Opinion ID: 76446
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Stavropoulos's Title VII Retaliation Claim against the Board

Text: 23 The district court granted summary judgment on Stavropoulos's Title VII retaliation claim, because it concluded that Stavropoulos failed to make out a prima facie case. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, a plaintiff must show that (1) she engaged in protected activity, (2) she suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) there was a causal link between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. Bass v. Bd. of County Comm'rs, Orange County, Fla., 256 F.3d 1095, 1117 (11th Cir.2001). The court held that Stavropoulos failed to show an adverse employment action. 24 To be considered an adverse employment action for purposes of Title VII's anti-retaliation provision, the action must either be an ultimate employment decision or else must meet some threshold level of substantiality. Id. at 1118 (internal quotations omitted). Ultimate employment decisions include decisions such as termination, failure to hire, or demotion. Wideman v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 141 F.3d 1453, 1456 (11th Cir.1998). The conduct Stavropoulos complains of was not an ultimate employment action, because she did not lose her job or suffer a lessening of pay, position, or benefits. Thus, we must ask whether it rises to the level of substantiality. 25 In Wideman, 141 F.3d at 1455-56, we concluded that the plaintiff had crossed the threshold of substantiality where she established that her employer had improperly listed her as a no-show on a day she was scheduled to have off, gave her written reprimands which resulted in a one-day suspension, solicited comments on her performance from only those employees with negative things to say about her, failed to schedule her for work, threatened to shoot her in the head, and delayed authorizing medical treatment for an allergic reaction she was having. Id. at 1455-56 (holding that the totality of these acts meet the threshold of substantiality, but declining to decide whether anything less than the totality would meet the threshold). In Gupta v. Fla. Bd. of Regents, 212 F.3d 571 (11th Cir.2000), we characterized the threshold as requiring the employment action to be `objectively serious and tangible enough' to alter [the employee's] `compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment ...,' and held that scheduling the employee to teach on three different campuses in one term did not meet the threshold because she never actually had to follow this schedule, denying her the opportunity to teach a particular class did not suffice because she chose not to teach at all that term, and delaying the return of the employee's visa application was not serious enough because the university returned it to her in time for her to file it with the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Id. at 588 (quoting Robinson v. City of Pittsburgh, 120 F.3d 1286, 1300 (3rd Cir.1997)). Our reason for rejecting these three acts as insubstantial was that [a]n action which, it turns out, had no effect on an employee is not an `adverse' action. Id. at 588. Applying this standard in Bass, 256 F.3d at 1118, we decided there was an adverse employment action when, comparing the plaintiff to other employees of the same rank, the employer forced plaintiff to perform more menial tasks under less senior personnel; denied the plaintiff opportunities to earn several types of extra pay available to his co-workers; and forced plaintiff to take tests in order to maintain his paramedic pay, while not requiring his co-workers to take the tests. We rejected, however, the employer's ordering plaintiff not to record certain tasks in his work log and ordering him to destroy certain materials he had created as insubstantial because they in no way punished or affected Bass' employment status. Id. 26 Here, the acts Stavropoulos complains of ultimately had no effect on her employment status. Though agents of the Board rated her negatively and voted to terminate her, other agents of the Board overrode the votes, keeping Stavropoulos in her position, with the same pay and benefits. Thus, these acts were not objectively serious and tangible enough to be adverse employment actions. See Pennington v. City of Huntsville, 261 F.3d 1262, 1267 (11th Cir.2001) (noting that Title VII retaliation caselaw indicates that the decision to reprimand or transfer an employee, if rescinded before the employee suffers a tangible harm, is not an adverse employment action). Cf. Dobbs-Weinstein v. Vanderbilt Univ., 185 F.3d 542, 543-46 (6th Cir.1999) (affirming summary judgment for university in associate professor's Title VII discrimination case because, on the professor's appeal, the faculty senate reversed the dean's decision to deny her tenure, and awarded tenure retroactively so that she lost no salary; thus there was no adverse employment action). Any emotional distress or costs incidental to Stavropoulos's seeking the review provided in her contract with the Board is likewise too insubstantial to be considered an adverse employment action since the review proved successful for Stavropoulos. Bass, 256 F.3d at 1118 (While not everything that makes an employee unhappy is an actionable adverse action, conduct that alters an employee's compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment does constitute an adverse action under [the anti-retaliation provisions of] Title VII.) (internal citations and quotations omitted). 27 Because Stavropoulos failed to show that the Board subjected her to an adverse employment action, she failed to make out a prima facie case of retaliation under Title VII. 28