Court Opinion

ID: 9949078
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-03-08 19:01:03.916115+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T14:26:35.751461
License: Public Domain

Case: 23-10553          Document: 55-1        Page: 1      Date Filed: 03/08/2024

           United States Court of Appeals
                for the Fifth Circuit
                                 ____________                             United States Court of Appeals
                                                                                   Fifth Circuit

                                   No. 23-10553
                                                                                 FILED
                                                                             March 8, 2024
                                 ____________
                                                                            Lyle W. Cayce
Stephen Cobey Monden,                                                            Clerk

                                                               Plaintiff—Appellant,

                                        versus

Consolidated Nuclear Security, L.L.C.,

                                           Defendant—Appellee.
                 ______________________________

                 Appeal from the United States District Court
                     for the Northern District of Texas
                           USDC No. 2:22-CV-4
                 ______________________________

Before Jones, Dennis, and Douglas, Circuit Judges.
Edith H. Jones, Circuit Judge: *
       Plaintiff Stephen Cobey Monden appeals the district court’s grant of
summary judgment to his employer, Consolidated Nuclear Security, LLC
(“CNS”) on his whistleblower claims. Finding no error, we AFFIRM.

       _____________________
       *
          Pursuant to 5th Circuit Rule 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion
should not be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set
forth in 5th Circuit Rule 47.5.4.
Case: 23-10553        Document: 55-1       Page: 2   Date Filed: 03/08/2024

                                  No. 23-10553

                             I. BACKGROUND
       Since 1975, the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Pantex
Plant (“Pantex”), currently operated by the defendants, has been the
primary assembly and maintenance center for the United States’s nuclear
weapons arsenal. The plaintiff began working at Pantex in July 2010, and
from April 2014 until his termination worked as a Production Section
Manager (“PSM”) supervising Production Technicians (“PTs”).              As
hands-on weapons workers, PTs perform almost all their job duties in highly
secured areas with access controlled by the “Argus” security system. Argus
requires employees to scan their individual badge and use biometric
identifiers to enter and exit secured areas.
       PTs are non-exempt hourly employees and are required to manually
enter their time on CNS’s timekeeping software. Their hours are then
reviewed and approved by PSMs. CNS trains all PTs and PSMs annually on
timekeeping policies and procedures.
       CNS first observed unusually high PT overtime at Pantex in late 2018
and proceeded to conduct a preliminary data-sampling investigation
comparing Argus badge-in and badge-out activity with PT payroll data. The
initial data sampling revealed meaningful discrepancies between the two data
sets. CNS responded by reporting possible Pantex PT overcharges to the
Department of Energy’s Office of Inspector General (“IG”) in February
2019. The IG responded by thanking CNS for the work it had done on its
preliminary investigation and asked CNS to continue “gathering and
reviewing more information” without interviewing any employees.
       Monden was one of the approximately 120 employes whom the IG,
and then CNS, interviewed in 2019. During his interviews with Autum
Flores, an outside legal counsel retained by CNS to conduct the HR
investigation, and Heather Freeman, Pantex’s Human Resources Manager,

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                                No. 23-10553

Monden confessed to multiple violations of CNS’s timekeeping policies.
Monden admitted to allowing PTs to leave early and instructing them to
record more time than they worked. Monden also admitted to making
“deals” with PTs to approve timesheets with more hours than they had
worked in exchange for the PTs’ completing certain tasks. Interviews with
other CNS employees during the HR investigation confirmed Monden’s
misconduct. Multiple PTs identified Monden as a supervisor who let them
record more time than they worked, allowed them to leave early, and
negotiated deals with PTs. During his interviews with Freeman and Flores,
Monden acknowledged that he knew that he was responsible for correctly and
accurately approving time. In later depositions, Monden also confirmed that
Flores and Freeman never asked him about his conversations with the IG.
       Following the HR investigation interviews and data analysis, Freeman
produced a Disciplinary/Termination Case Summary recommending
Monden’s termination. CNS’s Chief Human Resources Officer Diane
Grooms, who did not participate in Monden’s interviews, then decided on
the appropriate discipline for Monden.         Although Grooms was aware
Monden had been interviewed by the IG, she did not consider any
information he had told the IG. Nor could she have done so because she
1) only considered the Disciplinary/Termination Case Summary prepared by
Freeman in making her decision, and 2) was not aware of, and could not have
been aware of, what Monden told the IG because Flores or Freeman never
asked Monden about the content of those interviews. Grooms also did not
know Monden had made accusations against other supervisors at CNS.
Ultimately, Monden was one of forty-two employees (thirty-nine PTs and
three PSMs) fired by CNS for timekeeping fraud following the HR
investigation.
       In January 2022, Monden filed the instant lawsuit, alleging that his
testimony to the IG was a contributing factor to CNS’s decision to terminate

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                                  No. 23-10553

his employment, and CNS thus violated the National Defense Authorization
Act of 2013 (“NDAA”), 41 U.S.C. § 4712. Following briefing, the district
court granted CNS’s motion for summary judgment.
                                II. Discussion
       This Court reviews an award of summary judgment de novo, applying
“the same standard as the district court.” Satterfield & Pontikes Constr., Inc.
v. United States Fire Ins. Co., 898 F.3d 574, 578 (5th Cir. 2018) (citing Cooper
Indus., Ltd. v. Nat’l Union Fire Ins. Co., 876 F.3d 119, 127–28 (5th Cir. 2017)).
Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 56(a), we uphold the district court’s
grant of summary judgment if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material
fact.” Such a dispute exists only if “the evidence is such that a reasonable
jury could return a verdict for the non-moving party.” Renfroe v. Parker,
974 F.3d 594, 599 (5th Cir. 2020) (citation and quotation marks omitted).
“[C]onclusory allegations, speculation, and unsubstantiated assertions are
inadequate to satisfy the nonmovant’s burden in a motion for summary
judgment.” Ramsey v. Henderson, 286 F.3d 264, 269 (5th Cir. 2002) (internal
quotation omitted).
       Section 4712 of the NDAA “prohibits any recipient of federal dollars
from retaliating against whistleblowers who report an abuse of that money.”
Tex. Educ. Agency v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 992 F.3d 350, 353 (5th Cir. 2021).
Under the statute:
       An employee of a contractor, subcontractor, grantee,
       subgrantee, or personal services contractor may not be
       discharged, demoted, or otherwise discriminated against as a
       reprisal for disclosing to a person or body. . . information that
       the employee reasonably believes is evidence of gross
       mismanagement of a Federal contract or grant, a gross waste of
       Federal funds, an abuse of authority relating to a Federal
       contract or grant, a substantial and specific danger to public
       health or safety, or a violation of law, rule, or regulation related

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                                  No. 23-10553

       to a Federal contract (including the competition for or
       negotiation of a contract) or grant.
41 U.S.C. § 4712(a)(1). The statute further incorporates 5 U.S.C. § 1221(e),
which requires a plaintiff to prove: (1) while he or she was employed by a
government contractor, he or she disclosed information that he or she
reasonably believed was evidence of “gross mismanagement” of a federal
contract or grant to someone with responsibility to investigate, discover, or
address misconduct; and (2) the protected disclosure was a “contributing
factor” to the adverse employment action.           See 5 U.S.C. § 4712(a)(6);
Wondercheck v. Maxim Healthcare Servs., Inc., 495 F. Supp. 3d 472, 481 (W.D.
Tex. 2020).
       “Upon the plaintiff employee [sic] presenting a prima facie case, the
contractor can then demonstrate, by clear and convincing evidence, that it
would have taken the same personnel action despite the protected activity.”
Id. (citing 5 U.S.C. § 1221(e)). In determining whether the contractor has
met its burden, the Federal Circuit’s “Carr factors” have been widely cited.
Carr v. Social Security Administration, 185 F.3d 1318, 1323 (Fed. Cir. 1999).
See Duggan v. Dep’t of Def., 883 F.3d 842, 846 (9th Cir. 2018); DuPage Reg’l
Off. of Educ. v. U.S. Dep’t of Educ., 58 F.4th 326, 352 (7th Cir. 2023). The
Carr factors balance
       the strength of the [employer’s] evidence in support of its
       personnel action; the existence and strength of any motive to
       retaliate on the part of the [personnel] who were involved in
       the decision; and any evidence that the [employer] takes
       similar actions against employees who are not whistleblowers
       but who are otherwise similarly situated.
DuPage, 58 F.4th at 352 (citing Carr, 185 F.3d at 1323).
       Even if we were to assume Monden had produced a prima facie case of
retaliation, we conclude that the district court did not err in its application of

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the Carr factors. First, the evidence of Monden’s misconduct outlined above
is simply overwhelming. During his interview by Freeman and Flores,
Monden did not deny making deals with PTs, approving records he knew to
be false, instructing employees to record more time than they actually
worked, or repeatedly allowing employees to leave early and report a full
shift. He attempts to minimize this wrongdoing by claiming that he allowed
employees to work through breaks and lunch. But employees working
through breaks and lunch would only yield a discrepancy of about one hour.
In contrast, the documented timesheet discrepancies of PTs Monden
supervised in August and September 2018 averaged 2.78 hours and went as
high as 5.14 hours.
        Second, there is no evidence that Grooms, the sole decisionmaker in
Monden’s termination, had any retaliatory motive. 1
        Finally, it is noteworthy that CNS evenhandedly terminated other
employees who engaged in timekeeping fraud, both before and after the HR
investigation exposed Monden. In two years before Monden was fired, CNS
had investigated and terminated eight employees for timekeeping fraud.
Grooms was the sole decisionmaker in all eight cases, and the IG was not
involved in any of them. And the terminations precipitated by the large-scale
HR investigation targeted forty-two of the most egregious offenders—
including Monden—out of over a hundred who spoke with the IG.

        _____________________
        1
          The Supreme Court has recently held that an employee is not required to show
“retaliatory intent” on the part of the employer to show that his or her “protected activity
was a contributing factor in the adverse employment action” under the anti-retaliation
provisions of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (18 U.S.C. § 1514A(a)). Murray v. UBS Sec., LLC,
144 S. Ct. 445, 455 (2024). As the Court put it, “[s]howing that an employer acted with
retaliatory animus is one way of proving that the protected activity was a contributing factor
in the adverse employment action, but it is not the only way.” Id.

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       Consequently, each of the Carr factors weighs decisively in favor of
CNS.
       For the reasons stated above, we AFFIRM.

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