Opinion ID: 3173555
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disciplinary Letters

Text: Ms. Unal claims, first, that the three disciplinary letters Ms. Vandenkieboom issued in the spring of 2011 were submitted in retaliation for Ms. Unal’s letter to LAPS administration complaining of discrimination. The district court deemed Ms. Unal’s letter to LAPS protected activity and Ms. Vandenkieboom’s disciplinary letters an adverse employment action. But the district court granted summary judgment on this claim because Ms. Unal failed to show a causal connection between the protected activity and the disciplinary action. Specifically, the district court found Ms. Unal had failed to come forward with any evidence that Ms. Vandenkieboom was aware of the letter to LAPS when she issued the disciplinary letters. On appeal, Defendants do not dispute that Ms. Unal has satisfied the protected-activity and adverse-action prongs of her prima facie burden, but agree with the district court that Ms. Unal failed to satisfy the causation prong. 23 A plaintiff establishes a causal connection between her protected conduct and the adverse employment action by proffering “evidence of circumstances that justify an inference of retaliatory motive, such as protected conduct closely followed by adverse action.” MacKenzie v. City & Cty. of Denver, 414 F.3d 1266, 1279 (10th Cir. 2005) (internal quotation marks omitted). Although evidence of “very close[]” temporal proximity will provide compelling evidence of retaliation, and, in some cases, may be sufficient on its own, Piercy v. Maketa, 480 F.3d 1192, 1198 (10th Cir. 2007), a plaintiff must also show that the person who engaged in the adverse employment action was aware of the protected activity, Clark Cty. Sch. Dist. v. Breeden, 532 U.S. 268, 273 (2001) (per curiam) (noting that some cases “accept mere temporal proximity between an employer’s knowledge of protected activity and an adverse employment action as sufficient evidence of causality to establish a prima facie case” (emphasis added)); Petersen v. Utah Dep’t of Corr., 301 F.3d 1182, 1188 (10th Cir. 2002) (“An employer’s action against an employee cannot be because of that employee’s protected opposition unless the employer knows the employee has engaged in protected opposition.”). Here, although Ms. Unal demonstrated temporal proximity of just four days between the submission of her letter to LAPS administration and Ms. Vandenkieboom’s issuance of the disciplinary letters, at summary judgment, Ms. Unal failed to prove Ms. Vandenkieboom knew of the protected activity when she issued the disciplinary letters. Instead, Ms. Unal argued that close temporal proximity alone was enough to show causation. For the first time on appeal, Ms. Unal 24 has produced evidence she argues demonstrates Ms. Vandenkieboom was, in fact, aware that Ms. Unal had sent LAPS administration a letter complaining of discrimination when she issued the disciplinary letters. Specifically, Ms. Unal relies on the deposition testimony of Assistant Superintendent Dean, which Ms. Unal argues shows Ms. Dean spoke with Ms. Vandenkieboom about Ms. Unal’s letter to LAPS before Ms. Vandenkieboom issued the disciplinary letters. Regardless of whether Ms. Dean’s deposition testimony demonstrates knowledge, Ms. Unal failed to present this evidence to the district court in her opposition to summary judgment. Although Ms. Dean’s deposition testimony was made part of the record in the district court, at summary judgment, Ms. Unal failed to cite to the “particular parts” of the record that supported her causation argument. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)(1)(A) (“A party asserting that a fact . . . is genuinely disputed must support the assertion by . . . citing to particular parts of materials in the record . . .”). The district court was therefore under no obligation to parse through the record to find the uncited materials. See id. 56(c)(3) (“The court need consider only the cited materials.”). Because Ms. Unal’s summary judgment evidence did not demonstrate the requisite knowledge, she failed to prove causation, and we must affirm the district court’s grant of summary judgment to Defendants on this claim.