Opinion ID: 2857274
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: St. Mark’s letter

Text: ORMC contends it learned of additional evidence of misconduct when, on the day following Zisumbo’s termination, October 9, 2009, Bissenden received a call from Zisumbo’s attorney, who advised that “they” had confirmed the authenticity of the St. Mark’s letter and that “Ashley” at St. Mark’s prepared it. Bissenden immediately contacted the human resource department at St. Mark’s and spoke with Ashley Jorgensen, who verified that she did not write the letter because she was on maternity leave on the date of the letter. The district court found this evidence did not constitute after-acquired evidence limiting back pay for several reasons. Primarily, the district court concluded that even if the information provided by Ashley at St. Mark’s revealed any additional deception, that deception could not be attributed to Zisumbo. We agree and conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in making this finding. B. Front Pay, Reinstatement, and Back Pay After September 15, 2010 The district court curtailed Zisumbo’s back pay and denied his requests for front pay and reinstatement based on Zisumbo’s act of pleading guilty, on September 15, 2010, to assaulting his daughter. Zisumbo argues this was error. Front pay is “money awarded for lost compensation during the period between judgment and reinstatement or in lieu of reinstatement” to make the plaintiff whole. 28 Pollard v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 532 U.S. 843, 846 (2001); accord McInnis, 458 F.3d at 1145. “‘Because determining a front pay award requires the district court to predict future events and consider many complicated and interlocking factors, we review such awards with considerable deference, reversing only for an abuse of discretion.’” Abuan, 353 F.3d at 1177 (quoting Mason v. Okla. Tpk. Auth., 115 F.3d 1442, 1458 (10th Cir. 1997), overruled on other grounds by TW Telecom Holdings Inc. v. Carolina Internet Ltd., 661 F.3d 495 (10th Cir. 2011)). Like back pay, front pay and reinstatement may also be limited based on an employee’s actions: “It would be both inequitable and pointless to order the reinstatement of someone the employer would have terminated, and will terminate, in any event and upon lawful grounds.” McKennon, 513 U.S. at 362. Although McKennon dealt only with “after-acquired evidence of pre-termination wrongdoing,” we have suggested that its “logic . . . may permit certain limitations on relief based on post-termination conduct” too. Medlock, 164 F.3d at 555 (citing Christine Neylon O’Brien, The Law of AfterAcquired Evidence in Employment Discrimination Cases: Clarification of the Employer's Burden, Remedial Guidance, and the Enigma of Post-Termination Misconduct, 65 UMKC L. Rev. 159, 174 (1996) approvingly as “concluding that egregious posttermination misconduct should ordinarily bar reinstatement and curtail backpay”). Federal courts disagree regarding whether post-termination conduct can ever curtail an employee’s right to front pay, reinstatement, or back pay. See Jones v. Nissan N. Am., Inc., 438 F. App’x 388, 406-07 (6th Cir. 2011) (unpublished) (compiling cases). But we need not address that broader legal question here because 29 Zisumbo concedes on appeal that he “does not argue that back pay, front pay, and reinstatement may never be limited by evidence of post-termination misconduct.” Zisumbo Resp./Reply Br. at 31 (internal quotation marks omitted). Instead, Zisumbo asserts two narrower arguments: (1) that his post-termination misdemeanor conviction should not limit his right to front pay, reinstatement, or back pay because ORMC did not show that it would have terminated his employment because of the misdemeanor, and (2) the misdemeanor conviction should not limit his back pay because the misdemeanor directly resulted from his termination. 1. Termination for misdemeanor First, Zisumbo argues that his post-termination misdemeanor conviction should not limit his right to front pay, reinstatement, or back pay because ORMC did not show that it would have terminated Zisumbo for the misdemeanor. Zisumbo reasons that if he had remained employed by ORMC, the hospital would not have known about his misdemeanor conviction and therefore would not have fired him for it. But under McKennon, “[o]nce an employer learns about employee wrongdoing that would lead to a legitimate discharge, we cannot require the employer to ignore the information, even if it is acquired during the course of discovery in a suit against the employer and even if the information might have gone undiscovered absent the suit.” McKennon, 513 U.S. at 362. Alternatively, Zisumbo argues that even if we assume ORMC would have learned of the misdemeanor conviction had he remained employed there, ORMC failed to prove that it would have terminated him for that conviction. In support of 30 this theory, Zisumbo points out that the record contains no evidence of ORMC terminating specific employees for misdemeanor convictions. While we agree that the record contains no such specific examples, it contains ample evidence from which the district court could reasonably conclude that the hospital would terminate employees for misdemeanor convictions. For example, the evidence showed that ORMC conducts background checks on all employment applicants and has a written policy providing that employment applicants, including rehires, may be denied employment based on a felony or misdemeanor conviction. Importantly, the purpose of the background checks is to screen out applicants who may pose a safety risk to ORMC’s patients. With only one exception—an applicant with a ten-year-old conviction for retail theft that the applicant disclosed—ORMC has disqualified applicants with a criminal conviction on their records. And although the policy does not address current employees, Bissenden testified that ORMC holds current employees to the same standards as employment applicants. Under these circumstances, we hold that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that ORMC would have terminated Zisumbo’s employment for the misdemeanor conviction. 2. Misdemeanor resulted from termination Second, Zisumbo argues the misdemeanor conviction should not count against him because it resulted directly from his termination. See Medlock, 164 F.3d at 555. In support, Zisumbo points to his testimony that losing his job caused him mental distress, which in turn led to his treatment by a psychiatrist who prescribed the 31 Ambien he took the night of the assault. And, according to Zisumbo, an adverse reaction to Ambien caused him to assault his daughter. Zisumbo speculates that had he not lost his job at ORMC, the chain of events that led him to assault his daughter would never have occurred. Critically, Zisumbo also testified that he began receiving treatment from a psychiatrist and taking Ambien before ORMC terminated his employment, thus undermining the causal connection between his termination and the assault. In that regard, the facts here are distinguishable from those in Medlock. In Medlock, the plaintiff “touched and cursed at Defendant’s counsel” at a post-termination unemployment compensation benefits hearing. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). On appeal, the defendant argued the district court erred in refusing to instruct the jury that it could limit the plaintiff’s damages if the defendant could show that the plaintiff’s conduct at the hearing was so severe that the defendant would have terminated the plaintiff on that basis alone. We rejected the defendant’s argument, pointing out that “[t]he alleged misconduct . . . occurred at a hearing occasioned by plaintiff’s termination,” and thus arose as a “direct result” of the retaliatory termination. Id. Here, Zisumbo insists that his termination caused him to see a psychiatrist who prescribed Ambien, which in turn caused him to assault his daughter. We need not decide, however, whether such a string of events could ever be the direct result of a termination because Zisumbo admits he began seeing a psychiatrist and taking Ambien before ORMC terminated his employment. Even assuming his Ambien use 32 ultimately caused the assault, neither the assault nor the Ambien use were “occasioned by” or the “direct result” of the termination. Viewing the record as a whole, we conclude the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that ORMC would have terminated Zisumbo for his misdemeanor conviction. Nor did the district court abuse its discretion in finding that Zisumbo’s misdemeanor assault conviction did not directly result from his termination. We therefore affirm the district court’s decision limiting Zisumbo’s back pay to the period between his termination and his assault conviction.