Court Opinion

ID: 9526697
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:22:25.235611+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:21:09.235248
License: Public Domain

DAVIS, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I join in full Judge Gregory’s opinion for the panel. I note simply, and more bluntly than does the majority opinion, that the School Board’s contention that the elimination of Mr. Harris’s position was based on a belief that Mr. Harris intended to retire is transparently silly. An employee’s statement that “I want to retire” hardly equates to completing the paperwork attendant to retirement. And, Mr. Harris completed paperwork (never processed by the responsible agents of the defendant in the ordinary course) indicating he intended to return. Thus, the Board’s decision to advance in this case his (inchoate and contingent) desire to retire as a non-pre-textual reason for its adverse action significantly undermines the probity of any non-pretextual justification for the Board’s adverse action.
Furthermore, as the majority opinion persuasively explains, a reasonable fact finder could reasonably find that neither the superintendent nor the Board had even begun the budgeting process aimed at reducing personnel costs by the time the decision to eliminate Mr. Harris’s position had crystallized. Ante, at 349. Under the circumstances, therefore, as we hold, the ADEA claim in this case is not resolvable at the summary judgment stage.