Opinion ID: 1004508
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Closure of Lobbying Office

Text: Cleary contends that the Lobbying Office was shut down to conceal the fact of and circumstances surrounding Herlong’s termination, and to simultaneously punish her for reporting the harassment. Nationwide depicts the closing of the office as a justifiable business decision. According to Nationwide, Alan Smith, the company’s vice president of governmental affairs, had been advocating this closure since 1987, and Herlong’s termination presented the opportunity to act on Smith’s plan. Smith recommended moving the office to Atlanta for several reasons, including, inter alia, a desire to add Alabama to the legislative affairs representative’s territory (South Carolina and Georgia) and, accordingly, locate the office in a central location among the three states; a need to account for the larger proportion of Nationwide business in Georgia and Alabama than in South Carolina; and a belief that a new lobbyist, unfettered by longstanding South 6 While it is undisputed that Cleary engaged in protected activity when she reported Herlong’s harassment to Nationwide, it is questionable whether Cleary sufficiently established that the purported retaliatory actions taken against her were adverse and whether a causal connection existed between those employment actions and her protected activity. However, we need not decide these issues, because we conclude that Cleary failed to show that there is a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Nationwide’s proffered reasons for its actions were mere pretext for retaliation. Though we are following the district court’s course in assuming, without deciding, that Cleary established a prima facie case of retaliation, we disagree with the court’s statement regarding her burden of proof once Nationwide proffered legitimate reasons for its actions. According to the court, Cleary bears the burden of producing at this stage evidence which would be sufficient to convince a reasonable juror that [Nationwide’s] stated reasons for all of these actions are unworthy of belief and that [Nationwide] actually made the decisions in order to retaliate against her. District Court Order, at 6 (emphasis added). Cleary need only establish, for any one of the various adverse actions alleged, that a rational factfinder could conclude that the action was discriminatory, Reeves, 120 S. Ct. at 2109. 10 CLEARY v. NATIONWIDE MUTUAL INSURANCE CO. Carolina connections, would fare better in cosmopolitan Atlanta. Appellee’s Br., at 22. Cleary, however, maintains that moving the Lobbying Office was done to protect Herlong, it was done to avoid any suspicion of sexual harassment by a high ranking Nationwide executive, and the effect was to radically and permanently alter [Cleary’s] employment status with Nationwide. Nationwide decided to coddle Herlong, lie about his departure, and [Cleary] would have to pay the price for blowing the whistle. Appellant’s Br., at 14. Her first contention, that Nationwide relocated the office to conceal the harassment investigation and Herlong’s termination, is supported, at least in part, by the record. In a December 3, 1996 interoffice memorandum outlining various reasons to relocate Herlong’s former position to Atlanta, Smith wrote that there are bad vibrations about Nationwide in South Carolina for lifting Bob off the case with no public explanation. We are perceived in some quarters as having picked on somebody who was part of the fraternity. Moving the job to a new location mitigates the speculation. J.A. 272. The problem for Cleary, however, is that any intention to hide Herlong’s harassment of her does not equate to an intention to retaliate against her for reporting his abuse. On the contrary, it might be relevant to Cleary’s case if, as she also asserts, Nationwide closed the Lobbying Office with the intention of penalizing her. To prove this contention, Cleary attempts to discredit Nationwide’s proffered business reasons for the closure with evidence that, while she was told that the office was closing in September 1996, the official decision to relocate it to Atlanta was not made until months later. This evidence, too, is unhelpful to Cleary because, despite the lack of official action on Smith’s recommendation, the Lobbying Office was virtually abandoned upon Herlong’s termination. Finally, Cleary attempts to bolster her theory with evidence that she was placed on paid administrative leave during the investigation, while Herlong remained on the job, and that, following her transfer CLEARY v. NATIONWIDE MUTUAL INSURANCE CO. 11 to Gateway, she was initially allowed to continue helping with lobbying work until it was abruptly reassigned to someone else. Nationwide provides legitimate reasons for these occurrences. Cleary was placed on leave during the investigation — by mutual agreement with Nationwide — to separate her from her then-alleged harasser; in the meantime, Herlong necessarily continued working to prevent the Lobbying Office from ceasing to function. Moreover, following her transfer to Gateway, Cleary was asked to help with lobbying functions that were being handled on only an interim basis by existing Nationwide employees until the hiring of a new legislative affairs representative in Atlanta. Cleary was thanked for her assistance, but those duties were readily reassigned so that they would not interfere with her new position in claims. Cleary offers no evidence to refute these explanations. In summary, there is nothing to suggest that Cleary was anything more than a coincidental victim of the decision to close the Lobbying Office. As the district court cogently explained: To be sure, the elimination of plaintiff’s job occurred as a result — albeit indirect — of her complaint against Herlong. However, plaintiff has presented no evidence that the elimination occurred because of her complaint. This is not a mere semantical distinction. Instead it is a distinction on which liability under Title VII hinges. District Court Order, at 4-5 (emphasis in original).