Court Opinion

ID: 9839104
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-11 18:01:22.766614+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:10:55.833752
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11931   Document: 32-1    Date Filed: 09/11/2023   Page: 1 of 14

                                                 [DO NOT PUBLISH]
                                 In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                        For the Eleventh Circuit

                         ____________________

                               No. 22-11931
                         Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

        BILLY PASLEY,
                                                    Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        RELOGIO, LLC,
        RECUPERO, LLC,
        AGORA NOTUS, LLC,
        COMPLETE PROPERTIES, LLC,
        CC LICENSING, LLC, et al.,

                                                Defendants-Appellees.

                         ____________________
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        2                      Opinion of the Court                22-11931

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Northern District of Georgia
                      D.C. Docket No. 4:20-cv-00124-WMR
                            ____________________

        Before NEWSOM, GRANT, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
                Billy Pasley appeals the district court’s grant of summary
        judgment to Relogio, LLC; Recupero, LLC; Agora Notus, LLC;
        Trovami, LLC; Complete Cash Holdings, LLC; Complete Proper-
        ties, LLC; Complete Aviation, LLC; CC Licensing, LLC; and SIC
        Certior Trust (“Entity Defendants”), his former employer, on his
        claims for a tangible employment action, hostile work environ-
        ment, and retaliation under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
        (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2(a), 2000e-3(a). First, he argues
        that the district court erred in sua sponte granting summary judg-
        ment to the Entity Defendants on his tangible-employment-action
        claim because he did not have sufficient advance notice or an ade-
        quate opportunity to demonstrate why summary judgment should
        not be granted. He argues that even if this was not error, the dis-
        trict court erred in granting summary judgment to the Entity De-
        fendants on this claim. Second, Pasley argues that the district court
        erred in granting summary judgment to the Entity Defendants on
        his hostile-work-environment claim and that the Entity Defendants
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        22-11931                   Opinion of the Court                                  3

        were not entitled to an Ellerth/Faragher1 defense. Third, he argues
        that the district court erred in granting summary judgment as to
        his Title VII retaliation claim. And lastly, Pasley argues that the
        district court erred in granting summary judgment to the Entity
        Defendants on his retaliation claim because it failed to analyze pre-
        text and he showed a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence
        of retaliation.
                                                I.
               We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judg-
        ment, “viewing all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable factual
        inferences, in favor of the nonmoving party.” Amy v. Carnival Corp.,
        961 F.3d 1303, 1308 (11th Cir. 2020) (quotation marks omitted). “A
        prevailing party is entitled to defend its judgment on any ground
        preserved in the district court,” and we “may aﬃrm for any reason
        supported by the record, even if not relied upon by the district
        court.” Marrache v. Bacardi U.S.A., Inc., 17 F.4th 1084, 1097 (11th Cir.
        2021) (quotation marks omitted).
               Summary judgment is appropriate when the record evi-
        dence shows that “there is no genuine dispute as to any material
        fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.”
        Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). “But it is improper if a reasonable jury could
        ﬁnd for the non-moving party.” Amy, 961 F.3d at 1308. “After giving
        notice and a reasonable time to respond,” a district court may: “(1)

        1 Burlington Indus., Inc. v. Ellerth, 524 U.S. 742 (1998); Faragher v. City of Boca
        Raton, 524 U.S. 775 (1998).
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        4                      Opinion of the Court                22-11931

        grant summary judgment for a nonmovant; (2) grant the motion
        on grounds not raised by a party; or (3) consider summary judg-
        ment on its own after identifying for the parties material facts that
        may not be genuinely in dispute.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(f ).
                “A district court possesses the power to enter summary judg-
        ment sua sponte provided the losing party was on notice that []he
        had to come forward with all of h[is] evidence.” Burton v. City of
        Belle Gale, 178 F.3d 1175, 1203 (11th Cir. 1999) (quotation marks
        omitted). “[T]his notice provision is not an unimportant technical-
        ity, but a vital procedural safeguard to a party’s right to oﬀer the
        best defense to any challenge.” Id. at 1203-04 (quotation marks
        omitted). “But so long as the party against whom judgment will
        be entered is given suﬃcient advance notice and has been aﬀorded
        an adequate opportunity to demonstrate why summary judgment
        should not be granted, then granting summary judgment sua
        sponte is entirely appropriate. Id.
                We have distinguished between sua sponte granting of sum-
        mary judgment where the case involves “purely legal questions
        based on complete evidentiary records” and cases “involving fac-
        tual disputes where the non-moving party has not been aﬀorded an
        adequate opportunity to develop the record.” Artistic Ent., Inc. v.
        City of Warner Robins, 331 F.3d 1196, 1201 (11th Cir. 2003). We have
        held that “summary judgment should be granted sua sponte only in
        those circumstances in which the dismissed claims have been fully
        developed in the evidentiary record and the non-moving party has
        received adequate notice.” Id.
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        22-11931               Opinion of the Court                          5

               Under Title VII, it is an unlawful employment practice for
        any employer “to fail or refuse to hire or to discharge any individ-
        ual, or otherwise to discriminate against any individual with re-
        spect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of em-
        ployment, because of such individual’s race, color, religion, sex, or
        national origin.” Cotton v. Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Inc., 434
        F.3d 1227, 1231 (11th Cir. 2006) (quoting 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1)
        (quotation marks and ellipses omitted)). To establish a claim for
        sexual harassment under Title VII, an employee must prove: (1)
        that he belongs to a protected group; (2) that he was subjected to
        unwelcome sexual harassment; (3) that the harassment was based
        on his sex; (4) “that the harassment was suﬃciently severe or per-
        vasive to alter the terms and conditions of employment and create
        a discriminatorily abusive working environment”; and (5) “that a
        basis for holding the employer liable exists.” Id.
               To prove sexual harassment in violation of Title VII, a plain-
        tiﬀ may rely on two theories: (1) a tangible employment action or
        (2) a hostile work environment. Id. “A tangible employment ac-
        tion constitutes a signiﬁcant change in employment status, such as
        hiring, ﬁring, failing to promote, reassignment with signiﬁcantly
        diﬀerent responsibilities, or a decision causing a signiﬁcant change
        in beneﬁts.” Id. “There also must be a causal link between the tan-
        gible employment action and the sexual harassment.” Id. Tem-
        poral proximity between harassment and a tangible employment
        action may give rise to a genuine issue of fact as to causation. Id.
        at 1232. However, “[w]hen an employer contemplates a given ac-
        tion before the harassment takes place, temporal proximity
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        6                      Opinion of the Court                22-11931

        between the action and the incident of harassment alone will not
        suﬃce to show causation.” Id.
               Under a “cat’s paw” theory, a plaintiﬀ may show that the har-
        asser employed the decisionmaker who ultimately made the ad-
        verse employment action to act as her “cat’s paw,” where “the de-
        cisionmaker acted in accordance with the harasser’s decision with-
        out h[im]self evaluating the employee’s situation.” Llampallas v.
        Mini-Circuits, Lab, Inc., 163 F.3d 1236, 1249 (11th Cir. 1998). “In a
        cat’s paw situation, the harasser clearly causes the tangible employ-
        ment action, regardless of which individual actually signs the em-
        ployee’s walking papers,” and “[i]n eﬀect, the harasser is the deci-
        sionmaker, and the titular ‘decisionmaker’ is a mere conduit for the
        harasser’s discriminatory animus.” Id.
               Here, the district court did not err in granting summary
        judgment to the Entity Defendants on his tangible employment ac-
        tion claim even though the Entity Defendants did not explicitly
        move for summary judgment on that claim because Pasley had ad-
        equate notice and an opportunity to respond. The notice provision
        is only necessary so that the nonmovant has an opportunity to re-
        spond and develop the record, which happened here. Pasley has
        not argued that he would have developed the record further on this
        claim had the Entity Defendants more clearly moved for summary
        judgment on the claim. Thus, this was enough for Pasley to ade-
        quately respond, develop evidence to support his claims, and
        demonstrate why he thought summary judgment should not be
        granted. Burton, 178 F.3d at 1203.
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        22-11931               Opinion of the Court                         7

               Even if the district court did err in this respect, the record
        shows that summary judgment should have been granted to the
        Entity Defendants because Pasley failed to show a causal connec-
        tion between his supervisor’s harassment and the Entity Defend-
        ants’ decision to terminate his employment. Speciﬁcally, he did not
        demonstrate a causal link between his termination and the sexual
        harassment. Pasley gives heavy weight to the temporal proximity
        of three weeks between his strongest rebuﬀ of Zirkelbach’s ad-
        vances and his termination. However, temporal proximity alone
        was not enough to show causation, especially here where there was
        undisputed evidence that Popham, the ﬁnal decisionmaker on
        whether to terminate Pasley, was going to ﬁre Pasley anyway be-
        fore this happened. Cotton, 434 F.3d at 1232. The testimony from
        Zirkelbach, Green, and Popham conﬁrmed that Popham was frus-
        trated with Pasley’s inability to perform work activities, speciﬁcally
        singling out the issue at the golf course. Most notably, Zirkelbach
        testiﬁed that Popham told her that he had asked her predecessors
        to terminate Pasley, but they failed to do so and implied that he
        would terminate her if she could not terminate Pasley. Popham
        testiﬁed that he had had a negative opinion of Pasley and thought
        he needed to be terminated because of his unprofessional manner
        since the day he met him.
               Further, Popham testiﬁed that he was unaware of any com-
        plaints of sexual harassment by Pasley against Zirkelbach until af-
        ter Pasley was terminated. Green, the HR manager, also testiﬁed
        that Pasley did not bring the sexual harassment allegations to HR’s
        attention until after he was terminated. In sum, because the
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                  22-11931

        evidence showed: (a) that Popham, the decisionmaker as to Pasley’s
        termination, was planning to terminate Pasley even before Zirkel-
        bach assumed her role as Pasley’s supervisor and harassed Pasley,
        and (b) that Popham was not aware of the harassment until after
        Pasley was terminated and ﬁled his EEOC charge, the mere tem-
        poral proximity between turning down Zirkelbach and his termi-
        nation was insuﬃcient to show causation. Id.
               As to Pasley’s “cat’s paw” argument that Zirkelbach failed to
        protect his employment as she had done before after he turned
        down her sexual advances, these types of cases usually involve a
        sexual harasser who recommends to the decisionmaker that an em-
        ployee be terminated because of retaliatory animus, and the deci-
        sionmaker accepts that recommendation without doing his own in-
        dependent investigation. Llampallas, 163 F.3d at 1249. However,
        this case is more like an inverted cat’s paw, where Zirkelbach never
        made a recommendation to terminate Pasley. Regardless, this the-
        ory also requires evidence that Zirkelbach “clearly cause[d]” the
        tangible employment action. Id. As above, the evidence shows that
        Popham had long desired to terminate Pasley’s employment, that
        the decision was his acting independently, and that he was not a
        “mere conduit” for Zirkelbach’s animus for turning down her sex-
        ual advances. Id. Accordingly, we aﬃrm as to this issue.
                                          II.
              “A hostile work environment claim under Title VII requires
        proof that the workplace is permeated with discriminatory intimi-
        dation, ridicule, and insult, that is suﬃciently severe or pervasive to
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        22-11931               Opinion of the Court                          9

        alter the conditions of the victim’s employment and create an abu-
        sive working environment.” Fernandez v. Trees, Inc., 961 F.3d 1148,
        1152 (11th Cir. 2020). To establish a hostile work environment
        claim, the plaintiﬀ must establish the ﬁve elements listed above for
        sexual harassment claims. Cotton, 434 F.3d at 1231; Fernandez, 961
        F.3d at 1153. As to the ﬁfth element regarding the employer’s lia-
        bility, “an employer’s direct liability can be established through ev-
        idence of two types of notice: actual and constructive.” Smelter v.
        So. Home Care Servs. Inc., 904 F.3d 1276, 1287 (11th Cir. 2018). “Ac-
        tual notice is established by proof that management knew of the
        harassment, whereas constructive notice will be found where the
        harassment was so severe and pervasive that management should
        have known of it.” Id.
               If the plaintiﬀ establishes vicarious liability without a tangi-
        ble employment action, an employer may raise the aﬃrmative Fa-
        ragher/Ellerth defense that: (1) the employer exercised reasonable
        care to prevent and correct any harassing behavior; and (2) the
        plaintiﬀ unreasonably failed to take advantage of the preventive or
        corrective opportunities that the employer provided. Miller v. Ken-
        worth of Dothan, Inc., 277 F.3d 1269, 1278 (11th Cir. 2002).
               We have held that “once an employer has promulgated an
        eﬀective anti-harassment policy and disseminated that policy and
        associated procedures to its employees, then it is incumbent upon
        the employees to utilize the procedural mechanisms established by
        the company speciﬁcally to address problems and grievances.”
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                  22-11931

        Madray v. Publix Supermarkets, Inc., 208 F.3d 1290, 1300 (11th Cir.
        2000) (quotation marks omitted).
                 Here, Pasley’s failure to establish causation also defeats his
        hostile work environment claim, and even if it did not, the Entity
        Defendants were entitled to an Ellerth/Faragher defense because
        Pasley failed to report the harassment under their sexual harass-
        ment policy. Pasley disputes whether the Entity Defendants had
        actual or constructive notice of Zirkelbach’s harassment, but there
        is no evidence in the record to support a ﬁnding of notice. He ar-
        gues that the general atmosphere of his work environment that
        was prone to inappropriate sexual jokes, including from Popham,
        suggests that Popham should have been aware that Zirkelbach was
        harassing him. However, Popham testiﬁed that he did not know
        about the sexual harassment until Pasley ﬁled the complaint with
        the EEOC. Indeed, Pasley admitted during his deposition that he
        never notiﬁed HR of any allegations against Zirkelbach or others.
        Thus, there was no actual notice that management knew of any
        harassment. Smelter, 904 F.3d at 1287. Although HR was aware of
        inappropriate comments in the workplace, Pasley does not argue
        that this alone rose to the level of a hostile work environment. And
        it is a stretch to argue that knowledge of inappropriate comments
        meant that Popham or others should have known that Pasley was
        being sexually harassed, and such a stretch is not supported by the
        evidence as Popham was not aware of such allegations until after
        Pasley was terminated. Thus, Pasley failed to establish a hostile
        work environment claim.
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        22-11931               Opinion of the Court                         11

                Even if this could establish such a claim, the district court
        correctly concluded that the Entity Defendants were entitled to a
        Ellerth/Faragher defense because they had a reasonable sexual har-
        assment policy requiring the employee to ask the harasser to stop,
        record the conduct, and then talk to HR, Zirkelbach, or Popham.
        Indeed, Pasley admitted that he knew about the policy yet did not
        want to talk to HR and that he did not report the incident until after
        he was terminated. Although he states that it would have been fu-
        tile to talk to Zirkelbach or Popham, he still could have talked to
        HR about the harassment, which he failed to do until after his ter-
        mination. As this Court has held, because Pasley had access to the
        anti-harassment policy, he should have used the procedures used by
        the company to address the harassment. Madray, 208 F.3d at 1300.
        Thus, even if Pasley has established a hostile work environment
        claim, which he has not, the Entity Defendants would be entitled
        to a Ellerth/Faragher defense due to his failure to follow protocol.
        Accordingly, we also aﬃrm as to this issue.
                                         III.
               “To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under Title VII,
        a plaintiﬀ must show that (1) he engaged in statutorily protected
        expression; (2) he suﬀered an adverse employment action; and (3)
        there is some causal relation between the two events.” Pennington
        v. City of Huntsville, 261 F.3d 1262, 1266 (11th Cir. 2001). “The
        causal link element is construed broadly so that a plaintiﬀ merely
        has to prove that the protected activity and the negative employ-
        ment action are not completely unrelated.” Id. (quotation marks
        omitted). “Once a plaintiﬀ has established a prima facie case, the
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                  22-11931

        employer then has an opportunity to articulate a legitimate, non-
        retaliatory reason for the challenged employment action.” Id. The
        plaintiﬀ retains the ultimate burden of “proving by a preponder-
        ance of the evidence that the reason provided by the employer is a
        pretext for prohibited, retaliatory conduct.” Id.
               The Supreme Court has recognized in a case involving an
        employee, a biased supervisor with retaliatory animus, and an em-
        ployer-decisionmaker that did not know of that animus that “if the
        employer’s investigation results in an adverse action for reasons un-
        related to the supervisor’s original biased action . . ., then the em-
        ployer will not be liable.” Staub v. Proctor Hosp., 562 U.S. 411, 421
        (2011). “But the supervisor’s biased report may remain a causal
        factor if the independent investigation takes it into account with-
        out determining that the adverse action was, apart from the super-
        visor’s recommendation, entirely justiﬁed.” Id.
                Here, the district court also correctly concluded that Pasley
        failed to establish a prima facie case of retaliation because he failed
        to show a causal connection between the harassment and the En-
        tity Defendants’ decision to terminate his employment. As above,
        the evidence shows that Popham was planning to terminate Pasley
        even before Zirkelbach assumed her role, and that Popham was not
        aware of the harassment until after Pasley was terminated and ﬁled
        his EEOC complaint. The mere temporal proximity between Pas-
        ley turning down Zirkelbach and his termination does not rise to
        the level of causation. Pennington, 61 F.3d at 1266. And Popham’s
        desire to terminate Pasley’s employment was not actively caused
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        22-11931               Opinion of the Court                       13

        by Zirkelbach’s alleged retaliatory animus and was, instead, based
        on his own perceptions of Popham’s professionalism and job per-
        formance. Staub, 562 U.S. at 421. Accordingly, we also aﬃrm as to
        this issue.
                                        IV.
               We have noted in a case where the district court failed to
        address pretext that “[i]if we were so inclined, we could remand the
        pretext issue to the district court to consider in the ﬁrst instance.
        However, where the record is so clear as to the ﬁnal outcome of
        the case and is suﬃciently developed for us to decide the issue, we
        conclude[d] that a remand [t]here would be a waste of time and
        judicial resources.” Cuddeback v. Fla. Bd. of Educ., 381 F.3d 1230,
        1236 n.5 (11th Cir. 2004).
                A plaintiﬀ may alternatively survive summary judgment for
        a retaliation claim by presenting “a convincing mosaic” of circum-
        stantial evidence that supports a reasonable inference that the em-
        ployer intentionally discriminated against her. Smith v. Lock-
        heed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir. 2011). In Smith, a
        case involving a discrimination claim, we concluded that a “con-
        vincing mosaic” of circumstantial evidence precluded summary
        judgment where it showed that the employer had a pretextual jus-
        tiﬁcation for terminating the employee, a substantial incentive to
        discipline Caucasian employees more than African-American em-
        ployees, and injected race into its decision-making without ade-
        quate explanation. Id. at 1341. A “convincing mosaic” may exist
        where evidence shows, among other things, “(1) suspicious timing,
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        14                      Opinion of the Court                   22-11931

        ambiguous statements, and other bits and pieces from which an
        inference of discriminatory intent might be drawn, (2) systemati-
        cally better treatment of similarly situated employees, and (3) that
        the employer’s justiﬁcation is pretextual.” Lewis v. City of Union City,
        934 F.3d 1169, 1185 (11th Cir. 2019) (quotation marks and ellipsis
        omitted).
               We generally will not consider an issue in a civil appeal that
        was not raised in the district court unless: (1) it involves a pure ques-
        tion of law and refusal to consider it would result in a miscarriage
        of justice; (2) the appellant had no opportunity to raise the issue in
        the district court; (3) the interest of substantial justice is at stake;
        (4) the proper resolution is beyond any doubt; or (5) the issue pre-
        sents signiﬁcant questions of general impact or of great public con-
        cern. Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1332 (11th
        Cir. 2004).
                Here, we decline to consider Pasley’s argument regarding
        pretext because the district court correctly concluded that he failed
        to establish a prima facie case of retaliation. We also decline to con-
        sider Pasley’s convincing mosaic argument because he did not
        clearly raise it in the district court. Accordingly, we also aﬃrm as
        to this issue.
               AFFIRMED.