Opinion ID: 2975473
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Causal Nexus

Text: The district court held that the only evidence of a causal nexus between Deters’ sexual harassment complaint and Beene’s adverse treatment of her consisted of temporal proximity, which it correctly held was insufficient, standing alone, to create a genuine issue of material fact. See Randolph, 453 F.3d at 737. Deters objects, insisting there are other indicia of retaliatory conduct, which combine with temporal proximity to create a genuine issue of material fact regarding causation. These other indicia of retaliatory conduct are said to consist of the terminations, one by one, of all three other employees who participated in the investigation that culminated in Wuchter’s and Young’s firings. The terminations of Vannatta, Nguyen and Webber are said to evidence a “campaign of retaliation.” Deters contends the district court erred by ignoring this evidence. The record surrounding these three terminations is not well-developed. While the terminations arguably represent curious circumstantial evidence, their significance is ambiguous. Deters acknowledges there is no direct evidence that Beene’s actions against her were motivated by retaliatory animus. Nor is there any apparent reason in logic to believe that Rock-Tenn intended to retaliate against Deters. She had finally come forward with the complaint that helped Rock-Tenn rid its Fairfield plant of a poor manager whose abusive misconduct has been never been disputed, defended or excused. She appears to have been treated as a valued employee, as evidenced by RockTenn’s willingness to fire Wuchter and keep her. Even Beene, despite her apparent personality clash with Deters, “thought Darlene was professional” and “that she tried to handle the things that she did very well.” Beene dep. p. 55, JA 508. Smith, who by all appearances treated Deters fairly in relation to Wuchter’s harassment, investigated her concerns about Beene and determined that Beene’s actions - 24 - No. 06-4356 Deters v. Rock-Tenn Co. were “business-based,” “reasonable,” and not “inappropriate.” Smith dep. pp. 98, 114, JA 773, 777.3 Three months after Deters had taken a medical leave of absence, Rock-Tenn still had kept her position available for her return, at the same wages and benefits. Deters dep. at 121-22, JA 573-74. Nevertheless, Deters contends that her difficulties with Beene, coupled with Rock-Tenn’s termination of Vannatta, Nguyen and Webber within eight months after Wuchter and Young had been removed, evidence retaliatory animus. She does not however, explain why such an inference is justified. The record indicates that the decision to terminate Vannatta was made by Beene with Flanagan because Vannatta was not generating new customers and was not producing the sales that the company expected him to produce. Beene dep. pp. 64-65, JA 512-13. Beene’s testimony is in this respect is corroborated by Webber, who had informed Smith and Flanagan of Vannatta’s performance deficiencies months earlier. Webber dep. ex. 4, JA 339. The circumstances surrounding Nguyen’s “termination” are also unclear. According to Flanagan, Nguyen was not terminated, but had been injured on the job and received workers’ compensation benefits. Upon his return to work, he could only perform light duty work. Flanagan dep. pp. 81-82, JA 683-84. It appears Nguyen’s employment with Rock-Tenn came to an end when there was no longer any suitable light duty work available for him. Beene dep. p. 101, JA 518. 3 See also Rock-Tenn’s November 20, 2003 response to Deters’ EEOC charge, authored by Smith and explaining the structural changes introduced by Beene at Fairfield. - 25 - No. 06-4356 Deters v. Rock-Tenn Co. Webber was terminated by Flanagan in August 2003 because he had “developed a pattern of leaving early every day for a period of time,” and because he was insubordinate to Beene when she called him on one such day to ask where he was. Beene dep. pp. 68-69, JA 515-16. In other words, the record substantiates legitimate non-retaliatory reasons why Vannatta, Nguyen and Webber ceased to be employed by Rock-Tenn. Deters has made no effort to rebut this showing with evidence that the given reasons are false or pretextual. On the present record, there is no reason why the other employees’ terminations should give rise to an inference that Beene’s unpleasant treatment of Deters was motivated by retaliatory animus. There is no genuine fact issue going to the causal nexus element of Deters’ prima facie case. Because the temporal proximity of Beene’s adverse actions to Deters’ sexual harassment complaint stands alone, it is insufficient to justify a reasonable inference that Beene’s conduct was retaliatory. Accordingly, the district court’s award of summary judgment to Rock-Tenn on Deters’ retaliation claims must be affirmed for lack of evidence of causation. Further, as explained above, this lack of evidence of a causal nexus also undermines Deters’ establishment of the third element of her prima facie case, requiring materially adverse action. That is, there being no evidence substantiating Deters’ suspicion that Beene’s harsh treatment of her was motivated by retaliatory animus, Deters’ rather extreme reaction to Beene is seen to stem from subjective perceptions and has not been shown to be the reaction of an objectively reasonable person.