Opinion ID: 3167162
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Employment Retaliation

Text: The district court granted summary judgment to UCP because Ms. Fezard did not provide evidence that she filed her claim with the DOL before she was terminated and because she did not establish that the legitimate, nonretaliatory reasons that UCP provided for her termination were pretextual. Ms. Fezard successfully challenges the timing of her DOL claim, but she has not rebutted the legitimate, nonretaliatory basis for her termination. Accordingly, we affirm. Ms. Fezard's employment-retaliation claim is evaluated under the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. See Smith v. Allen Health Sys., Inc., 302 F.3d 827, 832 (8th Cir. 2002) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–03 (1973)). Under this framework, she must establish a prima facie claim of retaliation to survive summary judgment by providing evidence from which a jury could conclude that (1) she engaged in a protected activity, (2) she suffered an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal connection exists between her protected activity and the adverse employment action. Id. But if UCP comes forward with -8- evidence of a legitimate, nonretaliatory basis for the adverse employment action, she must then point to some evidence that UCP's asserted basis is pretextual. Id. at 833. The district court found that Ms. Fezard failed to establish that she engaged in a protected activity. The court noted that Ms. Fezard did not file a report with the DOL until after UCP terminated her. But the district court also found that on March 12, 2012, before her termination, Ms. Fezard told UCP employees that she had filed a DOL complaint. In Saffels v. Rice, 40 F.3d 1546 (8th Cir. 1994), we addressed [t]he sole question . . . [of] whether § 15(a)(3) of the FLSA protects employees who are terminated from their employment based on their employer's mistaken belief that they reported violations of the law to the authorities or otherwise engaged in protected activity. Id. at 1548. We held that the FLSA protects an employee when an employer mistakenly believes that she has engaged in a protected activity. Id. at 1549. Accordingly, we conclude that Ms. Fezard satisfied the protected-activity element of a prima face case for retaliatory termination because UCP could well have believed that she had filed the DOL complaint based on her March 12, 2012 statement. And because UCP terminated her just three days later, she also satisfied the adverse-employment-action and causal-connection elements of the prima facie case. See Smith, 302 F.3d at 833. The prima facie analysis, however, does not end the inquiry. The district court concluded that UCP had provided evidence of a legitimate, nonretalitory basis for terminating Ms. Fezard. In particular, the district court recited several instances of unprofessional and insubordinate communication from Ms. Fezard; a significant, unfavorable performance report from a state inspector who conducted a home visit for one of Ms. Fezard's clients; and written evidence that UCP was considering her termination before she told them about the DOL report. In short, Ms. Fezard was not performing and was creating significant unrest within the organization. Ms. Fezard argues that the bases asserted by UCP are pretextual, pointing to the close proximity of her notice to UCP of her DOL claim and her termination. Although we have held -9- that timing may be sufficient to make out a prima facie case, it is not enough to undermine a preexisting, nonretaliatory basis for the termination. Id. at 834. Here, Ms. Fezard fails to put forth evidence beyond temporal proximity to show that a material fact dispute remains as to her termination. The district court correctly granted summary judgment to UCP because Ms. Fezard failed to provide evidence from which a jury could conclude that the nonretaliatory bases for termination asserted by UCP are pretextual.