Opinion ID: 2982951
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Amos’s Reassignment and Probation

Text: Amos avers that both his reassignment from the litter crew to the jail and his subsequent probation were based on racial animus. According to the disciplinary report, Amos was placed on sixty days’ probation as a result of his job performance on the litter crew. The district court found that Amos had failed to establish the prima facie case for discrimination because neither the transfer nor the probation3 constituted adverse employment actions. In this case, it is not necessary for us to make a firm determination of whether these actions amount to adverse employment actions because, even assuming Amos can meet the prima facie case of discrimination, McNairy County has offered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for its actions. The record shows that Roten received reports that Amos only required the trustees to pick up trash for a couple of hours and was sleeping and fishing while on the job. These claims are substantiated by the fact that on the day Huggins filled in for Amos, his crew picked up twice as many pounds of litter as Amos had on any given day in March and April of 2010. At the very 3 While this Circuit has not explicitly addressed whether probation is an adverse employment action in the context of discrimination, this court has held that placement on a performance improvement plan and nonsatisfactory work reviews, absent some loss in salary, title, or benefits, did not rise to the level of a materially adverse employment action. Choulagh v. Holder, 528 F. App’x 432, 438 (6th Cir. 2013). 6 Amos v. McNairy County, et al. (No. 14-5714) least, this evidence suggests that Amos was not particularly effective in his position, even if he was not sleeping or fishing on the job. Amos attempts to refute this legitimate motivation by arguing that McNairy County’s motivation has no basis in fact. Amos claims the litter comparisons were flawed because they neglected to account for the number of trustees working on the litter crew or the types of litter they picked up. However, Amos has failed to refute the fact that the litter crew picked up a great deal more weight on the day Huggins was in charge. It was the next day that Amos was reassigned and placed on probation. Also, Amos has failed to point to any evidence from which a jury could reasonably reject Roten’s explanation that he received reports of Amos shirking his duties. The evidence, even when viewed in a light most favorable to Amos, would not lead a reasonable jury to conclude that McNairy County’s proffered reasons for Amos’s transfer or subsequent probation were pretextual.