Opinion ID: 3011433
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Performance evaluations

Text: Shaner's allegation that there was a sudden change in his performance evaluations after he informed the company that he suffered from MS is not supported, and indeed is contradicted, by the record evidence. Shaner's May 1993 performance evaluation--which Shaner himself viewed to be highly critical--was given several months before he informed Synthes about his disease and nearly a year before he filed his first EEOC charge. According to Shaner's testimony, he suspected at the time that the motive behind the criticisms in the 1993 evaluation was Jarvis's desire to force out programmers who pre-dated Jarvis's arrival at Synthes. While this motive may not have been benevolent, it could not have been based on Shaner's disability, which had not yet been made known to the company. According to Shaner's testimony, his next evaluation, in April 1994-- which he received prior to the filing of his first EEOC charge, was a carbon copy of the 1993 evaluation. A subsequent evaluation in March 1995, like the two prior ones, indicated that Shaner was not performing to the level expected of a senior analyst. In short, the record shows that Shaner's performance evaluations contained similar _________________________________________________________________ 12. Our conclusions regarding PC applications training and J.D. Edwards training are further bolstered by Shaner's testimony that the company in fact provided him with various training during the course of his employment, including the week-long seminar on J.D. Edwards. Further, the company paid for Shaner to attend periodic seminars with an organization called the Delaware Valley Computer Users Group. The fact that Shaner received some training from the company severely undermines his claim that the company deprived him of other forms of training on account of his disability. 15 criticisms both before and after he made the company aware that he suffered from MS and before and after he filed his first EEOC charge.13 Under these circumstances, there is simply no evidence that any of these evaluations was causally linked to the filing of Shaner's first EEOC charge or that any of them was motivated by discriminatory or retaliatory intent. We have indicated that temporal proximity between the employee's protected activity and the alleged retaliatory action may satisfy the causal link element of a prima facie retaliation claim, at least where the timing is unusually suggestive of retaliatory motive. See Krouse, 126 F.3d at 503 (internal quotation marks omitted); Woodson, 109 F.3d at 920. Yet the timing of the performance evaluations in this case is anything but suggestive, inasmuch as Shaner received the 1993 and 1994 evaluations prior to the filing of his first EEOC charge, and the 1995 evaluation was prepared nearly a year after the filing of the charge. Moreover, although mere passage of time is not legally conclusive proof against retaliation, we have indicated that the passage of a long period of time between protected activity and an alleged retaliatory action weighs against a finding of a causal link where there is no evidence of retaliatory animus during the intervening period. See Krouse, 126 F.3d at 503-04 (Absent evidence of intervening antagonism or retaliatory animus, we conclude that the passage of time [between the filing of plaintiff 's charge and the alleged retaliatory action] in this case is conclusive and that [plaintiff] failed to establish a causal link as a matter of law.); Woodson, 109 F.3d at 920-21. The record does not support a finding that there was an intervening retaliatory animus so as to establish a causal connection between the filing of Shaner's first charge and the 1995 evaluation, particularly in view of the circumstance that the three evaluations were consistent. We also make the following observation with respect to performance evaluations. While it is possible that a _________________________________________________________________ 13. Indeed, prior to November 15, 1993, Shaner complained to his MS support group that he had received an unfairly critical performance review from his employer. 16 manager might make a poor evaluation to retaliate against an employee for making an EEOC charge, still it is important that an employer not be dissuaded from making what he believes is an appropriate evaluation by a reason of a fear that the evaluated employee will charge that the evaluation was retaliatory. In this regard, we are well aware that some employees do not recognize their deficiencies and thus erroneously may attribute negative evaluations to an employer's prejudice. Accordingly, in a case like this in which the circumstances simply cannot support an inference that the evaluations were related to the EEOC charges, a court should not hesitate to say so.