Opinion ID: 2195278
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Claim of Retaliation

Text: ¶ 42. Plaintiff's final claim is that Bertek retaliated against her for bringing a gender discrimination claim against it. To establish a prima facie case of retaliatory discrimination under FEPA, the plaintiff must show that (1) she engaged in a protected activity; (2) her employer was aware of that activity; (3) she suffered adverse employment decisions; and (4) there was a causal connection between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. Gallipo v. City of Rutland, 163 Vt. 83, 92, 656 A.2d 635, 642 (1994); Tomka v. Seiler Corp., 66 F.3d 1295, 1308 (2d Cir.1995). If the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden shifts to the defendant-employer to articulate some legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the alleged retaliation. Tomka, 66 F.3d at 1308. If the defendant carries this burden of production, the plaintiff must then demonstrate that the defendant's reasons are pretext for discriminatory retaliation. Id. The trial court found that plaintiff had not established a prima facie case of retaliatory discrimination under FEPA and thus granted summary judgment in defendants' favor on these claims. We agree that the grant of summary judgment was appropriate. ¶ 43. Plaintiff claims that, as a result of filing a complaint with the company and later with the Vermont Attorney General's office, (1) she received a negative performance appraisal criticizing her knowledge of project management and her interpersonal communication skills; (2) Govil excluded her from interviews of job applicants, excluded her from project meetings, and ignored and failed to support her; (3) she was demoted to the position of Project Manager; and (4) Bertek terminated her employment. It is not disputed that plaintiff's filing of a gender discrimination complaint with the company and later with the Vermont Attorney General's office is a protected activity and that Bertek was aware of this activity. We thus turn to whether the individual actions that plaintiff complains of are adverse employment actions and, if so, whether these actions were the result of her filing of a complaint. ¶ 44. Neither the negative performance appraisal or Govil's alleged unfair treatment of plaintiff constitutes an adverse employment action so as to satisfy plaintiff's prima facie case. See Ledergerber v. Stangler, 122 F.3d 1142, 1144 (8th Cir.1997) (reassignment of staff was not adverse employment action); Johnson-Carter v. B.D.O. Seidman, LLP, 169 F.Supp.2d 924, 938-39 (N.D.Ill.2001) (employer's denial of one training class in which African-American employee already had expertise, noninvitation to three staff meetings, requirement that employee work outside her area of expertise, and denial of an isolated request for compensatory time off did not constitute material adverse employment actions); Bennett, 136 F.Supp.2d at 247 (exclusion from performance evaluation process and compensation communication meetings were not adverse employment actions as would support prima facie case of race discrimination); Martin v. Kroger Co., 65 F.Supp.2d 516, 539 (S.D.Tex.1999) (plaintiff's allegations about undermining her authority as a supervisor, increasing her workload, and giving credit for her work to undeserving non-minorities, did not rise to level of adverse employment actions). Furthermore, the incidents of unfair treatment that plaintiff contends were retaliation for her filing of a gender discrimination claim are of the exact same character as the incidents of alleged unfair treatment that apparently led to the filing of the claim in the first place. Thus, plaintiff has not satisfied either the third or fourth element of the prima facie case of retaliation based on these actions by Govil. ¶ 45. In regards to the negative performance appraisal, [n]egative evaluations alone, without any accompanying adverse result, ... are not cognizable. Valentine v. Standard & Poor's, 50 F.Supp.2d 262, 283-84 (S.D.N.Y.1999) (collecting cases). Here, plaintiff does not claim that the negative performance appraisal caused any change in the conditions of her employment, nor does she claim that her eventual discharge was the result of this appraisal. As such, this action similarly does not satisfy the third element of the prima facie case. ¶ 46. As for the demotion, the record indicates that the events that plaintiff complains about  the alleged promotion to Senior Project Manager followed a week later by a demotion to Project Manager  occurred before plaintiff filed her claim with Bertek. Indeed, it seems that it was precisely this demotion  which occurred in late April  that led to the filing of her complaint in early May. Thus, the causation element of the prima facie case is not satisfied for this claim of retaliation. See McLee v. Chrysler Corp., 109 F.3d 130, 136 (2d Cir.1997) (no inference of discriminatory motivation where plaintiff contacted civil rights offices after, and because of, alleged adverse employment action); Zorn v. Helene Curtis, Inc., 903 F.Supp. 1226, 1250 (N.D.Ill.1995) (no causal relationship established where evidence giving rise to alleged constructive discharge began before employee complained of discrimination). ¶ 47. Plaintiff's termination is clearly an adverse employment action. Yet we find it difficult to see, absent other evidence, how this action was the result of a protected activity: plaintiff's termination came nearly seven months after she filed the current lawsuit, and over one and a half years after she filed the original claims of discrimination with Bertek, the Vermont Attorney General, and the EEOC. See Nguyen v. City of Cleveland, 229 F.3d 559, 566-67 (6th Cir.2000) (if plaintiff relies solely on temporal proximity between the protected activity and the adverse action to show retaliation, a proximity of time of less than six months generally is required to establish a prima facie case); Hollander v. Am. Cyanamid Co., 895 F.2d 80, 85 (2d Cir.1990) (proximity in time of three months between the protected activity and the adverse action is alone insufficient to make out a prima facie case). Plaintiff has not pointed to other evidence of retaliation. ¶ 48. Even were we to accept that plaintiff has made out a prima facie case of retaliation in regards to her termination, we find that she has not demonstrated that defendants' reasons for the discharge were a pretext for retaliation. Defendants claim that plaintiff was discharged due to the disclosure of confidential company information to a recruiter and one of Bertek's competitors. Plaintiff does not argue against the claim that the information she disclosed via her resumé was confidential and that, in distributing the resumé, she violated the confidentiality agreement that she had signed. She contended in an affidavit that the trial court struck that there was no injury to the company for any information revealed and that other individuals had revealed similar information without consequences. Even if the information were properly before us, her statements constitute only general, conclusory and self-serving allegations with no supporting detail that allows a trier of fact to determine their credibility and weight. As we emphasized earlier, conclusory allegations without facts to support them are insufficient to survive summary judgment. Quechee Lakes Landowners' Ass'n, 170 Vt. at 28, 742 A.2d at 736. Thus, plaintiff has not met her burden at this stage, and the grant of summary judgment in favor of defendants was appropriate.