Opinion ID: 6340579
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of Leave-of-Absence Policy

Text: ¶ 47. Plaintiff asserts that defendant’s decision to fire her as a 19.5-year employee, who would have accrued 11.9 weeks of medical leave just days later, was evidence of pretext. Given these circumstances, she suggests that it was suspiciously harsh for defendant not to have placed her on a leave of absence until her medical leave reloaded because defendant’s discretionary leave- 4 In connection with this argument plaintiff also alleges that defendant violated its “policy of immediately completing incident reports about any work injuries.” But she fails to cite any evidence of such a policy. And her own arguments imply that she understood it was her duty to complete an incident report, not defendant’s duty to fill out a report on her behalf. 23 of-absence program “allowed employees to request up to 60 days and seek an extension.” The trial court rejected this argument because plaintiff failed to show that defendant had any obligation to keep her on a non-PFLA leave for any period of time. Plaintiff contends that “the fact that an employee benefit is discretionary does not mean that how it is applied cannot be evidence of pretext.”5 ¶ 48. We are unpersuaded by these arguments. As a threshold matter, there is no indication that plaintiff ever requested to be on a leave of absence or extend any leave of absence that defendant afforded her. Thus, under her own characterization of the policy—that employees could “request up to 60 days and seek an extension”—she failed to invoke the policy at all. Moreover, as with the workers’ compensation policy, plaintiff points to no evidence of how defendant applied this discretionary leave-of-absence program to others. Nor does she identify any standards in the policy for exercising discretion in considering requests for a leave of absence. A factfinder would need to speculate that defendant typically afforded employees similarly situated to plaintiff with sufficient unpaid leave to bridge a gap between injury and accrual of medical leave. Without any evidence of how defendant actually applied its discretionary leaveof-absence program, there is no basis for a factfinder to infer discriminatory intent from the mere existence of such a policy. ¶ 49. Even apart from these infirmities, the broader context of the parties’ actions and the succession of events undercuts any inference of improper motive. Plaintiff left work on May 5, 2016 due to knee pain and returned the next day with a doctor’s note containing medical 5 Although plaintiff alludes to some impropriety in the fact that defendant terminated her shortly before she would have been eligible for 11.9 additional weeks of PFLA leave, she never develops this into a standalone claim or argument. Indeed, she cites no legal authority for the proposition that a retaliation claim may be based on a conditional future accrual of benefits and anticipated exercise of those benefits. Or that proximity between termination and anticipated exercise of yet unaccrued benefits may be evidence of pretext supporting a retaliation claim based on a prior protected action. We therefore need not consider whether such arguments may be viable under Vermont law. 24 restrictions that undisputedly precluded her from performing the essential functions of a molder or finisher. She asked her supervisor to be assigned solely to trim rings. Her supervisor declined and stated that “[w]e don’t have anything for you.” Plaintiff then punched out and went home. Although plaintiff did not specifically request to take medical leave on May 6, 2016, she also never sought to apply any other type of leave. Defendant allotted the only PFLA leave time that plaintiff currently had—four hours’ worth—to May 6, 2016. On May 11, 2016, when plaintiff still had not returned to work, defendant sent her a letter indicating that she had exhausted her medical leave. The letter also noted that she had yet to apply for short-term disability or workers’ compensation benefits, despite being invited to do so on May 9, 2016. The letter stated that defendant would consider her absence a voluntary resignation if she did not respond by May 16, 2016. On May 12, 2016 plaintiff completed an incident report to apply for workers’ compensation, asserting she was injured at work in August 2015 when she first returned from her medical leave and was operating the Press 30 machine. More than a week later, defendant sent plaintiff a final letter stating that her application for workers’ compensation would be reviewed by its insurance company, but that “[d]ue to production schedules it has become necessary to assign another employee to your position at Mack Molding Company and therefore, your employment has been terminated effective Friday, May 20, 2016.” ¶ 50. This sequence demonstrates that plaintiff did not proactively seek benefits; instead, defendant took initiative to remind her of her rights. Defendant applied her remaining medical leave to the first day following her injury, when she did not work and did not specify any other basis for taking time off. Likewise, defendant invited plaintiff multiple times to apply for workers’ compensation benefits before she finally did so. Although defendant had previously accommodated plaintiff for her knee injury, given plaintiff’s new medical restrictions in May 2016 there was no way to keep her working in an existing position within the molding or finishing departments. Defendant was faced with the decision whether to retain an employee who was 25 injured indefinitely and could not perform the essential functions of her job. Under these circumstances, mere temporal proximity between the date to which defendant allocated plaintiff’s remaining PFLA leave and the date of termination does not suggest pretext. Similarly, the fact that plaintiff finally applied for workers’ compensation benefits on May 12 after defendant twice solicited her to do so, does not on its own suggest that plaintiff’s termination eight days later was in retaliation for this application. ¶ 51. Plaintiff cites four cases to support the argument that defendant’s application of its leave-of-absence policy was suspiciously harsh. All are unavailing. She relies on a single quote taken out of context from a Southern District of New York decision: “A reasonable jury could also conclude that termination of a 25-year career was unreasonably and inexplicably harsh.” Miles v. N. Gen. Hosp., 998 F. Supp. 377, 386 (S.D.N.Y. 1998). The word “also” is telling. Miles found a triable issue of fact as to age discrimination based on a myriad of contributing circumstances not present here: discriminatory remarks; the affidavits of the three former employees; [a supervisor’s] purported harsh treatment of plaintiff; [a supervisor’s] effort to pad plaintiff’s file with negative references to her performance; and the Hospital’s seemingly severe decision to fire, rather than demote or discipline in some other less severe fashion, a 55–year old employee with 25 years of service who was receiving satisfactory or better ratings in most categories on her evaluations, when other [employees] who were also remiss in submitting reports on time were not fired. Id. at 388. The termination appeared particularly harsh because, unlike plaintiff here, the twentyfive-year employee was still capable of performing her job and was fired merely for submitting some late reports. Id. at 386-88. Plaintiff here presented no comparators or circumstantial evidence to support that her termination was “unreasonably and inexplicably harsh,” let alone other corroborating evidence of improper motive as existed in Miles. Id. at 386. ¶ 52. Davis v. New York City Department of Education, 804 F.3d 231 (2d Cir. 2015), involved a different legal question altogether—whether the denial of a discretionary benefit could 26 be an adverse employment action. Id. at 236. Although the Second Circuit answered this question affirmatively, it affirmed summary judgment in favor of the employer because the plaintiff had failed to present sufficient evidence that would support a finding of discriminatory motivation. Id. This case does not help plaintiff establish pretext. ¶ 53. Plaintiff cites two federal district court cases that addressed claims of retaliation for taking protected leave, but each denied summary judgment for the employer based on considerably stronger evidence of pretext than plaintiff has presented here. In Reyer v. Saint Francis Country House, 243 F. Supp. 3d 573 (E.D. Pa. 2017), the employer claimed it had fired the plaintiff because he was indefinitely injured and could not perform his job, his FMLA leave had expired, and it needed to fill his position quickly. Id. at 589. The district court found that the plaintiff “barely” established a triable issue of fact as to pretext based on evidence that he had been fired on the same day his FMLA leave expired; that his employer failed to even consider whether the plaintiff was entitled to the protections of its discretionary leave-of-absence policy; that despite repeated email, phone, and in-person inquires, the employer failed to provide the plaintiff with information about how much of his FMLA leave remained until shortly after his termination; that multiple supervisors presented inconsistent testimony regarding who discussed and ultimately decided to terminate the plaintiff; that there was a dispute of fact as to the “essential functions” of the plaintiff’s job and whether he could perform those functions at the time he was terminated; and that the employer delayed hiring the plaintiff’s replacement until two months after he submitted his employment application. Id. at 588-91. None of these facts were present here. Rather than asking for clarification and being met with silence or obfuscation, plaintiff made no inquiries regarding her medical leave or any possible leave of absence in May 2016, and defendant nevertheless promptly informed plaintiff of her expired leave and invited her to apply for other benefits to which she might be entitled. That defendant was not more generous by giving plaintiff 27 an unsolicited leave of absence under a discretionary policy cannot demonstrate discriminatory intent without some evidence of how defendant applied its leave-of-absence policy to others. ¶ 54. Plaintiff quotes Garrett v. Atlanticare Health System, Inc., No. 07-5416-NLHAMD, 2009 WL 3446755 (D.N.J. Oct. 21, 2009) for the proposition that “[i]f [the Unprotected Leave Policy] was implemented in a way intended to retaliate against Plaintiff for her invocation of FMLA leave, such conduct is not immunized simply because Defendant could have terminated her [earlier].” Id. at . Unlike here, however, the Garrett plaintiff proffered evidence that her employer applied its leave policy less favorably to her than to her replacement under the same circumstances. Id. at , . The district court denied summary judgment for the employer based on several indications of possible pretext, including this evidence of selective enforcement of a formal policy. Id. at . Plaintiff here adduced no evidence whatsoever of how defendant applied its leave-of-absence policy to others. ¶ 55. Ultimately, plaintiff had the burden to present some admissible material by which a reasonable jury could infer that defendant’s stated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating her—that she was indefinitely incapable of performing the essential functions of her job—was a lie. Gauthier, 2015 VT 108, ¶ 22. She failed to do so. The trial court correctly granted summary judgment to defendant on plaintiff’s retaliation claims. Affirmed. FOR THE COURT: