Court Opinion

ID: 9353366
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-01-11 18:01:00.370869+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:07:28.318252
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 20-13998   Document: 40-1      Date Filed: 01/11/2023   Page: 1 of 9

                                                  [DO NOT PUBLISH]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

                         ____________________

                                No. 20-13998
                          Non-Argument Calendar
                         ____________________

       ANNECIA M. FORT,
                                                              Petitioner,
       versus
       U.S. DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,
       ADMINISTRATIVE REVIEW BOARD,
       LANDSTAR TRANSPORTATION LOGISTICS, INC.,

                                                          Respondents.

                         ____________________

                   Petition for Review of a Decision of the
                             Department of Labor
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       2                       Opinion of the Court                 20-13998

                            Agency No. ARB2018-0026
                            ____________________

       Before JORDAN, NEWSOM, and LUCK, Circuit Judges.
       PER CURIAM:
              Proceeding pro se, Annecia Fort alleged that her employer,
       Landstar Transportation Logistics, Inc., retaliated against her, in vi-
       olation of the Surface Transportation Assistance Act, 49 U.S.C. sec-
       tion 31105. She petitions us to review the affirmance of the sum-
       mary decision for Landstar. We deny her petition.
                           FACTUAL BACKGROUND

              From November 2004 to October 2015, Fort worked for
       Landstar as a Log Compliance Representative. In this position,
       Fort made sure that Landstar’s truck drivers complied with Depart-
       ment of Transportation regulations about hours of service. The
       three incidents that allegedly constituted Fort’s protected activity
       occurred between November 2014 and August 2015.
              First, in November 2014, Fort recommended that driver Mi-
       chael Pease be disqualified from driving for Landstar because he
       had multiple log violations. Although Fort’s immediate supervisor
       agreed with her recommendation, Compliance Director Mahal Ca-
       son, at an agent’s request, sent Mr. Pease for retraining on the elec-
       tronic logging device instead of disqualifying him. After learning
       that Mr. Pease got into two accidents in one day, Fort went above
       Director Cason’s head to Mike Cobb, Vice President for Safety and
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       20-13998              Opinion of the Court                       3

       Compliance, and told him about her disqualification recommenda-
       tion. Because Mr. Pease had two accidents on the same day, he
       was disqualified.
              Second, in January 2015, Fort complained to Director Cason
       about how a driver’s call was handled. About half of the Log Com-
       pliance Department, including Fort, was attending a training ses-
       sion when driver Jose Martinez called Fort back about training on
       the electronic logging device. Because Fort was in training and the
       department was short-staffed, an employee told Mr. Martinez to
       call back the next day and to use paper logs in the meantime. Fort
       thought that having a driver call back contradicted company pol-
       icy, so she instructed the employee that it did, spoke with the su-
       pervisor who had approved the response, and reported the incident
       to Director Cason. Director Cason counseled the supervisor about
       managing employee availability to avoid being short-staffed, and
       she determined that the incident didn’t violate any regulations.
              And third, in August 2015, Fort told Vice President Cobb
       that a driver’s record had been improperly changed. Landstar con-
       ducted a mock Department of Transportation audit of driver rec-
       ords and discovered that driver Andrea Hurddrobneck’s logs
       showed that she had been in her sleeper berth for the past three
       weeks. Ms. Hurddrobneck simply forgot to log off when she took
       her truck in for repairs. Because she couldn’t access her truck to
       log off in the usual way, an employee logged her off from Land-
       star’s demonstration terminal. Landstar did not inform Ms.
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       4                      Opinion of the Court               20-13998

       Hurddrobneck that it remotely changed her status in the system
       until after it had done so.
              Fort submitted a one-page complaint to human resources al-
       leging that because she complained about the three incidents,
       Landstar retaliated against her by writing her up “with false accu-
       sations,” fabricating a “demeaning annual review” for her, attempt-
       ing to lie about events, and pursuing her “constructive termina-
       tion.” Sensing an irreparably “broken relationship” between Fort
       and the management in the Log Compliance Department, Land-
       star put Fort on leave, with full pay and benefits, so she could in-
       terview for positions elsewhere in the company. Eventually, Fort
       assumed the position of Carrier Qualifications Service Specialist,
       making the same pay as before.
                           PROCEDURAL HISTORY

              Fort filed a whistleblower screening form with the Occupa-
       tional Safety and Health Administration. The Department of La-
       bor construed the form as asserting that Landstar retaliated against
       Fort, in violation of the Act. After an investigation, the Depart-
       ment of Labor found “no reasonable cause to believe” that Land-
       star violated the Act. Fort appealed the Department’s decision to
       the Office of Administrative Law Judges.
              Landstar moved for summary decision. It argued that Fort
       could not show that she engaged in protected activity because the
       incidents with Mr. Pease, Mr. Martinez, and Ms. Hurddrobneck
       didn’t involve Landstar’s violation of federal law and because Fort
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       20-13998               Opinion of the Court                       5

       couldn’t establish that she reasonably believed that Landstar was
       violating a motor vehicle safety regulation. Fort also couldn’t es-
       tablish an adverse employment action, Landstar said, because she
       didn’t suffer any economic harm and because human resources—
       not a supervisor involved with the three incidents—put her on paid
       leave until she found another position in a different department in
       the company. And Landstar argued that Fort couldn’t show causa-
       tion because too much time passed between the alleged protected
       activity and adverse action for temporal proximity to support an
       inference of causation, because Landstar encouraged safety com-
       plaints and compliance with federal regulations, and because Land-
       star had legitimate nonretaliatory reasons for removing Fort from
       the Log Compliance Department: her deep resentments and “de-
       structive influence on others.”
              The administrative law judge granted summary decision for
       Landstar because Fort couldn’t show that she engaged in protected
       activity. A reasonable person with Fort’s training and experience,
       the administrative law judge explained, wouldn’t believe that any
       of the three incidents violated a motor vehicle regulation. As to
       the incident with Ms. Hurddrobneck, the administrative law judge
       said that “[a] reasonable person with more than a decade of experi-
       ence in log compliance would not have an objectively reasonable
       belief” that Landstar had to get Ms. Hurddrobneck’s “consent be-
       fore correcting an obviously incorrect log.” The regulation requir-
       ing a driver to confirm or reject a change to the driver’s record of
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       6                          Opinion of the Court                       20-13998

       duty status did not go into effect until six months after the incident
       with Ms. Hurddrobneck.
               Fort appealed the summary decision to the Administrative
       Review Board, which affirmed. The Board agreed with the admin-
       istrative law judge that Fort failed to show any protected activity.
       It explained that “none of [Fort]’s reports concerned violations of
       the [Act] or safety related matters; rather, each complained-of inci-
       dent had to do with electronic logging device problems and not
       safety matters.”
             Fort asked the Board to reconsider its affirmance, and it de-
       nied her request. Fort petitioned us to review the Board’s deci-
       sion.1

       1
         We asked the parties to address jurisdictional questions about whether the
       Board’s summary decision affirmance was a final agency decision even though
       Fort did not receive a formal evidentiary hearing, whether we can construe
       Fort’s petition as seeking review of the affirmance, and whether Fort’s request
       for reconsideration of the affirmance tolled the time for her to petition for re-
       view. After considering the parties’ responses, we agree with the respondents
       that the Board’s affirmance was a final agency decision, Fields v. U.S. Dep’t of
       Lab. Admin. Rev. Bd., 173 F.3d 811, 812 (11th Cir. 1999), United States v.
       Cheramie Bo-Truc No. 5, Inc., 538 F.2d 696, 698 (5th Cir. 1976), and we can—
       and do—construe Fort’s pro se petition as seeking review of that decision.
       And we agree with the Department that Fort’s appeal is timely because her
       request for reconsideration tolled the period for her to petition us for review.
       See Interstate Com. Comm’n v. Bhd. of Locomotive Eng’rs, 482 U.S. 270, 284
       (1987) (“[T]he timely petition for administrative reconsideration stayed the
       running of the . . . limitation period until the petition had been acted upon by
       the [Board].”). Thus, we have jurisdiction to consider Fort’s petition.
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       20-13998               Opinion of the Court                         7

                           STANDARD OF REVIEW

              We review “agency action[s], findings, and conclusions” to
       determine whether they are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of dis-
       cretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C.
       § 706(2)(A); see 49 U.S.C. § 31105(d). We review the Department’s
       legal conclusions de novo and its factual findings for substantial ev-
       idence. Stone & Webster Constr., Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Lab., 684
       F.3d 1127, 1132 (11th Cir. 2012).
                                  DISCUSSION

               Fort contends that the Board erred in affirming the sum-
       mary decision against her because the summary decision conflicted
       with the law and the evidence and because the Board credited
       Landstar’s version of events over hers and overlooked that Land-
       star admitted to engaging in unacceptable behavior. Landstar re-
       taliated against Fort, she says, because she “reported unethical, un-
       lawful events” like the incident with Ms. Hurddrobneck. Fort also
       argues that Mr. Pease’s “egregious behavior put public safety at
       risk,” Landstar’s “violations were performed with intent,” and un-
       der Dick v. Tango Transp., ARB No. 14-054, ALJ No. 2013-STA-60,
       slip op. at *7 (Dep’t of Lab. Admin. Rev. Bd. Aug. 30, 2016), she
       didn’t need to “complain about a specific safety regulation”; she
       just needed to complain “‘related to’ safety regulations.”
               The Act prohibits an employer from “discharg[ing,] . . . dis-
       ciplin[ing,] or discriminat[ing] against an employee regarding pay,
       terms, or privileges of employment” because the employee “has
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       8                       Opinion of the Court                 20-13998

       filed a complaint . . . related to a violation of a commercial motor
       vehicle safety or security regulation, standard, or order.” 49 U.S.C.
       § 31105(a)(1)(A)(i). Here, a “violation” includes “an act reasonably
       perceived to be a violation.” Koch Foods v. Sec’y, U.S. Dep’t of
       Lab., 712 F.3d 476, 482 (11th Cir. 2013). The employee has the in-
       itial burden of making a prima facie case that her protected activity
       “was a contributing factor in” the adverse employment action
       against her. 49 U.S.C. §§ 31105(b)(1), 42121(b)(2)(B)(i). To make a
       prima facie case, she must show: (1) she engaged in activity pro-
       tected under the Act; (2) she suffered an adverse employment ac-
       tion; and (3) a causal connection exists between the protected ac-
       tivity and adverse action. See Hurlbert v. St. Mary’s Health Care
       Sys., Inc., 439 F.3d 1286, 1297 (11th Cir. 2006) (Family and Medical
       Leave Act); Bechtel Constr. Co. v. Sec’y of Lab., 50 F.3d 926, 933
       (11th Cir. 1995) (Energy Reorganization Act).
              To establish protected activity, Fort had to show that she
       reasonably believed that Landstar violated a motor vehicle safety
       regulation. Dick, slip op. at *7. The belief had to be both subjec-
       tively and objectively reasonable. Id. To determine whether the
       belief was objectively reasonable, we consider the information
       available to a reasonable person in the same circumstances with the
       same training and experience as Fort. Id.
              Although, under Dick, Fort didn’t have to prove an actual
       violation of a specific safety regulation, she still had to show an ob-
       jectively reasonable belief related to violations of safety regula-
       tions. Id. But she failed to do so. The incidents with Mr. Pease,
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       20-13998                Opinion of the Court                         9

       Mr. Martinez, and Ms. Hurddrobneck don’t relate to safety viola-
       tions, and a reasonable Log Compliance Representative with Fort’s
       extensive work experience wouldn’t believe that they do. Fort her-
       self recognized that Director Cason didn’t violate any safety regu-
       lations in sending Mr. Pease for retraining instead of disqualifying
       him. Fort described the incidents as violations of company policy,
       not federal regulations. She could have made a colorable argument
       that Landstar violated 49 C.F.R. section 395.30(d) when it corrected
       Ms. Hurddrobneck’s obviously incorrect record without the
       driver’s consent—if the regulation had been in effect at the time.
       But the regulation wasn’t yet in effect, and a reasonable person in
       Fort’s position wouldn’t have believed it was. Thus, Fort failed to
       establish protected activity to make a prima facie case of retaliation.
              Fort’s other arguments lack merit. The Board properly ap-
       plied the Act and viewed the record in the light most favorable to
       her. Substantial evidence supported the factual findings. And
       Landstar never admitted to violating a federal motor vehicle safety
       regulation with respect to the three complained-of incidents.
             Because Fort didn’t establish that she engaged in activity
       protected under the Act, the summary decision for Landstar was
       proper, and we deny her petition for review.
              PETITION DENIED.