Opinion ID: 2766911
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Comparator Standard

Text: When a plaintiff proffers similarly situated employees in support of an employment discrimination claim, we require that the relevant employment 14 See Wyvill v. United Cos. Life Ins. Co., 212 F.3d 296, 302 (5th Cir. 2000) (citations omitted). 7 Case: 14-10258 Document: 00512890389 Page: 8 Date Filed: 01/06/2015 No. 14-10258 actions take place “under nearly identical circumstances.” 15 At the same time, we have emphasized that “nearly identical is not synonymous with identical.” 16 Applied to the broader circumstances of a plaintiff’s employment and that of his proffered comparator, a requirement of complete or total identity rather than near identity would be essentially insurmountable, as it would only be in the rarest of circumstances that the situations of two employees would be totally identical. 17 In practical effect, this standard renders employees not similarly situated when, compared to the plaintiff, the employees have different work responsibilities or different supervisors, or work in different company divisions, or were subject to adverse employment actions too removed in time or for violations too dissimilar in type. 18 Further, “[i]f the ‘difference between the plaintiff’s conduct and that of those alleged to be similarly situated accounts for the difference in treatment received from the employer,’ the employees are not similarly situated for the purposes of an employment discrimination analysis.” 19 Specifically regarding the disciplinary histories of employees, we have expressly incorporated the guidance of the Supreme Court in McDonald v. Santa Fe Trail Transportation Co.: “As the Supreme Court has instructed, the similitude of employee violations may turn on the ‘comparable seriousness’ of the offenses for which discipline was meted out and not 15Lee v. Kan. City S. Ry. Co., 574 F.3d 253, 260 (5th Cir. 2009) (quoting Little v. Republic Ref. Co., Ltd., 924 F.2d 93, 97 (5th Cir.1991)). 16 Turner v. Kan. City S. Ry. Co., 675 F.3d 887, 893 (5th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). 17 Lee, 574 F.3d at 260. 18 See id. 19 Id. at 260 (quoting Wallace v. Methodist Hosp. Sys, 271 F.3d 212, 221 (5th Cir. 2001) (emphasis added)). 8 Case: 14-10258 Document: 00512890389 Page: 9 Date Filed: 01/06/2015 No. 14-10258 necessarily on how a company codes an infraction under its rules and regulations.” 20