Opinion ID: 167997
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Discriminatory Termination — Pretext3

Text: 15 Antonio also challenges the district court's ruling that Sygma's reliance on job abandonment was not a pretext for discrimination. 16 To show that an employer's proffered nondiscriminatory reason for an employment action is pretextual, a plaintiff must produce evidence of such weaknesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the employer's proffered legitimate reasons for its action that a reasonable factfinder could rationally find them unworthy of credence and hence infer that the employer did not act for the asserted nondiscriminatory reasons. 17 EEOC v. BCI Coca-Cola Bottling Co., 450 F.3d 476, 490 (10th Cir.2006) (quotations omitted). We find the evidence in this case insufficient to raise a triable issue regarding pretext. 18 Most of the same individuals — including Johnson — who decided to terminate Antonio for job abandonment had also hired her twice, fully aware of her race and national origin. It makes little sense to deduce that these individuals terminated Antonio roughly ten months later because of her race and/or national origin. This premise, commonly known as the same actor inference, has been recognized in varying degrees by nearly every circuit. E.g., Wexler v. White's Fine Furniture, Inc., 317 F.3d 564, 572-73 (6th Cir.2003); Roberts v. Separators, Inc., 172 F.3d 448, 452 (7th Cir.1999); Williams v. Vitro Servs. Corp., 144 F.3d 1438, 1442-43 (11th Cir.1998); Grady v. Affiliated Cent., Inc., 130 F.3d 553, 560 (2d Cir.1997); Bradley v. Harcourt, Brace & Co., 104 F.3d 267, 270-71 (9th Cir.1996); Jacques v. Clean-Up Group, Inc., 96 F.3d 506, 512 (1st Cir.1996); Brown v. CSC Logic, Inc., 82 F.3d 651, 658 (5th Cir.1996); Waldron v. SL Indus., Inc., 56 F.3d 491, 496 n. 6 (3d Cir.1995); Lowe v. J.B. Hunt Transp., Inc., 963 F.2d 173, 174-75 (8th Cir.1992); Proud v. Stone, 945 F.2d 796, 797-98 (4th Cir.1991). We take this opportunity to join our sister circuits and announce that in cases where the employee was hired and fired by the same person within a relatively short time span, 4 there is a strong inference that the employer's stated reason for acting against the employee is not pretextual. Proud, 945 F.2d at 798. We emphasize, however, that [t]he plaintiff still has the opportunity to present countervailing evidence of pretext, id., and that same actor evidence gives rise to an inference, rather than a presumption, that no discriminatory animus motivated the employer's actions, see Williams, 144 F.3d at 1443; Waldron, 56 F.3d at 496 n. 6. 19 Antonio's evidence of pretext does not dispel this inference. In addition to her retaliation evidence, Antonio relies on (1) Johnson's remark [e]quating [b]ad [b]ody [o]dor with [c]ulture, Aplt. Br. at 43; (2) inconsistent deposition testimony as to whether Sygma disciplined Johnson for her remark; and (3) evidence that only a few non-whites and no black managers work at SYGMA's Denver location (where Ms. Antonio was employed), id. at 50. 20 Regarding Johnson's culture remark, it is undisputed that Antonio suffered from a medical condition that caused increased perspiration and that Antonio wore only perfume to conceal any odor. Nevertheless, assuming that the remark evinces racial animus, it is well-settled that isolated racial comments are insufficient to establish pretext unless they can somehow be tied to the employment actions disputed in the case at hand. BCI Coca-Cola, 450 F.3d at 489 (quotations omitted). The remark was made by only one of the four individuals that decided to terminate Antonio, and no overt racial animus is attributed to any of the other decisionmakers. Further, the remark was temporally remote from the termination. We conclude that no reasonable trier of fact could find pretext in Sygma's reason for terminating Antonio based on Johnson's remark. 21 As to whether Sygma disciplined Johnson over her remark, Sygma's human resources vice-president testified that she believed Johnson was sent to [diversity or sensitivity] training, Aplt.App. at 407, whereas Johnson denied being sent to training, id. at 309. Sygma concedes the discrepancy, but questions its relevance to pretext. Because Antonio does not explain the pretextual connection between her termination for job abandonment and Johnson's attendance or lack of attendance at training, we do not consider this issue further. See Am. Airlines v. Christensen, 967 F.2d 410, 415 n. 8 (10th Cir.1992) (declining to consider issues lacking reasoned argument). 22 Antonio's evidence concerning the low number of Sygma's minority employees likewise says nothing about why she was terminated. In disparate treatment cases, overall employment statistics have little bearing on the specific intentions of the employer in making particular [employment] decisions . . . [and] will rarely suffice to rebut an employer's legitimate, nondiscriminatory reasons for a particular adverse employment action. Bullington v. United Air Lines, Inc., 186 F.3d 1301, 1319 (10th Cir.1999), overruled on other grounds by Nat'l R.R. Passenger Corp. v. Morgan, 536 U.S. 101, 122 S.Ct. 2061, 153 L.Ed.2d 106 (2002). 23 Adding Antonio's retaliation evidence does little to cast Sygma's reliance on job abandonment as a pretext for discrimination. For many of the same reasons that we rejected that evidence as indicative of prima facie retaliation, we reject it now for pretext, and conclude that the district court did not err in granting summary judgment on Antonio's discrimination claims. See Branson v. Price River Coal Co., 853 F.2d 768, 772 (10th Cir.1988) (observing that a plaintiff's mere conjecture that [her] employer's explanation is a pretext for intentional discrimination is an insufficient basis for denial of summary judgment).