguishable. In Ross, fairly strong additional evidence supported a finding of pretext (specifically, that the supervisor who had fired plaintiff had been engaged in the same activity for which plaintiff was fired). But no such additional evidence exists here. The Ross court, in fact, explicitly noted that the evidence relating to the discriminatory comments had to be read in conjunction with the entire record and considered together with the other evidence in the case. See id. at 1291-92. Because Beguiristain's alleged comment was (looking at the admissible evidence before the district court) an isolated comment, unrelated to the decision to fire Rojas, it, alone, is insufficient to establish a material fact on pretext. 12 Rojas has also presented evidence that her supervisors before Beguiristain praised her work: Elizabeth Landon Lane testified in her deposition that Rojas had been one of the best Chief Veterinary Assistants she had ever had. These differences in the evaluation of Rojas's performance do not establish a genuine issue on pretext. Different supervisors may impose different standards of behavior, and a new supervisor may decide to enforce policies that a previous supervisor did not consider important. Cf. Jones v. Gerwens, 874 F.2d 1534, 1542 n. 15 (11th Cir.1989). Nothing in the record indicates that Beguiristain singled out Rojas for increased enforcement of departmental regulations. On the contrary, Beguiristain circulated a memo to all of his subordinates about the importance of following the department's procedures. In addition, Bryan Lawrence — a man — was fired from his position as Veterinary Assistant for his failure to follow workplace procedures. 13 In Damon, we did consider it to be circumstantial evidence of discrimination where employees with good employment histories suddenly began receiving poor evaluations when a new supervisor came on. See Damon, 196 F.3d at 1361. In that case, however, the factual basis for the poor evaluation was in dispute. See id. at 1363 (defense that employee was fired for violation of work rules is arguably pretextual when a plaintiff submits evidence... that she did not violate the cited work rule). 14 In this case, there is no doubt that problems did, in fact, exist with Rojas's work. Objective evidence exists, from sources besides Beguiristain, supporting Florida's proffered reasons: the discrepancy reports and other complaints from the testing lab, and reports from other people employed by the department of Rojas failing to do her work properly. Moreover, although Rojas contends that she had valid excuses for her absences and tardiness, she does not dispute that she was absent or tardy at least six times between January 1997 and her termination in August 1997. 15 Even when good reasons — the factual bases for which are not rebutted — are proffered by an employer, a plaintiff can, in some circumstances, still show discrimination. To do so, however, a plaintiff must show that male employees with employment histories like the plaintiff's were not subject to the same adverse employment action as the plaintiff. See Osram Sylvania, Inc. v. Teamsters Local Union 528, 87 F.3d 1261, 1265 (11th Cir.1996) (Disparate treatment exists when similarly situated workers are treated differently even though they have committed similar acts.). Rojas, however, can point to no man — in a similar position and with a similar employment history — who was treated better than she was. 4 16 Given the factual record in this case, we are being urged to do nothing more than second-guess a business decision made by Florida. This kind of inquiry — whether a business decision is wise or nice or accurate — is precluded by Damon and similar cases. See supra. Judges are responsible for drawing the lines on what evidence is sufficient to create an issue on pretext. In this case, the evidence shows that a new supervisor announced his intention to hold all employees responsible for following workplace rules and procedures. The evidence also shows that the plaintiff did, in fact, violate some of those rules and procedures. But, no evidence exists to show that similarly situated male and female workers were treated differently: workers of both sexes were subsequently fired for failure to follow the procedures, and Rojas can identify no man with a similar work history who was not fired. In such a situation, no basis for pretext exists. 17 Because Rojas has failed to create a genuine issue of material fact on the question of whether Florida's proffered reasons for her termination were pretext, the district court's grant of summary judgment on Rojas's retaliation and sex discrimination claims must be affirmed.