Opinion ID: 1446239
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Laura Jones's Discrimination and Retaliation Claims

Text: Jones became an employee at Motorola's Rockford plant in February 2001. After transferring to the weekend shift, she reported to Don Smith and held a variety of positions. Jones took FMLA leave on several occasions because of her depression. She says that upon returning to work, Smith would call her into his office and ask why she was taking leave, say that she could have probably come to work on days she was absent, tell her that missing work was hurting the team, and state that although he could not downgrade her for taking FMLA leave that it was hard to give her a favorable rating when she was never at work. These minor annoyances are not materially adverse actions. White, 126 S.Ct. at 2415. Jones also says that Smith gave her an unfavorable some improvement needed performance rating in response to her use of FMLA leave. Smith claims the unfavorable evaluation was based on Jones's unexcused absences, and Jones admits that she had four hours of unexcused absence during the interval preceding her review and that she had been warned earlier in the year for several unexcused absences. Jones has failed to show that she deserved a higher rating. See Sublett v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 463 F.3d 731, 740 (7th Cir. 2006). Moreover, after Jones complained, her evaluation was changed to meets expectations, and neither her salary nor benefits were impacted by initial lower rating. Jones also cites the contested emails and co-worker declarations as evidence that Johnson harbored a discriminatory and retaliatory intent and took adverse action against her. But most of the alleged actions are too trivial to be actionable. Although the declarations cited two more egregious actsi.e., that Johnson would call employees who took FMLA leave into her office for lengthy periods and would routinely find fault with their workJones never accused Johnson (whose work schedule overlapped with Jones's just one day a week) of such conduct. Summary judgment was proper on Jones's FMLA claims.