Opinion ID: 2791244
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: ADEA & TCHRA Claims

Text: A. Standard of Review This court reviews a district court’s grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same standards as the district court. Rogers v. Bromac Title Servs., L.L.C., 755 F.3d 347, 350 (5th Cir. 2014). Summary judgment is appropriate “if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). This court “resolve[s] factual controversies in favor of the nonmoving party, but only where there is an actual controversy, that is, when both parties have submitted evidence of contradictory facts.” Antoine v. First Student, Inc., 713 F.3d 824, 830 (5th Cir. 2013) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). B. McDonnell Douglas Framework The district court granted summary judgment to Appellees on Squyres’s ADEA and TCHRA claims. Because Squyres relies solely on circumstantial evidence, this court evaluates both claims under the three-step, burdenshifting framework announced in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–04 (1973). See Miller v. Raytheon Co., 716 F.3d 138, 144 (5th Cir. 2013); Mission Consol. Indep. Sch. Dist. v. Garcia, 372 S.W.3d 629, 634 (Tex. 2012). Under this framework, the employee must first establish a prima facie case of age discrimination. Miller, 716 F.3d at 144. If the employee meets his initial burden, the burden of production shifts to his employer to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged employment decision. Id. At this stage, the employer’s burden is one of “production, not persuasion,” and “involve[s] no credibility assessment.” Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 142 (2000) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). If the employer is able to articulate a reason, “the presumption raised 7 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 8 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 by the prima facie case is rebutted and drops from the case.” St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507 (1993) (quoting Tex. Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 255 & n.10 (1981)) (internal quotation marks omitted). The third step of the McDonnell Douglas analysis involves a different causation inquiry under the ADEA and the TCHRA. See Reed v. Neopost USA, Inc., 701 F.3d 434, 440 (5th Cir. 2012). Under the ADEA, the employee must “prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination.” Reeves, 530 U.S. at 143 (quoting Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253) (internal quotation marks omitted). An employee can show pretext “either through evidence of disparate treatment or by showing that the employer’s proffered explanation is false or unworthy of credence.” Moss v. BMC Software, Inc., 610 F.3d 917, 922 (5th Cir. 2010) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). In the end, under the ADEA, the employee has the burden of persuasion to establish “that age was [a] ‘but-for’ cause of the employer’s adverse decision.” Burrage v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 881, 889 (2014) (alteration in original) (quoting Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176 (2009)); Reed, 701 F.3d at 440. Under the TCHRA, in contrast, the employee can succeed at this third step by showing “either (1) the reason stated by the employer was a pretext for discrimination, or (2) the defendant’s reason, while true, was only one reason for its conduct and discrimination is another motivating factor (‘mixed motive’).” Reed, 701 F.3d at 439–40 (quoting Michael v. City of Dallas, 314 S.W.3d 687, 691 (Tex. App. 2010)) (internal quotation marks omitted); see also Quantum Chem. Corp. v. Toennies, 47 S.W.3d 473, 480 (Tex. 2001). i. Legitimate, Nondiscriminatory Reason The district court “assume[d] without deciding that Squyres . . . made out a prima facie case of age discrimination.” We likewise make the same 8 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 9 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 assumption. 3 The burden of production then shifted to Appellees to articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged employment decision. Miller, 716 F.3d at 144. Appellees made three decisions related to Squyres’s employment: (1) they decided not to renew Squyres’s Employment Agreement; (2) they decided to offer Squyres a new position as an Independent Sales Representative instead; and (3) they decided to withdraw that offer. Appellees articulated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for each of their employment decisions. Their reasons for the first and second decisions overlapped: Squyres’s Agreement was not economically feasible, especially in light of his disappointing job performance. Appellees therefore offered him a new position that they believed better reflected his performance. Frediani also explained that they offered him a position as a contract employee because S- Line’s sales personnel were paid a “flat salary” and Squyres, in contrast, had “asked for and wanted commissions.” Finally, Appellees rescinded the offer for a new position because Squyres did not accept or reject the offer before the deadline that Frediani set. Appellees submitted admissible evidence supporting each of these reasons: Frediani’s affidavit and deposition testimony, other employees’ deposition testimony (including Squyres’s), and also supporting emails and documents. 4 They therefore met their burden of production to articulate legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for their employment decisions. See Reeves, 530 U.S. at 142 (explaining that this 3 In the district court, the parties debated whether Squyres suffered an adverse employment action. Squyres argued that he was fired. Appellees, however, argued that Squyres’s employment contract simply was not renewed and expired on its own terms. Because we can resolve this appeal on pretext grounds, we decline to resolve whether Squyres suffered an adverse employment action. 4 As a result, this case is distinguishable from Patrick v. Ridge, 394 F.3d 311 (5th Cir. 2004), which Squyres relies on in his briefs. In Patrick, there was “no evidence in the summary judgment record clarif[ying] or expand[ing] on” the employer’s reason for terminating the plaintiff. Id. at 316 (recognizing that the employer “produced no specifics”). 9 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 10 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 analysis “can involve no credibility determination” (quoting St. Mary’s, 509 U.S. at 509)); Amburgey v. Corhart Refractories Corp., 936 F.2d 805, 813 (5th Cir. 1991) (noting that this “rebuttal is as easily made as the prima facie case”). On appeal, Squyres challenges this conclusion for four reasons. First, Squyres argues that the district court misinterpreted Frediani’s summary judgment affidavit as providing an explanation of why Frediani decided not to renew Squyres’s Employment Agreement, instead of providing reasons why the company was unhappy with Squyres’s job performance. The affidavit, however, provides reasons for both issues, and these reasons are not mutually exclusive. Second, Squyres contends that Appellees are foreclosed from arguing that they had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for ending his employment because Appellees also argued that they did not “terminate” Squyres’s employment. Appellees, however, made these arguments in the alternative. They first argued that Squyres failed to establish the first element of the prima facie case (that is, that he suffered an adverse employment action), and, in the alternative, they argued that they had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for terminating Squyres’s employment. These types of alternative arguments are permissible, and this court routinely considers them. See, e.g., E.E.O.C. v. Boh Bros. Constr. Co., 731 F.3d 444, 462 (5th Cir. 2013) (en banc). Next, Squyres similarly argues that Frediani testified in his deposition that he had “no reason” to terminate Squyres’s employment. Again, this argument confuses Appellees’ arguments on the prima facie case and their alternative arguments related to their legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for their employment decisions. During Frediani’s deposition, counsel asked Frediani: “What was the reason that Mr. Squyres was terminated by S-Line, LLC?” Frediani responded: “Well, as I said previously, he was never 10 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 11 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 terminated.” As a follow-up question, counsel asked: “I’m trying to . . . ask you whether you were about to fire him anyway . . . .” Frediani then responded that had he been about to fire Squyres, he would not have proposed the consulting agreement. Read in full, this exchange confirms that Frediani was defending his position, for purposes of the prima facie case, that Squyres was never fired. That the district court later concluded that Appellees’ actions might, in fact, constitute an adverse employment action does not preclude Appellees’ alternative argument that they had legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for taking these actions. Finally, Squyres rejects Appellees’ identification of the three related employment decisions as the challenged employment actions. Instead, Squyres argues that the district court should have evaluated Appellees’ reasons for the ultimate “termination” decision. Squyres appears to argue that the district court erroneously focused on Appellees’ reasons for making the independent contractor offer, instead of their reasons for not allowing Squyres to become an at-will employee without a written contract. Appellees, however, did provide a reason for that decision. As Frediani explained, he offered the independent contractor position to Squyres because he believed it was consistent with what Squyres wanted. Moreover, it is not clear how Squyres could have seamlessly made a transition from his employment under the Agreement (which was expiring) to some new form of employment (whether as an at-will employee or as an independent contractor, with or without a written contract) without first negotiating the terms of his new employment with Appellees. When the parties could not agree on the terms of a new arrangement, Appellees withdrew their offer. The court thus concludes that Appellees articulated legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for terminating Squyres’s employment. 11 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 12 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 ii. Pretext This appeal therefore turns on whether there was a genuine issue of material fact on pretext. Squyres again identifies four problems with the district court’s pretext analysis, but all of them miss the mark. 5 Squyres first argues that the district court erred when it rejected Squyres’s argument that Appellees failed to provide him a reason for terminating his employment. But Frediani did provide a reason. As Frediani explained in an email to Squyres, “It has become clear today that Ancra is unable to provide you with an employment agreement that meets your needs. I am retracting the offer submitted earlier today, September 30.” Moreover, even if Appellees failed to give Squyres a reason for their decision not to renew his Employment Agreement or not to offer him an at-will employment position, Squyres can point to no evidence in the record suggesting that he ever asked for these reasons or to any case law requiring an employer to voluntarily state a reason for its termination decision. 6 Next, Squyres asserts that the district court erred by discounting Appellees’ shifting and inconsistent reasons for terminating Squyres’s employment. Squyres further argues that, when reviewing these 5 The AARP presents two additional arguments in its amicus brief supporting Squyres. First, the AARP argues that the district court “failed to analyze” the evidence “under the separate standards to the ADEA and TCHRA.” Second, the AARP argues that the Supreme Court’s decision in Burrage v. United States, 134 S. Ct. 881 (2014), lightened Squyres’s burden of raising a genuine issue of fact by requiring him to prove only that his age was “a” but-for cause of Appellees’ actions, as opposed to “the” but-for cause. Because Squyres failed to raise these arguments in his opening brief, we will not consider these arguments. See Christopher M. ex rel. Laveta McA. v. Corpus Christi Indep. Sch. Dist., 933 F.2d 1285, 1293 (5th Cir. 1991) (“Absent exceptional circumstances, an issue waived by appellant cannot be raised by amicus curiae.”). 6 The cases that Squyres does cite do not support his argument. See Mock v. Bell Helicopter Textron, Inc., 196 F. App’x 773, 774 (11th Cir. 2006) (per curiam); Gee v. Principi, 289 F.3d 342, 348 (5th Cir. 2002). Unlike the plaintiffs in both of these cases, Squyres does not contend that he ever asked Frediani why the company chose not to renew his Employment Agreement. 12 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 13 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 inconsistencies, the district court improperly drew inferences in favor of Appellees. Generally, “an employer’s inconsistent explanations for its employment decisions at different times permits a jury to infer that the employer’s proffered reasons are pretextual.” Burrell v. Dr. Pepper/Seven Up Bottling Grp., Inc., 482 F.3d 408, 412 n.11 (5th Cir. 2007) (citing Gee, 289 F.3d at 347–48). And although the court must resolve factual controversies in favor of Squyres, that obligation only applies when “there is an actual controversy.” Antoine, 713 F.3d at 830 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Here, when the alleged inconsistent statements are considered in their full context, the inconsistencies disappear. For example, Squyres highlights an apparent inconsistency in Frediani’s reasons for terminating Squyres’s employment, pointing both to Frediani’s unhappiness with Squyres’s performance and Squyres’s failure to accept or reject the independent contractor proposal by the deadline. These reasons are not inconsistent because they explain different decisions: Frediani articulated one reason for not renewing the Agreement (unhappiness) and another for rescinding the independent contractor proposal (tardiness in replying). As the district court recognized, the only possible inconsistency is between Frediani’s deposition testimony and his affidavit. Frediani stated in his affidavit that he “was unhappy with Squyres’s job performance,” but later testified in his deposition that he was not “disappointed at something [Squyres] was doing.” Again, however, this alleged inconsistency disappears when considering the statements in their full context and considering exactly which employment decision Frediani was explaining. Frediani spoke of his “unhappiness” with Squyres’s job performance when explaining why the company decided not to renew Squyres’s Employment Agreement. Frediani’s statement that he was not disappointed with Squyres arose in a different context. Then, Frediani was explaining why he did not fire Squyres when the 13 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 14 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 Agreement expired and instead offered him a different position—a decision related to, but different from, his decision not to renew the Agreement. This deposition testimony is consistent with Frediani’s statement in his affidavit that he offered Squyres the independent contractor position because Frediani “believed S-Line could derive some value from the contacts Squyres had in the industry if S-Line had a more favorable agreement in place.” Because Frediani provided these reasons to explain two different actions, these statements are not inconsistent and therefore do not raise a genuine issue of fact on pretext. Squyres next argues that the district court erred in rejecting his argument that because all other Ancra and S-Line employees were at-will employees without written employment contracts, his employment should not have ended when his Employment Agreement expired. In other words, Squyres believes that he should have automatically been allowed to continue working for Appellees without a written employment contract. Squyres’s unique employment situation, however, makes this argument unpersuasive. Because of his Employment Agreement, Squyres was unlike other S-Line and Ancra employees to begin with: no other employee had a written employment contract. Squyres was initially hired and paid a high salary to compensate him for the sale of his business to S-Line. The Agreement did not guarantee renewal, and it did not guarantee any form of employment beyond the initial three-year term. Appellees therefore were not obligated to maintain Squyres’s employment after the Agreement expired, and Squyres had no right to continue in his Vice President position. In short, because Squyres’s employment began unlike any other employees’, it is not evidence of pretext that it ended differently as well. Squyres also does not explain what the terms of his employment would or should have been had Appellees simply allowed him to continue working after his Agreement expired. It is unclear how much he would have been paid, 14 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 15 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 what his responsibilities would have been, and whether he would have received commissions. Squyres and Appellees were not able to agree on these key employment terms, regardless of Squyres’s job title or whether an agreement was put in writing. As Frediani wrote to Squyres, it became clear “that Ancra [was] unable to provide [Squyres] with an employment agreement that [met] [Squyres’s needs].” Because Squyres does not dispute that he could not reach an agreement with Appellees, even after several days of negotiations, this argument fails to raise a genuine issue of fact over pretext. As final evidence of pretext, Squyres points to two sets of stray remarks: one remark that Squyres himself made, and another set of remarks that colleagues made. First, because of its close temporal proximity to Frediani’s employment decision, Squyres contends that his comment to Daugherty in Human Resources that he planned to work until ninety is evidence of pretext. But it is unclear how Squyres’s own statement could serve as evidence that his employer discriminated against him because of his age. Squyres’s comment, at most, demonstrated that Daugherty knew how old Squyres was. It does not demonstrate that Daugherty harbored age-based animus against Squyres. Moreover, Daugherty did not make the decisions related to Squyres’s employment, and there is no evidence that Daugherty communicated this comment to Frediani (the ultimate decisionmaker) or any other S-Line employees. It is true that Daugherty was at a meeting with Frediani where they discussed Squyres’s employment. But Daugherty testified that he did not convey Squyres’s comment about his age; instead, he only told Frediani that Squyres had “expressed an interest in continuing to work with us.” With no evidence that Daugherty ever conveyed Squyres’s age-based statement to any other employee, it is not evidence of pretext. Next, Squyres also argues that the district court erred in discounting his coworkers’ “old guy” comments as evidence of pretext. According to Squyres, 15 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 16 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 Paul Delaney used to call Squyres “old guy.” Similarly, Ralph Abato would occasionally call Squyres an “old man” in response to Squyres’s calling Abato a “young guy[].” 7 This argument also fails. The district court properly analyzed this argument under the standard that this court articulated in Russell v. McKinney Hosp. Venture, 235 F.3d 219, 226 (5th Cir. 2000). 8 Under Russell, when an employee offers workplace comments as circumstantial evidence of age discrimination, the court applies a flexible two-part test, under which the comments must show: “(1) discriminatory animus (2) on the part of a person that is either primarily responsible for the challenged employment action or by a person with influence or leverage over the relevant decisionmaker.” Reed, 701 F.3d at 441; see also Laxton v. Gap Inc., 333 F.3d 572, 583 (5th Cir. 2003). Squyres fails to meet the first element. A reasonable jury could not conclude that Squyres’s coworkers’ comments demonstrated discriminatory animus. Squyres emphasized that these comments were sporadic and that he did not find them offensive. More importantly, Squyres also testified that he knew that Delaney and Abato were “pushing for [Squyres] to stay with the company,” undercutting his argument that the two men discriminated against him. Indeed, as another employee testified, both men vouched for Squyres, explaining that they believed Squyres 7 Paul Delaney was the Director of Consumer Products at Ancra, and Ralph Abato was the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ancra. 8 Although it has cited Russell, the Texas Supreme Court has not expressly adopted the two-part Russell test. See Reed, 701 F.3d at 442 n.6. Citing Fifth Circuit law, it has held that “[s]tray remarks, remote in time from [the employee’s] termination, and not made by anyone directly connected with the [employment] decisions, are not enough to raise a fact question about whether [the employer’s] reason for terminating [the employee] was pretextual.” M.D. Anderson Hosp. & Tumor Inst. v. Willrich, 28 S.W.3d 22, 25 (Tex. 2000) (per curiam) (citing Nichols v. Loral Vought Sys. Corp., 81 F.3d 38, 41–42 (5th Cir. 1996); Waggoner v. City of Garland, Tex., 987 F.2d 1160, 1166 (5th Cir. 1993)). Because Texas courts have consistently looked to federal case law in interpreting the TCHRA, this court has applied the Russell standard when analyzing TCHRA claims. See Reed, 701 F.3d at 441–42 & n.6. 16 Case: 13-11358 Document: 00512991646 Page: 17 Date Filed: 04/02/2015 No. 13-11358 added value to the company. Given the full context of these comments, they do not suggest age-based animus. Compare Reed, 701 F.3d at 441–42 (holding that stray remarks were not evidence of age animus in part because they were “sporadic”), and Sandstad v. CB Richard Ellis, Inc., 309 F.3d 893, 900 (5th Cir. 2002) (holding that a similar “old guy” comment, made in response to a “young guy” comment, was not evidence of discriminatory animus), with Russell, 235 F.3d at 226 (holding that an “old bitch” comment was evidence of discriminatory animus when it was made so frequently that the plaintiff had to wear earplugs and when the comments continued even after the plaintiff confronted the employee about what he was saying). In conclusion, because Squyres has failed to meet his burden of raising a genuine issue of fact on pretext, the district court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of Appellees.