Opinion ID: 203405
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Decision To Terminate García's Employment

Text: Vélez made the decision to terminate García's employment on December 15, at the expiration of her second PIP. He communicated this decision to Beatriz Sanabria, BMS's Human Resources Director, who instructed him to put together the necessary documentation. In a sworn statement, Sanabria stated that she began the termination process, which involved gathering the necessary documents and consulting with BMS's corporate legal department in New York, in response to Vélez's request. However, the process was delayed for several weeks and it was not until late January 2005 that she received final confirmation of the termination process as well as the documents necessary to offer García a severance package. On January 24, 2005, Sanabria and Vélez met with García to inform her of the termination decision and provide her with copies of her final PIP progress report and 2004 year-end evaluation. Meanwhile, García went on vacation on December 17, 2004, and did not return until December 23. The circumstances surrounding her vacation are in dispute. Vélez claims that he ran into García several times on December 17 and she never inquired about a vacation request, and he had no knowledge that she had requested any specific vacation time. He had received only a December 8 inquiry from her regarding the payment of excess accrued vacation. García, on the other hand, claims that she made multiple efforts to contact Vélez about her desire to take vacation days so that they would not be lost at the end of the year, but received no response. The dispute is simply not material. At oral argument, both parties agreed that García's vacation took place after Vélez had made the decision to terminate her, and thus her allegedly unauthorized use of vacation days should not be considered as a factor in the decision to fire her. When García returned to work on December 23, Vélez gave her a written warning about her allegedly unauthorized use of vacation time. Apparently in response, on December 27, García filed a complaint with BMS's Department of Human Resources alleging that Vélez had discriminated against her on account of her sex. This was the very first time she raised the issue of gender-based discrimination. [1] Sanabria stated that she immediately conducted an investigation and that she concluded that García's claims were based on her dissatisfaction with legitimate employment expectations from her supervisor, and not on sexual discrimination. García's year-end evaluation for 2004, which Vélez signed on January 24, 2005, was negative. García received a Needs Improvement rating in each of the seven categories. Vélez's criticisms repeated and were consistent with those made in García's final PIP progress report, such as that she had trouble working well with others, reacted negatively to feedback, and blamed others when problems arose. After García was fired, BMS was delayed in moving forward with two of the projects that she had been managing because they had difficulty finding a person with the right set of skills. In early 2006, BMS hired Ángel González, a male, to replace García as Senior Project Engineer.