Opinion ID: 2816854
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Prima Facie Evidence of Retaliation

Text: ConMed argues that Yazdian has not met his burden at the prima facie stage because he did not engage in protected activity and, even if he did, he would have been fired regardless of his complaints about discrimination. Apparently ConMed concedes that it knew of Yazdian’s discrimination charge and that termination is an adverse employment action, as it must. Because we hold that a reasonable jury could find that Yazdian engaged in protected activity, see Section III.A.1, the only remaining issue is whether there is a causal connection between Yazdian’s protected activity and his termination. Yazdian relies primarily on the temporal proximity of his complaints and termination. “Where an adverse employment action occurs very close in time after an employer learns of a protected activity, such temporal proximity between the events is significant enough to constitute evidence of a causal connection for the purposes of satisfying a prima facie case of retaliation.” Mickey v. Zeidler Tool & Die Co., 516 F.3d 516, 525 (6th Cir. 2008). “But where some time elapses” between the employee’s protected activity and the adverse employment action, “the employee must couple temporal proximity with other evidence of retaliatory conduct to establish causality.” Id.; see also Hamilton, 556 F.3d at 435. ConMed became aware that Yazdian had engaged in protected activity on June 1, 2010, when, in a comment to Jackson, Yazdian accused Sweatt of creating a hostile work environment. Eight weeks later, on July 26, 2010, ConMed terminated Yazdian’s employment. Yazdian has coupled the temporal proximity of his protected activity and termination with Sweatt’s email and the warning letter, in which Sweatt referred to Yazdian’s comments about a hostile work environment and discrimination as insubordination—the same evidence Yazdian cites as direct evidence of retaliation. The temporal proximity of Yazdian’s protected activity and his termination and these documents in which Sweatt called Yazdian’s protected activity inappropriate are evidence that Yazdian’s complaints about discrimination were the but-for cause of his termination. Accordingly, Yazdian has produced enough evidence to establish a prima facie retaliation claim. No. 14-3745 Yazdian v. ConMed Endoscopic Tech, Inc. Page 18 ConMed raises one additional issue to consider: the effect of Nassar on our temporalproximity analysis. ConMed argues that applying the temporal-proximity analysis in this case conflicts with the Supreme Court’s concern about frivolous employment litigation. In Nassar, the Court provided the following hypothetical in support of its conclusion that Title VII requires but-for causation analysis: Consider in this regard the case of an employee who knows that he or she is about to be fired for poor performance, given a lower pay grade, or even just transferred to a different assignment or location. To forestall that lawful action, he or she might be tempted to make an unfounded charge of racial, sexual, or religious discrimination; then, when the unrelated employment action comes, the employee could allege that it is retaliation. If respondent were to prevail in his argument here, that claim could be established by a lessened causation standard, all in order to prevent the undesired change in employment circumstances. 133 S. Ct. at 2532. ConMed implies that Yazdian complained of national-origin and religious discrimination to prevent his impending termination. The trouble with ConMed’s assertion is that Yazdian has produced enough evidence from which a reasonable jury could conclude that he made multiple complaints about a hostile work environment well before he knew that his job was in jeopardy. If ConMed wants to argue that Yazdian wrongfully complained about discrimination in order to save his job, then it may make that argument to the jury, but we cannot, at the summary-judgment stage, assume “that employees who are about to be fired” will “abuse the civil-rights protections by filing frivolous harassment complaints.”6 Montell v. Diversified Clinical Servs., Inc., 757 F.3d 497, 507 (6th Cir. 2014).