Opinion ID: 4185676
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Evidence of a Causal Connection

Text: With Martin’s testimony about Ruehs’ statement available to her, Baines presented substantial evidence that can support a reasonable inference of retaliatory intent. There are several indications that something was amiss with Walgreens’ decision not to hire Baines: As noted, Baines’ application and interview scores are mysteriously missing. Walgreens offers no explanation for how or why. Ruehs hired someone with less experience than Baines. When first asked by an EEOC investigator, Ruehs initially denied even having interviewed Baines. Ruehs also may have lied when she left Baines a voicemail saying that she had selected someone else for the pharmacy technician position and then interviewed and hired 12 No. 16-3335 Martin for a pharmacy technician position only days later. Most important, Martin testified that Ruehs told her that district manager Birch intervened to stop her from hiring Baines. Martin’s testimony is particularly important because it provides a link between Baines’ earlier EEOC filings and Walgreens’ 2014 decision not to rehire her. Birch was personally involved in handling Baines’ earlier EEOC charges. She attended the tense meeting where Baines was told that she had “messed up” by filing the charges. The evidence of her unusual intervention to stop Ruehs from hiring Baines as a pharmacy technician (in just one of the twenty or thirty stores that Birch oversaw) supports a reasonable inference that Baines’ earlier protected activity caused Walgreens’ 2014 decision not to rehire her. Birch and Ruehs both deny Martin’s account, of course, but on summary judgment, Walgreens and we must accept it as true. This evidence, combined with other circumstantial evidence, creates a genuine dispute of material fact. Since we take Martin’s testimony as true, we accept her account that Birch stopped Ruehs from hiring Baines. Walgreens argues that even if Birch did intervene, Martin testified that Ruehs said she did not know why Birch forbade her from hiring Baines. Thus, Walgreens argues, we do not know why Birch intervened, and it could have been for a lawful reason. That is possible, but that approach flips the summary judgment standard on its head and seems to insist mistakenly that direct evidence of retaliatory intent is required. At the summary judgment stage, we must draw all reasonable inferences in favor of Baines as the non-moving party. Magin, 420 F.3d at 686. No. 16-3335 13 Walgreens’ argument also fails to take account of just how much Birch’s (presumed) intervention deviated from Walgreens’ normal hiring practice. An employer’s unusual deviation from standard procedures can serve as circumstantial evidence of discrimination. See, e.g., Coleman v. Donahoe, 667 F.3d 835, 858 (7th Cir. 2012) (explaining that selective enforcement of company policy can establish pretext); Gordon v. United Airlines, Inc., 246 F.3d 878, 891–92 (7th Cir. 2001) (same); see also United States ex rel. Hamrick v. GlaxoSmithKline LLC, 814 F.3d 10, 22 (7th Cir. 2016) (“[D]eviations from standard procedures can give rise to an inference of pretext.”) (quotations omitted). Here, Birch’s intervention was highly unusual given her position in the corporate hierarchy. As a district manager Birch oversaw approximately twenty to thirty stores. She normally hired managers, and the managers would hire other employees such as pharmacy technicians. Moreover, Birch’s primary responsibility was retail operations, not pharmacy management. This account is also consistent with Ruehs’ testimony that she generally hired pharmacy technicians without consulting other managers. Why, then, would Birch have deviated from the normal practice to micromanage the decision whether to hire one particular pharmacy technician in one of the twenty to thirty stores that she managed? Walgreens offers no explanation. Instead, Walgreens insists on its own version of the facts. It argues that Birch did not intervene at all, and that Ruehs decided not to hire Baines because one of Baines’ former coworkers gave her a negative review. 2 That may or may not be 2 In addition, Walgreens incorrectly argues that it is undisputed that Baines’ former co-worker had no knowledge of her EEOC charges. However, Baines set forth evidence to dispute this claim. In her deposition, 14 No. 16-3335 true, but Walgreens’ argument about the disputed facts cannot support summary judgment in its favor. The argument based on these conflicting accounts of the facts shows that there is a genuine dispute of material fact that cannot be decided on summary judgment. Martin’s testimony is also important for a related reason. The factual accounts provided by Birch and Ruehs cannot be squared with Martin’s testimony. On summary judgment, of course, we must accept Martin’s testimony as true. If it is true, then it also provides evidence that Walgreens lied. Evidence that an employer lied about the reasons for an adverse employment action permits a trier of fact to infer that the decision was actually motivated by discriminatory animus. Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 147 (2000) (“[I]t is permissible for the trier of fact to infer the ultimate fact of discrimination from the falsity of the employer’s explanation.”) (emphasis in original). The Supreme Court has noted that an employer’s false explanation is “one form of circumstantial evidence that is probative of intentional discrimination, and it may be quite persuasive.” Id. We have explained: “Because a fact-finder may infer intentional discrimination from an employer’s untruthfulness, evidence that calls truthfulness into question precludes a summary judgment.” O’Neal v. City of New Albany, 293 F.3d 998, 1005 (7th Cir. 2002), quoting Perdomo v. Browner, 67 F.3d 140, 145 (7th Cir. 1995). Here, Baines provided evidence through Martin’s testimony Baines testified that her former co-worker “stated that he did not want to work around me because of the EEOC case that I had filed against the company; that he did not know how to act around me, he did not know what to say when he was around me, and he felt uncomfortable around me.” No. 16-3335 15 that the explanations provided by Birch and Ruehs were false. Based on this falsity, a trier of fact could “infer the ultimate fact of intentional discrimination.” Perdomo, 67 F.3d at 145, quoting St. Mary’s Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 511 (1993). To recap, Martin’s testimony provides a link between Baines’ protected activity and Walgreens’ adverse employment action; it provides circumstantial evidence of unlawful retaliation because of Birch’s unusual departure from ordinary hiring procedures; and it provides evidence that Birch and Ruehs lied about why Baines was not hired, which would permit a trier of fact to infer that the real reason was discrimination. All of this evidence is further supported by other circumstantial evidence, such as the unexplained missing records of Baines’ interview and her scores. Walgreens attempts to undercut all of this evidence by emphasizing the length of time that passed between Baines’ EEOC charges in 2007 and 2009 and Walgreens’ failure to rehire her in 2014. This delay, Walgreens argues, undermines any inference of a causal connection between the protected activity and the alleged retaliation. Walgreens cites a long list of cases to support its claim, arguing that even a four-month gap can undermine a causal connection. It is true that the passage of time can weaken and eventually break an inference of causation. See, e.g., Lalvani v. Cook County, 269 F.3d 785, 790 (7th Cir. 2001). But the many cases that Walgreens cites stand for a different proposition: when there is a long gap between a protected activity and an adverse employment action, a plaintiff cannot support her causal connection solely with evidence of “suspicious tim16 No. 16-3335 ing.” Additional evidence is necessary. Put simply, “suspicious timing” can provide circumstantial evidence of retaliation, but generally the timing is not suspicious when there is a long gap between the protected activity and the adverse employment action. This principle does not mean, however, that a long gap will undermine a causal connection that is otherwise supported by sufficient circumstantial evidence, as is the case here. 3 3 The nine cases cited by Walgreens simply show that when there is a long gap between a protected activity and an adverse employment action, evidence of “suspicious timing” alone is insufficient to find a causal connection. See Lalvani, 269 F.3d at 791 (“[T]here will be cases in which a plaintiff can demonstrate causation despite a substantial time lag. This, however, is not one of them. Other than pure speculation … [plaintiff] offers nothing to support a causal connection.”) (citation omitted); Boston v. U.S. Steel Corp., 816 F.3d 455, 464 (7th Cir. 2016) (fifteen-month gap too long to establish causal connection when plaintiff did “not cite any evidence that demonstrates that her supervisor knew about the 2010 EEOC charge”); Everroad v. Scott Truck Sys., Inc., 604 F.3d 471, 481 (7th Cir. 2010) (year-long gap is insufficient evidence of causal connection when plaintiff presented “no other factual or legal theory linking [protected activity] to her termination”); Turner v. The Saloon, Ltd., 595 F.3d 679, 687 (7th Cir. 2010) (suspicious timing, without more, is insufficient to establish causal connection when gap is over half a year); Haywood v. Lucent Tech., Inc., 323 F.3d 524, 532 (7th Cir. 2003) (plaintiff provided “nothing to establish causation” other than “pure speculation” and one-year gap was “far too long—at least on this record—to allow a reasonable fact-finder to infer that her termination was causally related to the filing of her complaint”), overruled in part on other grounds, Ortiz v. Werner Enterprises, Inc., 834 F.3d 760 (7th Cir. 2016); Filipovic v. K&R Express Sys., Inc., 176 F.3d 390, 399 (7th Cir. 1999) (no causal connection when gap is four months and plaintiff “has not presented any direct evidence of causal connection”); Salvato v. Illinois Dep’t of Human Rights, 155 F.3d 922, 925 (7th Cir. 1998) (six-month gap, without other evidence, is insufficient evidence to find causal connection); Davidson v. Midelfort Clinic, Ltd., 133 F.3d 499, 511 (7th Cir. 1998) (fiveNo. 16-3335 17 We have long noted that the passage of time is not dispositive, and Walgreens concedes this point in its brief. See Hicks v. Forest Preserve Dist. of Cook County, 677 F.3d 781, 789 (7th Cir. 2012) (“[T]here are no bright-line rules to apply when considering the temporal proximity of adverse actions to protected activities because it is a fact-intensive analysis.”). There are “cases in which a plaintiff can demonstrate causation despite a substantial time lag.” Lalvani, 269 F.3d at 791; see also Malin v. Hospira, Inc., 762 F.3d 552, 559 (7th Cir. 2014) (collecting cases). This is such a case. Baines does not rely on evidence of “suspicious timing” to support her claim. She relies instead on testimony from Lisa Martin and a good deal of other circumstantial evidence. Moreover, unlike many retaliation cases, here the adverse employment action was failure to rehire, not termination or demotion. Because Baines had not worked at Walgreens since 2008, her 2014 application was Walgreens’ first opportunity to retaliate for her 2009 EEOC charge. Under these circumstances, the time gap is understandable and presents a question for a jury at trial rather than a judge on summary judgment. We REVERSE the grant of summary judgment, and we REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion. month gap, without other evidence, is insufficient evidence to find causal connection); Hughes v. Derwinski, 967 F.2d 1168, 1174 (7th Cir. 1992) (fourmonth gap “standing by itself” does not establish a causal connection).