Opinion ID: 204741
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Suspension as Retaliation

Text: Under Title VII’s anti-retaliation provisions, a plaintiff must plead a prima facie case consisting of three elements: that the plaintiff engaged in an activity that is protected by the statute; that the plaintiff suffered an adverse employment action; and a causal link between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3; Gu v. Boston Police Dep’t, 312 F.3d 6, 14 (1st Cir. 2002). The defendant can support a motion for summary judgment by showing that the adverse employment action was taken for a nonretaliatory reason. See Collazo v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Mfg., Inc., 617 F.3d 39, 46 (1st Cir. 2010). In such case, the plaintiff can defeat summary judgment by showing evidence sufficient to raise - 8 - a material issue of fact as to whether retaliation was in fact a cause of the adverse action. The defendant made a showing that Rivera’s suspension cannot have been motivated by retaliation for Rivera’s anonymous complaint because she was suspended before the supervisors who imposed the suspension learned she was the source of the anonymous complaint. The district court determined that Rivera failed to raise a material issue of fact rebutting the defendant’s showing because she offered nothing to contradict the defendant’s evidence that Pardo and Irizarry imposed the suspension before learning of the complaint. By Rivera’s own admission, she was uncertain when Pardo and Irizarry learned that she was the source of the complaint and had no evidence that they learned before May 20, 2003. Given Rivera’s failure to dispute effectively the SBA’s evidence that the supervisors were unaware of her complaint when they imposed the suspension, the district court correctly determined that Rivera failed to raise a genuine issue of material fact. The district court’s grant of summary judgment as to the suspension was thus appropriate.