Conner v. Noxubee County

Case: 24-60503 Document: 49-1 Page: 1 Date Filed: 05/23/2025

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

____________ Fifth Circuit

FILED No. 24-60503 May 23, 2025

Summary Calendar

Lyle W. Cayce ____________ Clerk

Samantha Conner,

Plaintiff—Appellant, versus

Noxubee County Board of Supervisors,

Defendant—Appellee.

______________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi

USDC No. 1:22-CV-188 ______________________________

Before Davis, Stewart, and Southwick, Circuit Judges.

Per Curiam:*

Plaintiff-Appellant Samantha Conner, appearing pro se, brought claims under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12101, et seq., against her former employer. After a bench trial, the district court issued a Memorandum Opinion and Final Judgment dismissing Conner’s claims with prejudice.1 We AFFIRM.

Conner, who is disabled, worked as an assistant comptroller for Defendant-Appellee Noxubee County Board of Supervisors during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. She shared an office with a coworker and, every morning, disinfected her workspace with Lysol. In May 2021, Conner’s officemate complained to the Board that Conner’s Lysol spraying was negatively affecting her health. The Board summoned Conner and instructed her to stop. Conner said “okay” and departed the meeting. According to the district court, Conner then berated two coworkers and profanely cursed the Board, which led to her termination for cause.

Conner sued the Board under the ADA, asserting workplace discrimination and harassment. After a two-day bench trial where nine witnesses appeared, the district judge issued a Memorandum Opinion detailing 75 findings of fact and auxiliary legal conclusions.2 As to the ultimate issue, the court concluded Conner was terminated due to insubordination, a reason unrelated to her disability.

Conner’s appeal nibbles around the court’s findings of fact and argues that an audio recording was improperly excluded from evidence, both of which we address below. But first, we turn to Conner’s argument that the district court didn’t decide all the claims she presented, because the omission potentially implicates our jurisdiction.3

Requisite to our appellate jurisdiction in this case is a “final decision[]”4 by the district court—ordinarily, one that “ends the litigation on the merits and leaves nothing for the court to do but execute the judgment.”5 For cases with more than one claim for relief, this means the district court must resolve all live claims unless it “expressly determines that there is no just reason for delay and expressly directs the entry of judgment.”6 There are exceptions to this “all-claims” requirement. For example, we’ve held “a decision that does not specifically refer to all pending claims will be deemed final if it is clear that the district court intended, by the decision, to dispose of all claims.”7

The Final Judgment neatly falls within this exception because it is clear the district judge intended for the judgment to be final. She entitled it “Final Judgment” and ordered the case closed. Months later, the judge characterized it as “final” when denying Conner’s post-trial motion. And the Final Judgment dismissed not one, but all of Conner’s “claims” with prejudice. In that posture, “[t]he parties had no choice but to accept this as a final judgment. We accept it also.”8

Having found jurisdiction over this appeal, we turn to its substance. Conner dedicates nearly all of her appellate issues and argument to factual minutiae, which misconstrues our role on review. This court does not reexamine a district court’s factfinding for perfect alignment with all the evidence in the record. Rather, it is the district judge’s purview to interpret and reconcile conflicts in the evidence, especially so where, as here, witness credibility is concerned.9 We review the resulting findings of fact for clear error and will affirm so long as they are “plausible in light of the record as a whole.”10 This court cannot “reverse the findings of the trial judge simply because we are convinced that we would or could decide the case differently.”11

By design, clear error is not easily overcome, and Conner’s appeal doesn’t surmount it. Conner challenges many of the district court’s findings of fact, preferencing her version of events over what the district court found. But factfinding contrary to Conner’s liking is not clear error, and she offers no other clear-error argument or authorities warranting reversal.12 Having reviewed the court’s findings in light of the record as a whole, we conclude each is plausible and none clearly erroneous.

We also find that Conner forfeited the claims she contends the district court didn’t decide. While Conner includes their omission as one of 17 issues on appeal, that’s all her brief says. It contains no argument about, and no authorities in support of, the claims—nothing about their substance, their elements and corresponding proof at trial, or why the district court’s dismissal was improper.13 The record otherwise contains scant information about them.14 While we liberally construe pro se pleadings and briefs, “pro se parties must still brief the issues and reasonably comply with the standards of Rule 28.”15 Conner did not do so and, thus, forfeited the claims on appeal.

Conner also complains that the district court excluded from evidence an audio recording of the Board’s February 2021 executive session. We review evidentiary rulings under a deferential abuse-of-discretion standard, subject to the harmless-error doctrine.16 An error is harmless if it does not affect the substantial rights of the aggrieved party.17

The recording is, for the most part, inaudible. Its audible portions are largely immaterial or cumulative of trial testimony recapitulating the recording’s contents. That testimony, which the district judge allowed, undermines any proposition that the recording’s exclusion affected Conner’s substantial rights.18 To the extent additional content was not conveyed through trial testimony, Conner hasn’t shown that any would have changed the outcome at trial. Finding no reversible error, we AFFIRM.