Opinion ID: 2818185
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Material Adverse Actions

Text: Planadeball argues that Wyndham took a number of material adverse actions against her in retaliation for her protected activities. Material adverse actions are actions that are harmful to the point that they could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 57. However, 'petty slights or minor annoyances that often take place at work and that all employees experience' are not material adverse actions and consequently, fall outside the -12- scope of the anti-discrimination laws. Billings v. Town of Grafton, 515 F.3d 39, 54 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68); see also Burlington N., 548 U.S. at 68 (Title VII . . . does not set forth 'a general civility code for the American workplace.' (quoting Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 80 (1998))). Planadeball argues that the following three actions by Wyndham employees constitute material adverse actions: (1) the $4,000 chargeback on her commission check in April 2011; (2) Estes's behavior toward her, including denying her the opportunity to work with existing timeshare owners in June and July 2012; and (3) Maley's threats to fire her in April 2011.3 We address each in turn.
Wyndham concedes that the $4,000 chargeback may constitute an adverse employment action. Yet, it argues that there is no causal nexus to protected conduct. Medina-Rivera, 713 F.3d at 139. Planadeball counters that causation can be inferred from the temporal proximity between the chargeback and protected conduct. 3 [R]etaliatory actions that are not materially adverse when considered individually may collectively amount to a retaliatory hostile work environment. Billings, 515 F.3d at 54 n.13 (citing Noviello v. City of Boston, 398 F.3d 76, 88-90 (1st Cir. 2005)). However, Planadeball has not presented any argument about the collective effect of these three alleged acts of retaliation. Therefore, we consider them independently. -13- Planadeball made informal complaints to Maley and Wieczerzak regarding Maley's behavior in February and March 2011. She then went on medical leave from March 15 to April 1. In early April 2011, a few days after she returned to work, she noticed that her commission check was subjected to a $4,000 chargeback. Planadeball argues that the close temporal proximity between her February and March 2011 complaints and the chargeback establish the causal nexus between protected conduct and this adverse action taken against her. Planadeball is correct that [t]emporal proximity can create an inference of causation in the proper case. Pomales v. Celulares Telefónica, Inc., 447 F.3d 79, 85 (1st Cir. 2006). In order to draw such an inference, however, there must be proof that the decisionmaker knew of the plaintiff's protected conduct when he or she decided to take the adverse employment action. Id.; see also Velazquez-Ortiz v. Vilsack, 657 F.3d 64, 72 (1st Cir. 2011) (Where the evidence shows only that the decisionmaker knew of the complainant's protected conduct at the time the adverse employment action was taken, causation may be inferred from a very close temporal relationship between the protected activity and the adverse action.). Planadeball has failed to make a prima facie showing of causation. There is no evidence in the record to demonstrate that the Wyndham employees who initiated the chargeback had any -14- knowledge of Planadeball's complaints to Maley and Wieczerzak.4 Planadeball was informed that the chargeback was processed because corporate had cancelled her $40,000 sale and someone in corporate subsequently entered into a sale with the same client and received the commission on the sale. Yet, there is no evidence that anyone in corporate knew about Planadeball's informal complaints in February and March 2011. Furthermore, while Planadeball complained directly to Maley about the chargeback, Maley told her that he did not know why the chargeback was processed.
Wyndham also does not contest that Estes's conduct toward Planadeball in June and July 2012, including taking away her opportunity to work with existing timeshare owners, may constitute a material adverse action. However, it similarly argues that there is no evidence of a causal link between Estes's behavior and protected conduct.5 Planadeball contends that the temporal 4 Although Planadeball has presented evidence of other instances of protected conduct, her complaints to Maley and Wieczerzak are the only conduct that occurred before the chargeback was issued, and, therefore, are the only conduct that Planadeball contends establishes a causal nexus with this material adverse action. 5 Wyndham also contends that we should not consider Estes's conduct while evaluating Planadeball's retaliation claim because Planadeball failed to amend her complaint to incorporate Estes's actions that took place after Planadeball had filed her complaint. Wyndham relies on Quevedo-Gaitan v. Sears Roebuck de P.R., Inc., a district court case in which the court disregarded evidence of age discrimination that occurred after the plaintiff had filed her complaint because she had failed to amend it. See 536 F. Supp. 2d -15- proximity between Estes's conduct and the filing of her complaint on June 19, 2012, establishes the requisite nexus. Planadeball's claim fails for the same reason the chargeback claim fails. There is no evidence that Estes was aware that Planadeball had filed a complaint. Estes stated that she had no knowledge as to the claims and allegations that Carmen Planadeball ha[d] brought against [Wyndham] in any forum. Moreover, Planadeball admitted that she does not know what information, if any, Estes had with respect to her litigation. On this record, there is simply no evidence from which a reasonable jury could infer that Estes had knowledge of Planadeball's protected activity. Therefore, Planadeball cannot establish the third element of a prima facie case of retaliation, a causal nexus between filing her complaint and Estes's actions. See Alvarado v. Donahoe, 687 F.3d 453, 459 (1st Cir. 2012) ([I]f a supervisor or other employee is unaware of the fact that a plaintiff engaged in 158, 170 (D.P.R. 2008). Planadeball counters that she was not required to amend her complaint at the summary judgment stage because she was not asserting a new claim or adding a new defendant, but merely was providing additional facts to support her retaliation claim, which was already plausibly alleged in the complaint. See Rodríguez-Vives v. P.R. Firefighters Corps of P.R., 743 F.3d 278, 283 (1st Cir. 2014) (A complaint need not allege every fact necessary to win at trial, but need only include sufficient facts to make it plausible on its face.); see also id. at 286 (noting that a complaint is not required to provide the exact details of each incident, such as the dates or the precise context of the abusive comments, to make [a retaliation] claim plausible). We do not need to resolve this dispute. Even assuming that we can consider Estes's conduct, Planadeball's claim still fails. -16- protected conduct, any actions attributable to him could not plausibly have been induced by retaliatory motives.).
Finally, Wyndham contends, and the district court found, that Maley's threats toward Planadeball after she returned from medical leave in April 2011 were not a material adverse action. Maley criticized Planadeball about her work performance, screamed at her in front of her colleagues, and made multiple threats to fire her. Planadeball argues that Maley's conduct should be considered a material adverse action, because, as the Supreme Court stated in Burlington Northern, material adverse actions are not limited to discriminatory actions that affect the terms and conditions of employment, nor are they restricted to ultimate employment decisio[ns] . . . such as hiring, granting leave, discharging, promoting, and compensating. 548 U.S. at 60, 64 (internal quotation marks omitted). Rather, they include all actions that could well dissuade a reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. Id. at 57. This standard is phrased in general terms because the significance of any given act of retaliation will often depend upon the particular circumstances. Context matters. Id. at 69. We agree with Planadeball that a juror could reasonably conclude that Maley's multiple threats to fire her constitute a -17- material adverse action. Construing all facts in Planadeball's favor, Maley told her to step up or [] step out, told her coworker Saliceti that she was the next one who's going to be fired, and sent a text message to Saliceti stating, [y]ou better tell [Planadeball] that either she steps up or steps out. In our view, a reasonable juror could thus infer that these multiple, consecutive threats, stated to an employee directly and to her co-worker who passed the message to that employee, could dissuade a reasonable employee from making or supporting a charge of discrimination. See Billings, 515 F.3d at 54-55 (An employee who knows that, by [making a charge of discrimination], she risks . . . a threat of further, more serious discipline for deficiencies at work might well choose not to proceed with [such a charge] in the first place. (internal quotation marks omitted)); Rivera v. Rochester Genesee Reg'l Transp. Auth., 743 F.3d 11, 26 (2d Cir. 2012) (holding that a reasonable juror could conclude that threatening an employee with the loss of his job constitutes a material adverse action). We also find that Planadeball has established a causal link between Maley's threats and protected conduct. The threats occurred in April 2011, at most two months after Planadeball complained to Maley and Wieczerzak about Maley's discriminatory comments. This two-month gap between protected activity and a material adverse action is sufficiently short to establish a prima -18- facie case of retaliation. See, e.g., Mariani-Colón v. Dep't of Homeland Sec., 511 F.3d 216, 224 (1st Cir. 2007) (We conclude that the 'temporal proximity' between appellant's allegations of discrimination in June 2002 and his termination in August 2002 is sufficient to meet the relatively light burden of establishing a prima facie case of retaliation.); Sánchez-Rodríguez v. AT&T Mobility P.R., Inc., 673 F.3d 1, 15 (1st Cir. 2012) (holding that the plaintiff established a prima facie case of retaliation where approximately three months had transpired between the protected conduct and the material adverse action). Because Planadeball has made a prima facie case of retaliation based on Maley's threats, the burden shifts to Wyndham to show that it had a non-retaliatory reason for the threats. See Mariani-Colón, 511 F.3d at 221, 223. We find that Wyndham has satisfied this burden. Maley's threats to fire Planadeball were made in response to her bad sales performance. In fact, Planadeball acknowledges that Maley threatened to fire her in the context of discussing her work performance, and admits that, when the threats were made, her sales numbers were not very good. The burden thus shifts back to Planadeball to show that Wyndham's reason was merely pretextual. See id. To defeat summary judgment in a retaliation case, 'a plaintiff must point to some evidence of retaliation by a pertinent decisionmaker.' Sánchez-Rodríguez, 673 F.3d at 15 (quoting Randlett v. Shalala, 118 -19- F.3d 857, 862 (1st Cir. 1997)). Here, Planadeball points only to the temporal proximity between her complaints and Maley's threats. However, this two-month period is not sufficient, by itself, to raise an inference of pretext. The timing of Maley's threats makes sense because they occurred soon after Planadeball returned to work from surgery, and at a time when her sales numbers were low. See Mariani-Colón, 511 F.3d at 224 (holding that the temporal proximity between a plaintiff's complaints of discrimination and his discharge failed to raise an inference of pretext where the timing made sense, as plaintiff was fired a few weeks after he voluntarily took unpaid leave); Sánchez-Rodríguez, 673 F.3d at 15. Because Planadeball has not pointed to any other evidence to establish pretext, her retaliation claim fails.