Court Opinion

ID: 9910724
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-12-18 15:00:52.218537+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:53:59.394562
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 21-13430    Document: 36-1      Date Filed: 12/18/2023   Page: 1 of 35

                                                    [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                           ____________________

                                 No. 21-13430
                           Non-Argument Calendar
                           ____________________

        FRANK L. GARGETT, JR.,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellant,
        versus
        FLORIDA DEPARTMENT OF JUVENILE JUSTICE,

                                                     Defendant-Appellee.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Middle District of Florida
                  D.C. Docket No. 8:19-cv-02051-VMC-TGW
                           ____________________
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        2                          Opinion of the Court                       21-13430

        Before WILSON, ANDERSON, and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges.
        PER CURIAM:
               Plaintiff Frank L. Gargett, Jr. appeals the district court’s
        grant of summary judgment in favor of his former employer, the
        Florida Department of Juvenile Justice (“DJJ”), on his claims under
        the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”), the Florida
        Civil Rights Act of 1992 (“FCRA”), and the Family and Medical
        Leave Act (“FMLA”). Plaintiff’s Complaint alleged that the DJJ
        temporarily transferred him to a different position in retaliation for
        his exercise of protected conduct, violated his FMLA rights, and ul-
        timately fired him because of his age, in violation of the ADEA.
        After careful review, we affirm the district court’s grant of sum-
        mary judgment as to Plaintiff’s retaliation and FMLA claims, but
        reverse as to the grant of summary judgment on Plaintiff’s ADEA
        claim and his corresponding Florida FCRA claim.
       I.       BACKGROUND
                A.      Factual Background1
               At the age of 57 and after working for the DJJ for 19 years,
        Plaintiff was fired by his employer. Plaintiff had begun his employ-
        ment with the DJJ in November of 1998 and, working his way up
        the ladder, he had been promoted to Director of Detention

        1 We set out the facts and evidence in this section in the light most favorable

        to the non-moving party, the Plaintiff. See Chambless v. Louisiana-Pacific Corp.,
        481 F.3d 1345, 1349 (11th Cir. 2007).
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                          3

        Services for Central Florida, in August of 2014. This was a high-
        ranking position, as there were only three directors of detention
        services in the entire state. In that position, Plaintiff oversaw six
        juvenile detention facilities, their six supervisors, and all the staff
        employed at those facilities. He directly reported to the Assistant
        Secretary for DJJ. Ten months after Plaintiff had been named the
        Director of Detention Services in the Central Florida district, Dixie
        Fosler was named DJJ’s new Assistant Secretary and, accordingly,
        she became Plaintiff’s boss.
                Within six months after Fosler became his supervisor, Plain-
        tiff had become very concerned that she intended to get him fired.
        In January of 2016, a subordinate at one of his detention centers
        told Plaintiff that she had heard Plaintiff was “not going to be
        [t]here much longer.” This was consistent with other things he had
        been hearing for several months. He had also heard that Fosler
        was talking about him behind his back to staff members who had
        no business being made aware of the particular matters being dis-
        cussed.
               Accordingly, on January 25, 2016, Plaintiff sent Fosler a
        lengthy email titled “Rumors/Concern’s.” He began by noting
        that in the last quarter of 2015 “there were several rumors going
        around the region and elsewhere that I would not be around long
        and that I would [be] removed from my position.” Plaintiff indi-
        cated that, at the time, he didn’t feel the need to address these ru-
        mors, as he had always given 100% and was aware of no major is-
        sue with his performance. Nevertheless, on January 21, a
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        4                         Opinion of the Court                     21-13430

        subordinate at a detention center to whom he had never before
        spoken repeated this same rumor to him. Then on that same day,
        Plaintiff overheard a conversation between headquarters staff 2 in
        which the latter said that Plaintiff could not be trusted and to be
        careful what was said to him. Plaintiff explained, “To think that
        these rumors are floating around are very alarming and concern-
        ing.” Accordingly, Plaintiff stated, he felt that his “honesty, integ-
        rity, commitment and dedication to the department” was in ques-
        tion.
               Given these events, Plaintiff requested in the email that
        Fosler identify in writing any performance-based issues she had
        with Plaintiff, so Plaintiff could address them. If there were no is-
        sues with his performance, Plaintiff inquired whether Fosler’s atti-
        tude toward him was based on his gender, age, or just a dislike of
        him. He noted in the email that Fosler had previously character-
        ized Plaintiff as “old school” and a “dinosaur.”
               As to the concerns section of the email, Plaintiff pointed to
        specific incidents in which two of his subordinates whom he per-
        ceived to be protégées 3 of Fosler—Kevin Housel and Colette

        2 Fosler and her immediate subordinates were considered headquarters staff.

        Those persons whom Plaintiff supervised in the Central District were consid-
        ered regional staff.
        3 The email indicated that Fosler had urged Plaintiff to have “faith and trust
        in Kevin and Colette,” but Plaintiff asked how that was possible when they
        were keeping things from him and providing him with only selective infor-
        mation.
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        21-13430                  Opinion of the Court                               5

        Antozzi—were intentionally keeping him in the dark about im-
        portant matters on which he had to be informed in order to per-
        form his duties. Indeed, one of Plaintiff’s subordinates, a Mr.
        Seeber, reported to Plaintiff that he had expressed concern to An-
        tozzi that Plaintiff was not informed about a disturbance at one of
        the detention centers that Antozzi oversaw, to which Antozzi re-
        sponded, “There are somethings we do not tell Gargett.” Indeed,
        “several staff in the regional office indicate that I (plaintiff) need to
        watch my back as there is an appearance of deception and people
        undermining my authority.”
               In closing, Plaintiff requested an in-person meeting with
        Fosler. Plaintiff then met face-to-face with Fosler to further address
        any concerns she may have had, although the record provides little
        information about the substance of that conversation. Fosler did
        not respond in writing to Plaintiff’s request that she identify any
        areas in which he should improve his performance.
                 As to Plaintiff’s question in the e-mail whether Fosler’s hos-
        tility to him was based on his age, Plaintiff testified that on multiple
        occasions Fosler had expressed to him a strong bias against older
        employees. Plaintiff and Fosler had been peers prior to both of
        their promotions and during that time Fosler had indicated that her
        philosophy as to employees was out with old, and in with the new.
        In one conversation with Plaintiff, Fosler indicated that 20% of his
        existing supervisors would likely be gone within a year. 4 As he and

        4 According to Plaintiff, this prediction turned out to be accurate, as five of
        the six detention center supervisors in his district ultimately left, either
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        6                          Opinion of the Court                        21-13430

        Fosler had always gotten along well, he had not anticipated that,
        upon her promotion, he would be one of those “old” employees
        that she sought to terminate.
               Not only did Plaintiff hear Fosler make ageist statements on
        numerous occasions, but so did another staff member who directly
        reported to Fosler. Maureen Honan testified in her deposition that
        Fosler bullied employees and made demeaning and vulgar com-
        ments about employees, referring to some of them as “pieces of
        shit and garbage and idiots and dumb-asses.” As to age-related
        comments, Honan heard Fosler on more than one occasion indi-
        cate that she wanted a younger workforce. When a vacancy arose,
        Fosler would say that she didn’t want an old fogie or old fart, but
        wanted someone young. According to Honan, Fosler’s expressed
        motto was “out with the old, in with the new.”
               Shortly after the January 2016 email from Plaintiff and the
        subsequent meeting with Fosler, Fosler temporarily reassigned
        Plaintiff from Tampa to Miami to fill in for approximately eight
        weeks for the Southern District Supervisor of Detention Services

        because they were fired or, according to Plaintiff, were harassed so badly that
        they left. Plaintiff has likewise noted that all three of the incumbent regional
        directors left their position during Fosler’s tenure: Negron resigned, Wenhold
        agreed to move to a demoted position because of constant harassment by
        Fosler, and thereafter Plaintiff was fired. That said, Plaintiff has not litigated
        this case under a theory that Fosler systemically fired or pushed out older em-
        ployees, nor has he provided an adequate evidentiary basis for such a claim,
        and we therefore do not consider in our analysis of this summary judgment
        motion the fact that several older supervisory officials were allegedly pushed
        out of their jobs by Fosler.
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        21-13430                  Opinion of the Court                                7

        who had resigned. Although Plaintiff told Fosler that he would ra-
        ther not go to Miami, he accepted the assignment and ultimately
        received an award for the leadership and teamwork he demon-
        strated there.
                Turning to Plaintiff’s ultimate termination, Fosler initiated a
        request in mid-April 2017 to fire Plaintiff and began the process nec-
        essary to do so. According to the May 2, 2017 memorandum pre-
        pared by the agency’s assistant general counsel, Fosler had recom-
        mended Plaintiff’s termination and counsel alleged that this was
        justified based on: his poor performance, negligence, inefficiency
        or inability to perform assigned duties, insubordination, violation
        of law or agency rules, and conduct unbecoming a public em-
        ployee. Notably, and as discussed infra, other than this memoran-
        dum drafted by counsel, Defendant introduced no testimony indi-
        cating that Plaintiff was fired for the above reasons. Specifically,
        when asked why she had sought Plaintiff’s termination, Fosler an-
        swered that she did not recall. 5 Nor did Defendant submit an affi-
        davit from Fosler fleshing out the allegations set out in counsel’s
        memo.
               Given what we assume to have been Fosler’s alleged repre-
        sentations, the assistant general counsel concluded in the memo-
        randum that Fosler had asserted sufficient grounds to terminate
        Plaintiff. This memorandum was then submitted to Timothy

        5 Indeed, according to our count, Fosler answered 71 times that she “did not
        recall” in response to questions posed by Plaintiff’s counsel during her deposi-
        tion.
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        8                      Opinion of the Court                 21-13430

        Nierman, the agency’s Deputy Secretary, who accepted the recom-
        mendation and on May 3 authorized Fosler to fire Plaintiff.
               On the same morning of May 3, Plaintiff had emailed Nier-
        man outlining several issues he had with Fosler, including “con-
        stant harassment and bullying.” Plaintiff noted that Fosler had
        made it clear to her staff that she wanted him gone, questioned
        whether this was based on his age, and requested a meeting with
        Nierman. That same day, Fosler went to the regional office in
        Tampa to inform Plaintiff of his termination, but Plaintiff had al-
        ready left the office for the day because his son was injured at
        school. Plaintiff attempted to reschedule the meeting with Fosler
        for the following day, but Plaintiff testified that Fosler instead
        opted to terminate him via text on May 3 and then immediately
        announced the termination to the regional office staff, without first
        having spoken to Plaintiff. That afternoon, detention services staff
        received an email advising that Plaintiff was “no longer working
        for the department.” On May 4, Plaintiff sent another email to
        “everybody within the chain of command” at the DJJ, further out-
        lining his concerns about his mistreatment and the mishandled ter-
        mination process.
                 Despite the DJJ’s prior communications to Plaintiff and staff
        indicating that Plaintiff had been dismissed, Nierman put Plaintiff’s
        termination on hold to give Plaintiff “every avenue of . . . consid-
        eration . . . .” Nierman thus sought to address the grievances Plain-
        tiff raised in his recent emails. Additionally, the DJJ learned that
        Plaintiff had recently requested FMLA leave for biceps surgery, and
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                          9

        vetting this request also played a role in staying Plaintiff’s termina-
        tion.
               Nierman told Plaintiff that he would remain in his position
        until everything was “cleared up.” The DJJ ultimately granted
        leave for the FMLA request, retroactive to May 5. Plaintiff testified
        that Nierman initially offered to allow Plaintiff to remain employed
        until the end of May to get his biceps surgery, but based on later
        conversations with Nierman, Plaintiff believed he would keep his
        job indefinitely. On July 7, Plaintiff’s doctor cleared him for light
        duty, but the DJJ would not allow him to return because he had a
        five-pound lifting restriction.
                Regardless of Plaintiff’s hope, the DJJ had already decided
        that Plaintiff would not return to his previous detention services
        role. Instead, Nierman attempted to find another position for
        Plaintiff. On July 31, the DJJ emailed Plaintiff a settlement agree-
        ment that, in return for Plaintiff agreeing to drop any legal claims
        arising from his removal as the director of detention, DJJ would
        reassign him to a consultant role with less pay, loss of certain ben-
        efits, and relocation from Tampa to Lakeland. In addition, Plaintiff
        would be on probationary status.
               On August 9, Plaintiff submitted a second FMLA leave re-
        quest to address a knee injury. On August 11, the DJJ again sent
        Plaintiff the offer letter for the consultant role, indicating that Au-
        gust 14 was the final day for Plaintiff to decide whether he would
        accept the position. After Plaintiff let the due-date pass without
        communicating a decision, the DJJ sent him an official dismissal
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        10                     Opinion of the Court                 21-13430

        letter on August 18. That same day, the DJJ notified Plaintiff that
        it was denying his second FMLA leave request due to “separation.”
        Plaintiff was fifty-seven years old when he received his official dis-
        missal letter.
              B.     Procedural History
                Plaintiff subsequently filed a Charge of Discrimination with
        the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”)
        against the DJJ, and the EEOC thereafter issued a “right to sue”
        letter to Plaintiff.
               Thereafter, Plaintiff filed a Complaint against the DJJ alleg-
        ing age discrimination and retaliation in violation of the ADEA and
        the FCRA. Plaintiff also alleged two counts of FMLA violations,
        including FMLA interference. Following discovery, the DJJ moved
        for summary judgment. The district court referred the matter to a
        magistrate judge for a Report and Recommendation (“R&R”), and
        the latter recommended granting the DJJ’s motion for summary
        judgment. The district court accepted and adopted the R&R,
        granted the DJJ’s motion for summary judgment on all counts, and
        entered a final judgment for the DJJ. This appeal followed.
       II.    STANDARD OF REVIEW
               We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de
        novo, viewing all evidence in the light most favorable to the non-
        moving party. Owen v. I.C. Sys., Inc., 629 F.3d 1263, 1270 (11th Cir.
        2011). A movant is entitled to summary judgment if 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). A dispute
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                        11

        about a material fact is “genuine” “if the evidence is such that a
        reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party.”
        Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248 (1986).
       III.   DISCUSSION
               On appeal, Plaintiff argues that the magistrate judge and dis-
        trict court erred by granting summary judgment to the DJJ on:
        (1) Plaintiff’s age discrimination claims; (2) Plaintiff’s retaliation
        claims; and (3) Plaintiff’s FMLA interference claim. We address
        each issue in turn.
              A.     Magistrate Judge’s Refusal to Consider, On the
                     Merits, Plaintiff’s Opposition to Summary Judg-
                     ment on the Age Discrimination Claim
                     1.     Background
               As discussed infra, we conclude that Plaintiff’s opposition to
        Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on his age discrimina-
        tion claim was meritorious. That is, on the merits, Defendant’s
        motion for summary judgment on this claim should have been de-
        nied. The magistrate judge, however, concluded that Plaintiff had
        essentially waived any opposition because his response to the mo-
        tion for summary judgment did not thoroughly flesh out his argu-
        ment. We disagree with the magistrate judge’s decision and ex-
        plain why.
              A few days after Defendant filed its initial motion for sum-
        mary judgment, Defendant filed a motion to correct that motion
        because the latter had incorrectly recited the numbers of exhibits
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        12                     Opinion of the Court                  21-13430

        relied on in the pleading. The district court granted that motion,
        but it also noted that Defendant had failed to comply with the
        court’s requirements that a motion for summary judgment contain
        a statement of material facts. Defendant’s motion contained no
        such statement, but instead merely included “a series of unnum-
        bered paragraphs with multiple facts often lumped into a single
        paragraph.” Accordingly, the district court required Defendant to
        refile a motion for summary judgment that complied with the
        standards applied to motions for summary judgment.
                Defendant then filed what became its third summary judg-
        ment motion. That motion included a numbered statement of ma-
        terial facts, as directed by the district court, and a very brief argu-
        ment—slightly over a page—setting out the basis for its contention
        that Plaintiff was not fired because of his age.
                Plaintiff’s response to Defendant’s motion included a de-
        tailed response to Defendant’s statement of material facts, setting
        out with particularity his reasons for disagreeing with many of
        those facts. Plaintiff also set out, with citations to the record, very
        detailed “additional material facts” that explained Plaintiff’s basis
        for contending that he had been fired because of his age. Like De-
        fendant’s motion, the argument section of Plaintiff’s response was
        brief, containing just over a page. Plaintiff argued that Defendant’s
        stated reasons for firing him were a pretext for its real reason,
        which Plaintiff said was his age, and he incorporated his eight-page
        statement of additional material facts as support for this argument.
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                       13

               Defendant filed a reply in which it characterized Plaintiff’s
        statement of material facts as self-serving, uncorroborated, and
        conclusory and stated that Plaintiff had failed to show that age was
        the reason for his termination.
                 The magistrate judge issued an R&R in which he granted
        Defendant’s motion for summary judgment as to all claims. As to
        the age claim, the R&R stated that Plaintiff had not “specif[ied]”
        why Defendant’s reasons were pretextual. It further said that Plain-
        tiff’s reliance on his own statement of material facts was an “unde-
        veloped assertion” that was insufficient to negate Defendant’s ar-
        ticulated non-age-based reasons for firing Plaintiff. The R&R did
        not mention the statements of age bias attributed to Fosler by
        Plaintiff and his witness. The district court issued a brief order
        adopting the R&R, indicating that Plaintiff had failed to show that
        the reasons asserted in Defendant’s summary judgment motion as
        the basis for Defendant’s firing of Plaintiff were a pretext for age
        discrimination.
                     2.     Discussion
              As set out below, we conclude that, on the merits, Plaintiff
        has adequately created an issue of fact as to the question whether
        Defendant’s stated reasons for firing him were a pretext for the real
        reason: his age. The question is whether we must refrain from
        consideration of the merits of the claim given the magistrate
        judge’s determination that Plaintiff had offered only an “undevel-
        oped assertion” as to this matter. In effect, the magistrate judge
        determined that Plaintiff had abandoned any opposition to
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        14                     Opinion of the Court                  21-13430

        Defendant’s motion for summary judgment on the age discrimina-
        tion claim. And the district court did not reject the magistrate
        judge’s decision not to consider the merits of Plaintiff’s argument
        that the record provided evidence from which a jury could infer
        that Defendant’s stated reasons for firing Plaintiff were a pretext for
        age discrimination.
                For sure, there is case authority finding no abuse of discre-
        tion in a district court’s refusal to consider an argument in a liti-
        gant’s objection to a magistrate judge’s R&R when that argument
        was never raised before the magistrate judge. See, e.g., Club Ma-
        donna Inc. v. City of Miami Beach, 42 F.4th 1231, 1259–60 (11th Cir.
        2022) (district court did not abuse its discretion when it declined to
        entertain a preemption argument that had never been made before
        the magistrate judge in over three years of litigation); Lodge v. Kon-
        daur Cap. Corp., 750 F.3d 1263, 1274 (11th Cir. 2014) (in ruling on
        an objection to an R&R, the district court did not abuse its discre-
        tion when it declined to consider new documentary evidence be-
        cause that evidence was never mentioned before the magistrate
        judge and because the evidence was inadmissible). Likewise, in
        Williams v. McNeil, 557 F.3d 1287 (11th Cir. 2009), our Court found
        no abuse of discretion when, in considering a party’s objection to
        the R&R, the district court refused to consider the party’s argu-
        ment that his petition was timely, as the party had earlier declined
        to defend the petition’s timeliness, even when directed by the mag-
        istrate judge to file a reply on that very issue. Id. at 1292.
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                         15

                In each of the above cases, the party had flat-out failed to
        make the particular argument before the magistrate judge that he
        was attempting to raise for the first time before the district court.
        Here, in contrast, Plaintiff expressed the substance of the argument
        that Defendant’s non-age-related reasons for firing him were pre-
        textual, but that argument was not fleshed out in the discussion
        section of his response, instead being set out in the additional state-
        ment of facts that Plaintiff offered and adopted as part of his argu-
        ment. So, Plaintiff clearly did not intend to abandon this poten-
        tially summary judgment-determinative argument.
                That said, we are sympathetic to the magistrate judge’s frus-
        tration. Of course, Plaintiff’s counsel should have spelled out more
        fully in the substantive section of his response the specific reasons
        why he contended that Defendant’s reasons were pretextual. Ask-
        ing the magistrate judge to go back through the Plaintiff’s addi-
        tional statement of facts to figure out why Plaintiff’s argument of
        pretext held water constituted deficient performance by counsel
        that essentially asked the judge to unnecessarily expend his own
        time and effort to fill in the blanks as to Plaintiff’s argument.
                Yet, to the extent that Plaintiff’s argument was not fleshed
        out sufficiently, the magistrate judge could have directed Plaintiff
        to refile a response that accomplished that goal. Indeed, when De-
        fendant’s counsel in his initial summary judgment motion had
        failed to file a statement of material facts—which is a key compo-
        nent of a motion for summary judgment—the magistrate judge did
        not outright deny the motion based on this critical omission, but
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        16                         Opinion of the Court                        21-13430

        instead gave Defendant an opportunity to correct that omission in
        a new filing. Plaintiff could have been given the same opportunity.
        Moreover, a side-by-side comparison of Defendant’s motion com-
        pared with Plaintiff’s response indicates that Defendant’s argument
        was similarly spare. Specifically, Defendant’s summary judgment
        motion contained nine pages of detailed material facts. As to De-
        fendant’s argument in favor of summary judgment on the age dis-
        crimination claim, Defendant’s “fleshing out” of its argument was
        almost as bare-boned as Plaintiff’s, in that it was only one page in
        length, and it too consisted largely of references back to record ci-
        tations without repeating, with any specificity, the information
        found in the statement of material facts.
               In short, given the particular circumstances here, we con-
        clude that the magistrate judge and district court abused their dis-
        cretion by failing to consider on the merits Plaintiff’s argument that
        Fosler’s statements of age bias, combined with facts contradicting
        Defendant’s professed reasons for firing him, served to create an
        issue of fact concerning pretext. That being so, we now consider
        on the merits those contentions by Plaintiff.
                B.      ADEA and FCRA Age Discrimination Claims 6

        6  Age discrimination actions under the FCRA are analyzed under the same
        framework that applies to the ADEA. Mazzeo v. Color Resols. Int’l, LLC, 746 F.3d
        1264, 1266 (11th Cir. 2014); see also Zaben v. Air Prods. & Chems., Inc., 129 F.3d
        1453, 1455 n.2 (11th Cir. 1997) (“Age discrimination claims brought under the
        Florida Civil Rights Act have been considered within the same framework
        used to decide actions brought pursuant to the ADEA.”).
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        21-13430                Opinion of the Court                           17

                      1.      Analytic Framework for Evaluating Summary
                              Judgment Motion
               The ADEA prohibits an employer from taking an adverse
        employment action against an employee who is forty years or older
        because of that employee’s age. Mazzeo, 746 F.3d at 1270; see also
        29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1). To succeed on such a claim, the plaintiff-
        employee must establish that his age was the “but-for” cause of the
        adverse action. Liebman v. Metro. Life Ins. Co., 808 F.3d 1294, 1298
        (11th Cir. 2015) (citing Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs., Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 176
        (2009)).
                An ADEA plaintiff may establish the validity of his claim
        through either direct or circumstantial evidence, although a differ-
        ent standard for evaluating a defendant’s motion for summary
        judgment applies depending on which type of evidence the plaintiff
        cites in support of his claim. Akouri v. State of Fla. Dep’t of Transp.,
        408 F.3d 1338 (11th Cir. 2005). When a plaintiff has presented di-
        rect evidence of discrimination based on the particular prohibited
        ground at issue that, if believed, would be sufficient to win at trial,
        then summary judgment is inappropriate. Merritt v. Dillard Paper
        Co., 120 F.3d 1181, 1189 (11th Cir. 1997). When, as is the more
        typical case, a plaintiff offers only circumstantial evidence of such
        discrimination, we evaluate the defendant’s summary judgment
        motion under the familiar burden-shifting framework established
        by the Supreme Court in McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green,
        411 U.S. 792 (1973). See Mazzeo, 746 F.3d at 1270; Sims v. MVM, Inc.,
        704 F.3d 1327, 1332 (11th Cir. 2013).
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        18                       Opinion of the Court                     21-13430

               Here, Plaintiff has not argued that Fosler’s alleged age-re-
        lated comments7 constitute direct evidence of age discrimination.
        That is understandable as we likewise conclude that the alleged
        statements do not meet the standard for demonstrating direct evi-
        dence. Specifically, Plaintiff has introduced evidence of statements
        by Fosler from which one might infer that, as a general matter, she
        was biased against older employees. 8 To constitute direct evidence
        of illegal discrimination as to the particular individual who has
        sued, however, the evidence must, “if believed, prove[] the exist-
        ence of [that] fact without inference or presumption.” Ossmann v. Mer-
        edith Corp., 82 F.4th 1007, 1015 (11th Cir. 2023) (quotations omit-
        ted). This is a “rigorous standard,” under which we characterize as
        direct evidence “only the most blatant remarks, such as a manage-
        ment memorandum saying, ‘Fire Earley—he is too old.’” Id. (quo-
        tation marks omitted). Nevertheless, if the alleged statement
        merely suggests, but does not prove, a discriminatory motive, it
        may nonetheless be considered to be circumstantial evidence of
        discrimination when determining a defendant-employer’s motion
        for summary judgment. Id.

        7 Fosler denies that she made the statements in question, but in evaluating a
        summary judgment motion, we must take the facts in the light most favorable
        to the non-movant plaintiff.
        8 To repeat, Fosler allegedly indicated that her philosophy was “out with the

        old and in with the new,” that younger employees were more tech-savvy and
        would bring a fresh attitude to their work, and that when vacancies arose she
        would prefer younger employees as opposed to “old farts.”
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                         19

               Here, Fosler’s statements do not meet the rigorous standard
        required for direct evidence of a discriminatory motive, but they
        do constitute a piece of evidence that could possibly support an in-
        ference that Fosler acted to terminate Plaintiff based on such mo-
        tives. In other words, if a jury believed that Fosler made the state-
        ments, the latter could be considered, along with other evidence,
        in determining whether Plaintiff’s dismissal occurred because of
        Fosler’s bias against older employees. And, as noted, to determine
        whether summary judgment is nonetheless warranted for the de-
        fendant when a plaintiff presents circumstantial evidence to estab-
        lish an ADEA claim, as Plaintiff does here, we employ the burden-
        shifting framework established by the Supreme Court in McDonnell
        Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). See Mazzeo, 746
        F.3d at 1270; Sims, 704 F.3d at 1332.
               The first step in that framework is the requirement that the
        plaintiff make out a prima facie case of age discrimination. A prima
        facie case requires the plaintiff to demonstrate that: (1) he was be-
        tween the ages of forty and seventy; (2) he was subject to an ad-
        verse employment action—here being fired; (3) a substantially
        younger person filled the position from which he was discharged;
        and (4) he was qualified to do the job from which he was termi-
        nated. See Kragor v. Takeda Pharms. Am., Inc., 702 F.3d 1304, 1308
        (11th Cir. 2012); Damon v. Fleming Supermarkets of Fla., Inc., 196 F.3d
        1354, 1359 (11th Cir. 1999).
              If the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, the burden of
        production shifts to the employer to “articulate a legitimate,
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        20                        Opinion of the Court                       21-13430

        nondiscriminatory reason for the challenged employment action.”
        Chapman v. AI Transp., 229 F.3d 1012, 1024 (11th Cir. 2000); see
        Mazzeo, 746 F.3d at 1270. If the defendant does so, the burden shifts
        back to the plaintiff to show that the employer’s proffered reason
        is merely a pretext for discrimination. Mazzeo, 746 F.3d at 1270.
                        2.      Application of McDonnell-Douglas Standard to
                                Present Case
               Both the magistrate judge and the district court found that
        Plaintiff had established a prima facie case of age discrimination,
        and we agree. Plaintiff was fifty-seven years old at the time of his
        dismissal, and Defendant’s firing of Plaintiff obviously constitutes
        an adverse employment action. Thereafter, a woman in her early
        to mid-forties replaced Plaintiff, 9 meaning than Plaintiff’s replace-
        ment was at least ten years younger than Plaintiff. Given that dif-
        ference in age, Plaintiff’s replacement clearly qualifies as being sub-
        stantially younger than Plaintiff for purposes of the third require-
        ment for a prima facie case. See Liebman, 808 F.3d at 1299 (holding
        that a seven-year difference in age qualifies as substantially
        younger); see also Damon, 196 F.3d at 1360 (a five-year difference
        qualifies as substantially younger); Carter v. DecisionOne Corp., 122
        F.3d 997, 1003 (11th Cir. 1997) (a three-year difference qualifies as
        substantially younger).

        9 Fosler testified in 2020 that Plaintiff’s replacement, Monica Gray, was in her

        mid-40s at the time of the deposition. As the deposition occurred three years
        after Gray took the job, Gray would presumably have been in her early-40s
        when she got the promotion.
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        21-13430                Opinion of the Court                         21

               Finally, as to the fourth requirement for the establishment
        of a prima facie case, Plaintiff was qualified for the job from which
        he was terminated. Plaintiff worked for the DJJ for nearly nineteen
        years. See Liebman, 808 F.3d at 1299 (inferring that plaintiff was
        qualified where he had spent twenty-seven years with the company
        and held his final position for three years). Further, Fosler testified
        that Plaintiff and his replacement had “equivalent qualifications”
        on paper, demonstrating that Plaintiff was qualified for his former
        position.
               Plaintiff having made a prima facie case, the burden of pro-
        duction then shifted to Defendant to articulate and present evi-
        dence supporting Defendant’s position that it had legitimate, non-
        discriminatory reasons for firing Plaintiff. In attempting to shoul-
        der this burden, Defendant introduced the memorandum in sup-
        port of firing Plaintiff that was drafted by the agency’s assistant gen-
        eral counsel purportedly based on representations made by Fosler;
        documents that Defendant argued supported the decision to fire
        Plaintiff; and a portion of the deposition testimony of Nierman, the
        deputy secretary who accepted Fosler’s recommendation that
        Plaintiff be fired.
               As Plaintiff has not argued that Defendant failed to meet its
        burden of production to provide evidence that it had legitimate,
        non-discriminatory reasons for its decision to fire him, we proceed
        to the third step of the McDonnell Douglas analysis: the pretext in-
        quiry. At this step, Plaintiff must demonstrate that a reasonable
        jury could conclude that Defendant’s reasons were a pretext for its
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        22                     Opinion of the Court                  21-13430

        decision to fire Plaintiff and that instead Defendant took this action
        because of Plaintiff’s age. Our full review of the record persuades
        us that Plaintiff has met this burden and, accordingly, we conclude
        that the district court’s grant of summary judgment on the age
        claim should be reversed. We explain why.
                      3.     Plaintiff Has Met His Burden to Show a Jury
                             Question as to Pretext
                To show pretext, a plaintiff must demonstrate “such weak-
        nesses, implausibilities, inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contra-
        dictions in the employer’s proffered legitimate reasons for its action
        that a reasonable factfinder could find them unworthy of cre-
        dence.” Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Devs., Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1265 (11th
        Cir. 2010) (quoting Combs v. Plantation Patterns, 106 F.3d 1519, 1538
        (11th Cir. 1997)). Here, quoting from the memorandum prepared
        by the assistant general counsel at the behest of Fosler, Defendant
        has asserted that Plaintiff was fired because of poor performance,
        negligence, inefficiency or inability to perform assigned duties, in-
        subordination, violation of law or agency rules, and conduct unbe-
        coming a public employee. That same memorandum provided
        more specificity to the above characterization in stating that
        (1) staff morale was low due to bullying by Plaintiff; (2) in a dispute
        with a staff member in 2014 (three years before his termination),
        Plaintiff talked over a subordinate; (3) Plaintiff had to be mi-
        cromanaged because he did not timely address matters or prioritize
        the needs of facilities; (4) youth have been in confinement in some
        detention facilities without the appropriate check sheets or staff
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                         23

        nearby; (5) Plaintiff did not accept criticism in a professional man-
        ner; and (6) at one center, youths were not kept out of dorm rooms
        and some of those youths beat up two others.
               Almost always in employment discrimination cases, a de-
        fendant-employer will not merely offer a conclusory statement as
        to the reasons for firing an employee, but will also provide some
        testimony explaining the circumstances that led the employer to
        believe that termination was necessary. After all, to succeed on its
        summary judgment motion, an employer-movant has to do more
        than just articulate; it must also “clearly set forth, through the in-
        troduction of admissible evidence, the reasons for [its adverse ac-
        tion against the plaintiff].” Tex. Dep’t of Cmty. Affs. v. Burdine, 450
        U.S. 248, 255 (1981). Here, it was Fosler who had pushed through
        the termination of Plaintiff and who had provided the information
        to counsel that led to issuance of the above-described memo rec-
        ommending Plaintiff’s dismissal. Thus, one would have expected
        her, when asked, to explain the specific reasons that she had for
        deciding that Plaintiff had to be fired. Surprisingly, that did not
        happen here.
                Instead, when during her deposition she was asked by Plain-
        tiff’s counsel the obvious, and potentially litigation-determinative
        question, why she had recommended that Plaintiff be fired, Fosler
        stated that she could not recall. Having asked Fosler to “feel free
        to share anything with me here,” counsel pushed her again on the
        matter and indicated that he needed to know her reasons, but she
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        24                         Opinion of the Court                       21-13430

        repeated that she did not remember any specifics. 10 Nor did De-
        fendant subsequently attempt to rehabilitate Fosler’s failed
        memory via an affidavit by Fosler fleshing out with specificity the
        conduct by Plaintiff that had precipitated Fosler’s decision that
        Plaintiff had to go.
                Even assuming that Fosler had adequately spelled out the
        performance deficiencies on Plaintiff’s part that led to her decision
        to fire him, 11 other parts of her testimony bolster Plaintiff’s conten-
        tion that her reasons are pretextual. Specifically, Fosler was unable
        to point to any investigations that had actually found Plaintiff to
        have bullied or abused his staff. Indeed, as noted infra, there had
        been investigations following the receipt of anonymous letters and
        all such investigations exonerated Plaintiff. Nor was Fosler able to
        explain why nothing had ever been put into Plaintiff’s personnel
        file documenting that he had regularly bullied his staff, even
        though she agreed that had this been the case, a “write-up” should
        have occurred. Indeed, while Fosler indicated her awareness that
        over the years some staff had complained that Plaintiff was not nice
        or was a bully, she thought that all but one of these complaints had
        occurred before she became Plaintiff’s boss. Further, Fosler did not

        10 As noted supra, Fosler answered 71 times that she could not recall in re-
        sponse to questions by counsel.
        11 Albeit she could not remember why she had sought Plaintiff’s dismissal, in

        response to Plaintiff’s counsel’s later question whether there had been any is-
        sues with Plaintiff’s performance, Fosler answered that Plaintiff was consid-
        ered a bully by staff, that he did not support policy decisions and was difficult
        to deal with, and that he did not appreciate differing opinions.
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                       25

        believe that she had ever issued a written reprimand against Plain-
        tiff for any reason nor had she ever required him to obtain more
        management training. Nonetheless, she had felt it appropriate to
        fire him without first trying interim steps, although she was unable
        to explain why corrective action as a precursor to termination
        would not have been appropriate under the circumstances.
               In addition, to the extent one could assume that, had she ac-
        tually responded to counsel’s question, Fosler might have said that
        she sought Plaintiff’s termination because of deficient performance
        on his part, Nierman’s testimony gives rise to an inference that
        such reasons would have been pretextual. As noted, the assistant
        general counsel’s memorandum, which purportedly reflected
        Fosler’s representations, largely based its termination recommen-
        dation on allegations of poor performance by Plaintiff. Yet, Nier-
        man’s own testimony indicates that, contrary to Defendant’s posi-
        tion in this litigation, Plaintiff’s termination was not motivated by
        a determination that he had performed poorly. To repeat, Nier-
        man was the official in the agency who was required to approve
        Fosler’s recommendation that Plaintiff be fired. When asked dur-
        ing his deposition what Fosler’s reasons were for wanting to termi-
        nate Plaintiff, Nierman deflected the question, indicating that this
        was a question that counsel should instead ask Fosler. Further, he
        stated that the information discussed with him centered around an
        ineffective working relationship between Plaintiff and Fosler and it
        was his “take” that this was the impetus for Fosler’s recommenda-
        tion. In short, Nierman did not base his acquiescence to Fosler’s
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        26                    Opinion of the Court                 21-13430

        recommendation on an assessment that Plaintiff’s job performance
        was poor.
               Thus, as to Defendant’s position that Plaintiff was fired be-
        cause of poor job performance, Nierman’s testimony demonstrates
        a weakness, inconsistency, and contradiction as to such an asser-
        tion: all characteristics of a pretextual reason. Nor do the docu-
        ments introduced by Defendant correct those deficiencies in this
        reason cited by Defendant. For example, in Defendant’s motion
        for summary judgment below, Defendant cited to language in the
        June 30, 2016 performance review prepared by Fosler indicating
        that Plaintiff’s style of communication with staff had met with re-
        sistance and that Plaintiff should try to be more empathetic. That
        quotation by Defendant is accurate, but selective. The entirety of
        Fosler’s comments are as follows:
              There have been several complaints over this past ap-
              praisal period. Mr. Gargett has a more direct man-
              agement style than most people are probably used to.
              He does not attempt to be insincere when he deals
              with staff —meaning he is not fake. This can be in-
              terpreted as gruff by staff and probably leaves Mr.
              Gargett with a bad rap at times. I do encourage him
              to consider his effect on others and try a different ap-
              proach.
        and
              I respect Mr. Gargett’s loyalty and dedication to DJJ.
              I recommend that he try to embrace a more
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                       27

              empathetic management style as he deals with a di-
              verse team of leaders and staff. He will need to grow
              this team into one that he can trust and that trust him.
                The entirety of these comments do not suggest a problem
        significant enough to prompt the termination of a long-standing
        employee. Moreover, Plaintiff’s overall rating for this evaluation
        was 3.8, which put him in the “commendable” range. A commend-
        able score is the second highest rating category.
               In that same summary judgment motion, Defendant noted
        that Plaintiff had been the subject of multiple investigations con-
        cerning complaints (most of which were anonymous) that he bul-
        lied his employees. Defendant neglects to mention that the con-
        clusion reached by the investigator in each instance was that the
        particular allegations made against Plaintiff were unsubstantiated
        or unfounded.
               Finally, Defendant points to an incident that occurred on
        May 1, 2017 in which nine juveniles attacked two other juveniles
        in a dorm room at one of the six detention centers in Plaintiff’s re-
        gion. There had been an earlier memo directing all DJJ staff across
        the state to cease housing any more than two juveniles in a room.
        According to Defendant, this May 1 incident reflected insubordina-
        tion by Plaintiff in not following a directive. But a reading of the
        full email chain concerning this incident reveals that Plaintiff
        promptly inquired of center staff as to what had happened, and he
        promptly reported back to Fosler that the center’s staff stated that
        due to the large number of intakes that evening, staff felt they had
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        28                     Opinion of the Court                21-13430

        no alternative as far as housing the youths. Plaintiff indicated that
        while he was aware that staff “[was] trying . . . the best they can
        with what they have,” he agreed that “the decision made by the
        supervisors was inappropriate.”
               To the extent that Defendant argues that this incident was
        the reason why Fosler sought Plaintiff’s termination, it is important
        to note that Fosler had initiated termination proceedings against
        Plaintiff two-three weeks before the May 1 incident. Nor does the
        present record warrant an inference that Plaintiff was responsible
        for what had happened.
               In short, Plaintiff has shown that a reasonable jury could
        conclude that Defendant’s contention that it fired Plaintiff because
        of his poor job performance is pretextual. That leaves only one
        other possible legitimate non-discriminatory ground for firing him,
        and it was the ground that Nierman said the discussion with him
        centered on: an ineffective working relationship between Plaintiff
        and Fosler. Nierman noted that a person in Plaintiff’s particular
        position served at the pleasure of senior management and because
        Nierman concluded that the relationship between Plaintiff and
        Fosler was “broken,” Nierman acceded to Fosler’s request that
        Plaintiff be fired.
               Yet again, Defendant has offered very little evidence shed-
        ding any light on how this ineffectiveness manifested itself or how
        exactly Plaintiff contributed to the disharmony. And without some
        testimony providing context for the reason for the broken relation-
        ship, it is impossible to know whether the relationship was
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        21-13430                Opinion of the Court                         29

        impaired because of Fosler’s alleged bias against older workers or
        because of other factors. Certainly, Nierman did not indicate that
        he faulted Plaintiff for the broken relationship. And without any
        elaboration or particular examples, the most we get from Fosler on
        this record is a general statement that Plaintiff did not agree with
        moving the department forward in terms of policy and that Plain-
        tiff “disrupted channels of leadership.” All of which leaves us with
        little more than the conclusion that, for reasons not specifically
        fleshed out in this litigation, Fosler wanted Plaintiff gone. Yet,
        given evidence of her multiple statements indicating a bias against
        older workers and a desire to have younger employees, a jury, on
        this record, could conclude that her real reason for wanting Plain-
        tiff fired was his age. This being so, Plaintiff has demonstrated a
        question of fact as to whether Defendant’s reasons for discharging
        him were pretextual, summary judgment on the age discrimina-
        tion claim should have been denied by the district court, and we
        therefore reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment
        on this claim.
               C.     ADEA and FCRA Retaliation Claims12
               As to his retaliation claim, Plaintiff argues that, in response
        to his January 2016 memo to Fosler expressing concern that
        Fosler’s hostility against him was because of his age, Fosler

        12 The elements of retaliation under the FCRA and the ADEA are the same.
        See Drago v. Jenne, 453 F.3d 1301, 1307 (11th Cir. 2006).
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        30                      Opinion of the Court                    21-13430

        retaliated against him by temporarily reassigning him to replace
        the recently departed director of detention services in South Flor-
        ida.
                The McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework also ap-
        plies to retaliation claims, and plaintiffs “alleging retaliation must
        establish a prima facie case by showing: (1) a statutorily protected
        expression, (2) an adverse employment action, and (3) a causal link
        between the protected expression and the adverse action.” Hair-
        ston v. Gainesville Sun Publ’g Co., 9 F.3d 913, 919 (11th Cir. 1993) (cit-
        ing Goldsmith v. City of Atmore, 996 F.2d 1155, 1163 (11th Cir. 1993)
        (footnote omitted)). Plaintiff asserts that his January 2016 email to
        Fosler, in which he wondered whether her issues with him were
        related to his performance or rooted in age or gender discrimina-
        tion, was a statutorily-protected expression. Meanwhile, Plaintiff
        asserts that his temporary reassignment to Miami shortly after his
        email to Fosler was an adverse employment action. To support a
        causal link between the protected expression and the adverse ac-
        tion, Plaintiff notes the close temporal proximity between his email
        to Fosler and his temporary reassignment to Miami.
              While we will assume that Plaintiff’s January 2016 email to
        Fosler constituted a statutorily protected expression, we cannot
        conclude that Fosler temporarily reassigning him to Miami consti-
        tuted a materially adverse employment action. See Burlington N.
        & Santa Fe Ry. Co. v. White, 548 U.S. 53, 68 (2006) (providing that a
        materially adverse action is one that “well might have dissuaded a
        reasonable worker from making or supporting a charge of
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        21-13430                   Opinion of the Court                                31

        discrimination”) (quotation marks omitted). 13 “Whether a partic-
        ular reassignment is materially adverse depends upon the circum-
        stances of the particular case, and ‘should be judged from the per-
        spective of a reasonable person in the plaintiff’s position, consider-
        ing all the circumstances.’” Id. at 70–71 (quoting Oncale v. Sun-
        downer Offshore Servs., Inc., 523 U.S. 75, 81 (1998)).
                Simply put, we agree with the magistrate judge and the dis-
        trict court that this temporary eight-week reassignment could not
        plausibly constitute an adverse employment action. Fosler had to
        send someone in to fill the Southern District vacancy, as its director
        of detention services had recently resigned on apparently short no-
        tice. Likely few people would be excited at the prospect of uproot-
        ing themselves, even for a short period of time. Yet, the DJJ duly
        compensated Plaintiff for any financial expenses by putting him up
        in a hotel and providing a daily per diem for food. Further, at the
        end of the temporary reassignment, Fosler conferred an award on
        Plaintiff based on the teamwork and cooperative spirit he exhibited
        in handling well his duties as the temporary director of the South-
        ern District. And of course Plaintiff was permitted to return to his
        regular duties in his own region after eight weeks. Nothing about
        the circumstances surrounding this temporary reassignment sug-
        gests that it was less prestigious or desirable than Plaintiff’s normal
        role. See Burlington, 548 U.S. at 71 (concluding that, where the

        13  While Burlington addressed retaliation in the Title VII context, we have
        adapted the principles of law applicable to Title VII retaliation cases to retali-
        ation claims under the ADEA. See Hairston, 9 F.3d at 919.
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        32                       Opinion of the Court                     21-13430

        evidence showed that the plaintiff’s reassignment consisted of
        “more arduous and dirtier” duties and the job was less prestigious
        and desirable, a jury could reasonably conclude that the reassign-
        ment of responsibilities was materially adverse to a reasonable em-
        ployee) (quotation marks omitted). To the contrary, one could rea-
        sonably view the temporary reassignment as a show of confidence
        in Plaintiff. And, as noted, he received an award and kudos based
        on the exemplary way that he handled his temporary duties.
               Accordingly, we conclude that that the temporary reassign-
        ment here was not an adverse employment action nor an action
        that might have dissuaded a reasonable worker in Plaintiff’s posi-
        tion from expressing a concern about possible discrimination. That
        being so, Plaintiff has failed to establish a prima facie case of retali-
        ation and we therefore affirm the district court’s grant of summary
        judgment in favor of the DJJ on the retaliation claims.
               D.      FMLA Interference Claim 14
               Plaintiff argues that the DJJ interfered with his FMLA rights
        by denying his second FMLA leave request based on the fact that it
        had fired Plaintiff. To establish that an employer interfered with
        his FMLA rights, an employee must show by a preponderance of
        the evidence that he was entitled to the benefit that his employer

        14 Plaintiff alleged a retaliation claim under the FMLA in his Complaint, but
        he failed to pursue that claim in subsequent briefing and has abandoned it on
        appeal.
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        21-13430               Opinion of the Court                       33

        denied. Matamoros v. Broward Sheriff’s Off., 2 F.4th 1329, 1338 (11th
        Cir. 2021).
               Plaintiff’s argument concerning this claim is incoherent. As
        set out above, following Nierman’s authorization of Fosler’s re-
        quest to remove Plaintiff from his director’s position and during
        the time-period Nierman was attempting to find a new position for
        Plaintiff, Plaintiff requested and received some FMLA leave for bi-
        ceps surgery. So, there was no FMLA violation as to Plaintiff’s first
        request for FMLA leave. Subsequently, he had requested FMLA
        leave for a second surgery that he needed to have, but prior to the
        date of this intended second surgery, he was formally terminated
        by Defendant.
                The FMLA gives an employee the opportunity to take a cer-
        tain amount of leave based on illness, without fear that the em-
        ployee will be fired for taking the leave. Obviously, an employee,
        like Plaintiff, who no longer works for an employer will no longer
        need FMLA leave for a future illness because there is no fear of be-
        ing fired from a job one does not have.
              To the extent that one might inquire whether Plaintiff was
        basing his FMLA-interference claim on an argument that he was
        terminated for requesting a second FMLA leave, that argument
        would make no sense under these facts. “[T]he right to commence
        FMLA leave is not absolute,” and an employer can dismiss an em-
        ployee, preventing him from exercising his right to commence
        FMLA leave, “without thereby violating the FMLA, if the em-
        ployee would have been dismissed regardless of any request for
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        34                        Opinion of the Court                       21-13430

        FMLA leave.” Krutzig v. Pulte Home Corp., 602 F.3d 1231, 1236 (11th
        Cir. 2010); see also Spakes v. Broward Cnty. Sheriff’s Off., 631 F.3d
        1307, 1310 (11th Cir. 2011). Thus, for an employer to be held liable
        for FMLA interference, the request for leave must have been the
        proximate cause of the termination. Schaaf v. Smithkline Beecham
        Corp., 602 F.3d 1236, 1242 (11th Cir. 2010).
               But, of course, on these facts and on his own theory of his
        main claim in the case—the age discrimination claim—Plaintiff
        lacks any plausible argument that Defendant fired him because he
        requested a second period of leave. As noted above, Defendant
        was willing to keep Plaintiff in its employ so long as Plaintiff ac-
        cepted a different, lesser position. It was Plaintiff’s decision to re-
        ject that offer and Defendant’s decision that Plaintiff could no
        longer continue as a director that led to his ultimate termination.
        In offering Plaintiff a different position, Defendant was of course
        aware that it would be obliged to provide him with any remaining
        period of FMLA leave that he was entitled to, and it was willing to
        do so. Thus, Plaintiff’s request for a second period of FMLA leave
        had no impact on Defendant’s decision to fire him. It was Defend-
        ant’s decision to remove Plaintiff from his present position and
        Plaintiff’s refusal to accept a demotion to another position that led
        to that action.15

        15 We have concluded that a plaintiff who failed to present evidence from
        which a reasonable jury could find that an employer’s proffered reasons were
        pretextual with respect to an ADA claim had “[f]or the same reasons” failed to
        present evidence of a causal connection in her FMLA interference claim. Was-
        cura v. City of S. Miami, 257 F.3d 1238, 1248 (11th Cir. 2001). We apply the law
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        21-13430                   Opinion of the Court                                 35

               Moreover, Plaintiff’s primary claim in this case is his age dis-
        crimination claim. As noted, Plaintiff must prove that but for his
        age, Defendant would not have removed him from his director po-
        sition. But any argument by Plaintiff that a second reason why De-
        fendant terminated him was Plaintiff’s request for a second period
        of FMLA leave is an argument that would seem to greatly diminish
        his claim that age was the “but-for” reason for his termination.
        Thus, we do not infer him to be making that argument. In short,
        Plaintiff’s FMLA claim, which is quite difficult to decipher, is with-
        out merit.
             Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of summary
        judgment to Defendant as to Plaintiff’s FMLA interference claim.
       IV.      CONCLUSION
               For the foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the district court’s
        grant of summary judgment in favor of the Defendant-Appellee DJJ
        as to Plaintiff’s retaliation and FMLA claims, but we REVERSE its
        grant of summary judgment on Plaintiff’s age-discrimination
        claims. The Defendant-Appellee DJJ’s motion for leave to file a
        corrected brief is GRANTED.

        developed in Title VII, ADEA, and ADA cases interchangeably. See Pennington
        v. City of Huntsville, 261 F.3d 1262, 1269 (11th Cir. 2001); Stewart v. Happy Her-
        man’s Cheshire Bridge, Inc., 117 F.3d 1278, 1287 (11th Cir. 1997); Hairston, 9 F.3d
        at 919.