Opinion ID: 2708751
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Plaintiffs’ Termination

Text: On Friday, October 8, 2010, Reid left the NACA office early to attend a Chicago Bulls game. According to Reid, he received permission from the office manager, Martinez, on the condition that he work the whole weekend. That weekend, NACA’s Chicago office was operating as a back-up call center for another NACA office that was hosting an event. However, when Reid came in to work on Saturday morning, October 9, Martinez told him that he was being suspended for leaving early the night before. Martinez denies that she gave Reid permission to leave, but at least one other witness corroborates Reid’s story, so—because we view the evidence in the light most favorable to Reid—we must assume that he had permission to leave, but was suspended regardless. On Monday, October 11, Rachelle Pride, NACA’s National Real Estate Director, visited the Chicago office as part of a nationwide effort to train NACA-affiliated real estate agents. On that day, the office was closed for business and staffed only by the skeleton crew of Sears, Martinez, and another mortgage consultant, Mariola Jasinska.1 Martinez gave Pride a tour of the office. During the tour, Pride noticed a number of violations of NACA’s policies, including alcoholic beverages in Reid’s office and volumes of paper copies of documents with confidential information visible throughout the Chicago office, in violation of the paperless policy. Pride called Marks to get instructions. He told her to coordinate with Human Resources (“HR”) and then ask that Sears and Jasinska turn in their office keys and 1 That Monday was Columbus Day. 6 No. 13-1768 leave the office for the remainder of the day. After talking to Christine Cannonier in HR, Pride met with Sears and Jasinska individually to explain the violation of the paperless policy, receive their keys, and ask them to leave, which they did. Pride explained to Jasinska that she was not fired at that time, but that she did need to leave for the day. Sears testified that Pride told him he was fired as soon as she saw the violations of the paperless policy, but Pride denies that. In any event, Sears received formal notice of his termination on October 14. Then, pursuant to Cannonier’s instructions, Pride photographically documented the violations of the paperless policy. The photos revealed that every employee in the office but one was in violation of the policy. Marks and Cannonier asked Pride to stay in Chicago a while longer to interview the office’s customers. During those interviews, Pride discovered that applications assembled by Reid had not been timely forwarded and, as a result, all of the customers’ information had expired and would need to be redone. That delay was also a violation of NACA policy. Pride passed all this information along to Marks, who also spoke with Cannonier and Meadows. Through some of the conversations and conference calls, Marks was made aware that Sears’s client service was poor, though at the time of his deposition he could not recall from whom he had heard that. Faced with an entire office in violation of its paperless policy, NACA asserts that it decided to fire three people: Jasinska and plaintiffs Reid and Sears. In an early response to an interrogatory asking for the names of “all” people involved in making the decision to fire the plaintiffs, NACA listed only Cannonier, Meadows, and Pride. However, there is conflicting No. 13-1768 7 evidence concerning how and by whom the firing decision was made, with deposition testimony indicating that it was either just Bruce Marks or a group of managers. NACA later updated its interrogatory answer to include Marks among those involved in making the decision (consistent with the prior deposition testimony of Meadows, and Cannonier and the later testimony of Marks and Pride). NACA insists (and Marks testified) that, though Marks consulted with other managers, he alone made the final decision to fire plaintiffs. It is undisputed that he was not aware of plaintiffs’ complaints. Nonetheless, viewed in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs, in addition to Marks, at least Meadows, Cannonier, and Pride had a hand in making the decision and Cannonier and Meadows had knowledge of plaintiffs’ complaints. Sears and Reid received formal notice of their termination on October 14, 2010.2 NACA justifies its decision to fire Reid and Sears based on their violations of the paperless policy and on its belief that Reid had left work early for the Bulls game. Later in discovery, NACA explained that the reason Reid and Sears were fired—while other violators of the paperless policy were not—was that Reid and Sears had problems in addition to their violation of the paperless policy. These problems included the 2 Martinez was also later terminated, in part because of the violations of the paperless policy that occurred under her management of the Chicago office. 8 No. 13-1768 alcohol in Reid’s office, his expired client files, and Marks’s perception that Sears’s customer service was poor.3 After their termination, plaintiffs brought suit in Illinois state court alleging state law retaliation claims. NACA removed to federal court and subsequently moved for summary judgment. The district court granted NACA’s motion, concluding the plaintiffs had not offered sufficient evidence for a jury to find in their favor regarding causation. Plaintiffs appeal, arguing that the district court failed to construe the record in the light most favorable to them and that both (1) the timing of their firing in relation to their complaints, and (2) the evolution of NACA’s interrogatory answers about the reasons for, and the decision-makers involved in, their termination create an inference that Reid and Sears were really fired for their protected complaints.