Opinion ID: 200103
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Disadvantageous Transfer

Text: 51 Marrero filed a charge of employment discrimination with the EEOC on November 13, 1996. She returned to work on Wednesday, November 22, to find that she had been transferred to the Human Resources Department, where she was to serve as Nieves's secretary. Marrero concedes that the transfer was not, on its face, a demotion. She continued to serve as secretary to a Vice President in the company, and her general job description and salary remained the same. Nevertheless, Marrero argues that the transfer was disadvantageous because she was required to do more work, subjected to extreme supervision, and forced to undergo a period of probation. 52 The clear trend of authority is to hold that a purely lateral transfer, that is, a transfer that does not involve a demotion in form or substance, cannot rise to the level of a materially adverse employment action. Ledergerber v. Stangler, 122 F.3d 1142, 1144 (8th Cir.1997) (internal quotation marks omitted); accord Kocsis v. Multi-Care Management, Inc., 97 F.3d 876, 885 (6th Cir.1996) ([R]eassignments without salary or work hour changes do not ordinarily constitute adverse employment decisions in employment discrimination claims.). Similarly, a transfer or reassignment that involves only minor changes in working conditions normally does not constitute an adverse employment action. See Jones v. Fitzgerald, 285 F.3d 705, 714 (8th Cir.2002); Crady v. Liberty Nat'l Bank and Trust Co., 993 F.2d 132, 136 (7th Cir.1993) ([A] materially adverse change in the terms and conditions of employment must be more disruptive than a mere inconvenience or an alteration of job responsibilities.). Otherwise every trivial personnel action that an irritable ... employee did not like would form the basis of a discrimination suit. Williams v. Bristol-Myers Squibb Co., 85 F.3d 270, 274 (7th Cir.1996). 53 At the same time, however, Title VII does not limit adverse job action to strictly monetary considerations. Collins v. Illinois, 830 F.2d 692, 703 (7th Cir.1987). Congress recognized that job discrimination can take many forms, and does not always manifest itself in easily documentable sanctions such as salary cuts or demotions. Accordingly, Congress cast the prohibitions of Title VII broadly to encompass changes in working conditions that are somewhat more subtle, but equally adverse. Rodriguez v. Bd. of Educ., 620 F.2d 362, 364 (2d Cir.1980). Consistent with that broad statutory mandate, courts have rejected any bright line rule that a transfer cannot qualify as an adverse employment action unless it results in a diminution in salary or a loss of benefits. 54 For example, the Second Circuit held in Rodriguez that the district court erred in dismissing the sex discrimination suit of a junior high school art teacher who was transferred to an elementary school in the same system, notwithstanding the fact that the transfer did not entail a reduction of salary or other monetary benefits. See id. It emphasized that the plaintiff had spent her entire career teaching junior high school students, and in fact had recently earned a doctoral degree in art education with a focus on programs for such students. See id. The art programs at the elementary level, the court explained, were so profoundly different from those in the junior high school as to render utterly useless [the plaintiff's] twenty years of experience and study in developing art programs for middle school children. Id. at 366. Describing the transfer as a severe professional trauma, the court concluded that such a radical change in the nature of the work [the plaintiff] was called upon to perform constituted an adverse employment action. Id. 55 Similarly, the Seventh Circuit found adverse employment action in Collins, where the plaintiff was transferred from her post as a consultant in the development group at the Chicago Public Library to a newly-created job in the library's reference unit. 830 F.2d at 704. The court noted that the plaintiff's new supervisors in the reference unit seemed unsure of what plaintiff's responsibility and authority would be. Id. Moreover, although the plaintiff previously had her own office, a telephone at her desk, printed business cards, and listings in professional publications as a library consultant, she lost those benefits after the transfer. See id. In her new position, the plaintiff was placed at a desk out in the open, where a receptionist's desk typically would be located. Id. She had no telephone at her desk with which she could conduct her business responsibilities. Id. She was not allowed to have business cards printed and she was no longer listed in professional publications as a library consultant. Id. Finally, rather than doing the consulting work she enjoyed, the plaintiff was relegated to doing reference work. Id. 56 In contrast to cases such as Rodriguez and Collins, the evidence presented here showed — at most — that the transfer resulted in some minor, likely temporary, changes in Marrero's working conditions. As we explained above, Marrero was transferred from the Sales and Exports Departments to the Human Resources Department, where she was to serve as Nieves's secretary. Although Marrero's basic job description and duties remained the same, the jury could have found that she would have been required to do more work after the transfer. Marrero was the only employee who knew how to prepare certain paper work for the Exports Department. Therefore, as a practical matter, she was forced to do that work even after she was transferred to the Human Resources Department and assumed her new duties there. Marrero was not compensated for that extra work. 57 Such a minor increase in work responsibilities is not enough to render a lateral transfer materially adverse. That is especially true where, as here, there is no indication that the increase would have been permanent. Just as Marrero had to go through a training period in her new position, the employee who replaced her in the Sales and Exports Departments would need to be trained before she could take over all of Marrero's duties. However, Marrero testified that she could not remember whether she had trained the employee who assumed her old post. She conceded, moreover, that she never complained to Nieves or anyone else at Goya regarding her continuing work in the Exports Department. Most importantly, Marrero left work after spending no more than three days in her new position. Given that short time span, she could not show that the increase in work was anything other than an unintended and temporary inconvenience caused by the transition. 58 Marrero also presented evidence regarding the less tangible aspects of the transfer. She testified that, during the three days she spent in the Human Resources Department, Maritza Ramos precluded [her] from performing some of the basic duties of her position. Ramos told Marrero not to open Nieves's mail but to pass it along to her, and not to handle any confidential phone calls. Moreover, Nieves and Ramos subjected her to extreme supervision — watching her while she did her filing, and standing behind her when she talked on the phone. Marrero felt that Nieves and Ramos were exerting pressure on [her]. 59 Finally, Marrero was forced to undergo a probationary period in her new post, which she perceived as a loss of job security. She did not feel that she was a real part of the department; she believed her supervisors hadn't taken [her] into account. A departmental meeting was held while Marrero was there, but she was not invited. She believed that the other members of the department had snubbed her. 60 That evidence — even when examined in the light most favorable to Marrero — is insufficient to prove that, viewed objectively, this transfer was an adverse personnel action. Serna v. City of San Antonio, 244 F.3d 479, 484 (5th Cir.2001) (emphasis added). It is not enough that Marrero felt stigmatized and punished by the transfer. A more tangible change in duties or working conditions is needed before we can conclude that the transfer was, in substance, a demotion. Phillips v. Collings, 256 F.3d 843, 848 (8th Cir.2001). As the Eighth Circuit recently explained, the sort of intensified personal animus, hostility, disrespect, and ostracism that Marrero alleged here fails to constitute a material employment disadvantage sufficient to transform an ostensibly lateral transfer into an adverse employment action. Jones, 285 F.3d at 714; see also Manning v. Metropolitan Life Ins. Co., 127 F.3d 686, 693 (8th Cir.1997) (holding that evidence of disrespect and ostracization by ... supervisors did not establish an adverse employment action). Rather, in order to prove that the transfer was materially adverse, Marrero had to show that Goya [took] something of consequence from [her], say, by ... reducing her salary, or divesting her of significant responsibilities, or that it withh[e]ld from [her] an accouterment of the employment relationship, say, by failing to follow a customary practice of considering her for promotion after a particular period of service. Blackie, 75 F.3d at 725. Such proof is wholly lacking here. 5