Opinion ID: 2722714
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: standard of review

Text: We give fresh review to the district court's summaryjudgment decision, construing all reasonable inferences in Collazo's favor and affirming only if no genuine issue of material fact remains and the UPR and Gómez are entitled to judgment as a matter of law. See, e.g., Nieves-Romero v. United States, 715 F.3d 375, 378 (1st Cir. 2013); Soto-Padró, 675 F.3d at 5. Of course, conclusory assertions, improbable inferences, and sheer speculation cannot save Collazo from summary judgment. See, e.g., NievesRomero, 715 F.3d at 378; Soto-Padró, 675 F.3d at 5. And we can sustain the grant of summary judgment on any basis the record supports, including one not relied on by the court. See, e.g., Soto-Padró, 675 F.3d at 5. We now take on the issues in play, adding additional details as needed. -10- ADA Retaliation Up first is whether the district court erred in rejecting Collazo's ADA-retaliation claim on summary judgment. We start with the basics. The ADA, broadly speaking, makes it illegal for employers either to discriminate because of a person's disability, see 42 U.S.C. § 12112(b)(1), or to retaliate against someone because she opposes an act made unlawful by the ADA, see 42 U.S.C. § 12203(a). The fight here focuses on retaliation. And because Collazo tries to show retaliation through circumstantial evidence, we apply the familiar burden-shifting analysis. Under that framework, Collazo must first show that she engaged in statutorilyprotected activity; that the UPR and Gómez took an adverse employment action against her; and that a causal connection existed between their action and her activity. See, e.g., Kelley v. Corr. Med. Servs., Inc., 707 F.3d 108, 115 (1st Cir. 2013). If she makes this prima facie showing, the burden shifts to the defendants to offer a legitimate, nonretaliatory reason for their actions, and then back to her to show that the reason was mere pretext. See id. To establish pretext she must show that the explanation was a lie, which would let a factfinder infer that the defendants made the story up to cover their tracks. See Ronda-Pérez v. Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria—P.R., 404 F.3d 42, 45 (1st Cir. 2005). It is not enough for her to show that they were wrong or tactless. See id.; see also Gonzalez v. El Dia, Inc., 304 F.3d 63, 69 (1st Cir. -11- 2002). After all, the law does not empower courts to act as super-personnel department[s], looking to undo bad employment decisions. Gonzalez, 304 F.3d at 69 (parenthetically quoting Mechnig v. Sears, Roebuck & Co., 864 F.2d 1359, 1365 (7th Cir. 1988)). The simplest way to decide a case is often the best, we have noted. Stor/Gard, Inc. v. Strathmore Ins. Co., 717 F.3d 242, 248 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting Chambers v. Bowersox, 157 F.3d 560, 564 n.4 (8th Cir. 1998) (R. Arnold, J.)). And there is a simple way here. Like the district court, we assume without deciding that Collazo established a prima facie inference of retaliation. Also like the lower court, we accept for argument's sake that the UPR and Gómez effectively rebutted her prima facie showing by responding that it did not renew her contract both because she failed to meet the goals set for the center, necessitating the center's restructuring, and because she failed to follow the center's attendance policy. That leaves us only with the pretext question.2 One way to establish pretext is to show that the UPR and Gómez gave different and arguably inconsistent explanations for their actions. See Domínguez-Cruz v. Suttle Caribe, Inc., 202 F.3d 424, 432 (1st Cir. 2000). [W]eaknesses, implausibilities, 2 The parties jump straight to pretext too. -12- inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in their proffer can do the trick, see Harrington v. Aggregate Indus.-Ne. Region, Inc., 668 F.3d 25, 33 (1st Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted)3 — unless the record conclusively reveals that the real motive was an unstated reason that is nonretaliatory, see Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 148 (2000). With that said, Collazo's pretext argument proceeds in five steps. One: The nonrenewal notice from the UPR and Gómez mentioned the center's restructuring as the reason for their decision. Two: Yet they suggest in this court (as they did in the district court) that they had two valid reasons for the nonrenewal, i.e., (a) her not fulfilling the center's objectives, requiring the center's restructuring, and (b) her not following the center's attendance program — even though they never admonished her for her performance or disciplined her for her absences. Three: But — to quote her brief — they floated [n]one of these alleged reasons in the nonrenewal letter, concocting them after the fact. Four: And these sham justifications became a convenient pretextual basis for getting rid of her. Five: So summary judgment on the ADAretaliation claim cannot stand. Although cleverly crafted, we cannot accept Collazo's argument. For starters, she cites no contract provision, 3 Accord Hodgens v. General Dynamics Corp., 144 F.3d 151, 168 (1st Cir. 1998). -13- regulation, statute, or caselaw suggesting that the UPR and Gómez had to give her every reason they had for not renewing her contract. Consequently any argument in this direction is waived for lack of development. See, e.g., Medina-Rivera v. MVM, Inc., 713 F.3d 132, 140-41 (1st Cir. 2013) (deeming waived an argument not fully developed, lacking any citation to supporting authority (or even a persuasive explanation of what the law should be, assuming they found no authority)). Also, a key premise of her theory — that performance and attendance issues are simply post-hoc inventions, conjured out of thin air after the fact to hide retaliatory animus — enjoys no record support. Actually, and devastating to her thesis, the summary-judgment evidence cuts the other way. As for performance, remember how Dr. Scott and Professor Tremont gave Gómez an earful on the center's slipshod mentor and tutor program. And do not forget, Collazo was the center's frontline person, tasked with hiring, training, and supervising mentors and tutors, among other things. Gómez convened staff meetings as well — which Collazo attended — to discuss performance fixes, with one idea being offering other kinds of workshops. Recall too how in evaluating her work, Gómez stamped Collazo's net performance below expectations. And to mention just a few of Collazo's shortcomings, we remind the reader that Gómez criticized her workshop offerings, her supervision of mentors and tutors, and -14- her failure to follow the center's written attendance policy; admonishments every one — and chronicled along the way too — despite what Collazo now suggests. As for attendance, remember the paper trail of Gómezpenned memos documenting Collazo's many unannounced leaves, late arrivals, and early takeoffs, for example, not to mention her frequent failure to punch in and out on the time clock as required. Gómez's evaluation likewise highlighted Collazo's attendance problems, as we noted a second ago. Collazo says that she normally gave prior notice whenever she had a scheduled medical appointment. How this helps her with her other absences — which left the center unattended for large chunks of time — she does not say. Regardless, '[n]ormally' does not mean 'always,' obviously. Rodríguez v. Municipality of San Juan, 659 F.3d 168, 178 (1st Cir. 2011). Also, she admits to not always punching the time clock like she was supposed to, often because she just plain forgot to do so. But wait, she protests, there is no record evidence that the defendants took disciplinary action against her because of any absenteeism or tardiness. And — her argument continues, at least inferentially — they first had to have initiated disciplinary proceedings to have a shot at fending off her pretext challenge. The difficulty for Collazo, though, is that she cites no authority for that proposition. Nor does she explain why she is right despite the lack of authority. Thus any argument along these lines -15- is waived due to inadequate briefing. See, e.g., Medina-Rivera, 713 F.3d at 140-41. In any event, the fact that the defendants chose not to take more serious disciplinary action does not itself permit a reasonable inference that the extensive contemporaneous evidence of her attendance problems is inaccurate or insincere. The bottom line is that the summary-judgment record undoes Collazo's claim that the performance and attendance rationales were a sham dreamed up by the defendants after her nonrenewal to hide their retaliatory intentions. That pokes a very large hole in her pretext theory. So too does the fact that the defendants mentioned the restructuring rationale — which also has record support — in their nonrenewal letter and then in their court papers. That is a consistency, clearly, not an inconsistency. And here is the clincher: The general rationale noted in the nonrenewal notice (restructuring) and the more specific ones noted in later documents (poor performance, requiring the center's restructuring, plus attendance problems) are not inconsistent; the need for a restructuring jibes with the defendants' documented unhappiness with Collazo's less-than-successful tenure at the center, what with her performance and attendance issues. At the very least the rationales are not so inconsistent as to be unworthy of credence, which is the test.4 See, e.g., Hodgens, 4 As a parting shot, Collazo accuses the defendants of manufactur[ing] a document — called a certification — years after they show[ed] her the door. Prepared by the UPR's human -16- 144 F.3d at 168 (internal quotation marks omitted). It follows — like night the day — that Collazo failed to meet her burden of creating a triable issue of fact on the pretext question. And so the court rightly granted the defendants summary judgment on this part of the case. First-Amendment Retaliation Under § 1983 Collazo next challenges the lower court's grant of summary judgment on her First-Amendment-retaliation claim brought against Gómez under § 1983. Generally speaking, a claim like that requires a plaintiff to show that she spoke on a matter of public concern and that her speech was a motivating factor — i.e., that it played a substantial part — in triggering the supposedly retaliatory action. See, e.g., Mt. Healthy City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. v. Doyle, 429 U.S. 274, 286-87 (1977) (Mt. Healthy, for short); Goldstein v. Galvin, 719 F.3d 16, 30 (1st Cir. 2013). If she can do that, the burden then shifts to the defendant to show resource department at the UPR's lawyer's request, the document discusses the restructuring that took place at the center postCollazo. She gives no indication that she ever asked the district court to strike the certification, even though she insists that that document is not 'admissible evidence' because it is not supported by any contemporaneous records. But the certification is buttressed with a number of supporting documents written hard on the heels of her nonrenewal (the defendants made this point in their brief, yet Collazo's reply brief does not mention it). So her argument here does her no good. In any event, we have relied only on some of the supporting papers and not on what was written in the certification. -17- that she would have taken the same action without the speech. See, e.g., Mt. Healthy, 429 U.S. at 287. Moving from the general to the specific, we remind all that in jettisoning this claim, the district court deemed relief unavailable under § 1983 because it thought the ADA was the exclusive remedy for Collazo. The parties, naturally, debate the correctness of the court's ruling, particularly in light of Fitzgerald v. Barnstable School Committee, 555 U.S. 246 (2009). That case holds that Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 was not meant to be an exclusive mechanism for addressing gender discrimination in schools, or a substitute for § 1983 suits as a means of enforcing constitutional rights. Id. at 258. We have not yet decided how Fitzgerald applies in a case like Collazo's. And today is not the day to do so. That is because even if we assume favorably to her that the ADA does not foreclose § 1983 relief in a post-Fitzgerald world (and we intimate no opinion on that score), she runs up against another problem: She would still have to show that her speech was both protected and a substantial or motivating factor in the defendants' adverseemployment decision. And this she cannot do because — regardless of whether she engaged in protected speech (a matter on which we need not opine) — having failed to show that the defendants' explanations for her nonrenewal really constituted pretext for ADA retaliation, she also fail[s] to generate a genuine issue of -18- material fact on the 'substantial or motivating factor' element for First-Amendment retaliation.5 See D.B. ex rel. Elizabeth B. v. Esposito, 675 F.3d 26, 43 (1st Cir. 2012). Ultimately, then, the district court properly granted summary judgment to Gómez on this claim, even though we took a different tack in reaching that conclusion. Final Words Our work over, we affirm the judgment below in all respects and award the defendants their costs on appeal. 5 Collazo's counsel candidly conceded at oral argument that if her ADA-retaliation claim failed so too would her First-Amendmentretaliation claim. -19-