Opinion ID: 26083
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Absence of Pretext Proof

Text: 25 To carry her burden, Montemayor attempts to show that the legitimate, nonretaliatory justification offered by the City for Montemayor's termination was pretextual. First, she contends that the Department has misinterpreted its own policy. Second, she contends that retaliation can be inferred because Chief Ojeda, a person with prior animus against her, had the final decision as to whether she should be fired. Each of these arguments are unavailing due to lack of evidentiary support. 26
27 Montemayor claims that, under the terms of the policy, her satisfactory performance on the two makeup tests allows her to makeup her failure on the third written examination. In other words, the policy permits her to fail five written examinations before being adjudged substandard. However, nothing in the written policy or the trial testimony mandates this interpretation. The policy terms indicate that Montemayor should have been adjudged substandard and should not have been allowed to makeup the third written examination. 28
29 Chief Ojeda's testimony indicated that under no circumstances would he exercise his discretion to not terminate a cadet who failed three written exams. Moreover, the evidence indicates that Chief Ojeda consistently followed the termination recommendations of his Training Chief, and therefore would not exercise his discretion in a contrary manner. Despite this evidence, however, Montemayor contends that the jury was permitted to find Chief Ojeda's testimony and other firefighter personnel's testimony to be untruthful because it was self-serving, and therefore could properly infer that Chief Ojeda exercised his discretion in a retaliatory manner. 30 Reeves warns us not to make credibility determinations and weigh the evidence when ruling on Rule 50 motions. However, Reeves does not require us to reject the plainly obvious, i.e, the uncontroverted evidence that Montemayor was a substandard cadet. To be sure, Chief Ojeda could not exercise his discretion in a retaliatory manner. But there is no evidence to suggest that Chief Ojeda should have exercised his discretion in her favor. 8 31 The evidence demonstrates that Montemayor failed performance tests as well as the three written examinations. In a particularly important training test (the nighttime pump operation), she was unable to establish the water supply for her training team because she could not connect hoses and open a hydrant. Her poor performance during this exercise was, even by her own admission, a serious deficiency that would have been dangerous had it happened at a real fire. Finally, the record indicates that, at various times, Montemayor had difficulties turning on a power saw and was unable to open discharge valves on a pumper truck. 32 In response to the evidence that she performed poorly on skills tests, Montemayor makes two points. First, she argues that the nighttime pump operations test was rigged to make her fail. Nothing in the record supports this argument. Montemayor was given the same opportunity to pass the test as her fellow cadets. She simply failed. 33 Second, she claims that she could not start the power saw during the performance exercise because it was flooded, or out of gas, and she was stressed and overheated. However, her own testimony demonstrated that the power saw became flooded because she could not start it. Moreover, she admits that she could not start the power saw during her practice exercises. In sum, none of her contentions detract from the fact that she performed poorly during performance tests. 34 In light of the overwhelming, uncontradicted evidence that Montemayor was a substandard cadet who failed written examinations and performance tests, a reasonable jury could not conclude that she would not have been terminated but for her protected conduct. Therefore, the district court's JMOL ruling on this point is also AFFIRMED.