Gomez v. Haystax Tech., Inc.
Gomez v. Haystax Tech., Inc.
Opinion of the Court
Plaintiff, Ramona Rae Gomez, a 57-year old disabled female, filed this employment discrimination suit after defendants Haystax Technology, Inc. and NetCentrics, Inc. terminated her in February 2016. Plaintiff contends that defendants terminated her because of her sex, age, disability, and in retaliation for having taken protected medical leave. Plaintiff allegations include: (i) Disability discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act ("ADA"),
Following full discovery, defendant filed a motion for summary judgment. As the *680matter has now been fully briefed and argued, it is ripe for disposition.
I.
The entry of summary judgment is appropriate only where there are no genuine disputes of material fact. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett ,
Both parties largely complied with Local Rule 56(B) and the Scheduling Order. Although defendants originally failed to provide a pleading enumerating in separately numbered-paragraph form all of the material undisputed facts, that error was promptly corrected. In response, plaintiff disputed a number of defendants' proposed undisputed facts, but did not address or dispute the remaining facts.
As a result, the statement of undisputed material facts listed here is based on defendants' statement of undisputed facts, the majority of which the plaintiff does not specifically dispute. As for plaintiff's briefs that pre-date the defendants' filing of their statement of undisputed material fact, those briefs have been scoured for facts that arguably could be viewed as conflicting with the facts recited here; where such facts were found, they were either immaterial or not supported, as required, by admissible record evidence.
A.
Plaintiff, Ramona Rae Gomez, is a 57-year old disabled woman who was employed by defendants from May 14, 2013 through March 1, 2016 as a program manager. Haystax Technology, Inc., one of the defendants, is a corporation headquartered in McLean, Virginia. Its subsidiary, NetCentrics Corporation, employed plaintiff to assist with its government contract work, mostly related to IT projects.
In May 2013, plaintiff was hired to work as a program manager for a contract with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau ("CFPB"). During the CFPB contract, plaintiff went on medical leave for hip surgery from September 13 through November 24, 2014. Although plaintiff generally performed her work satisfactorily, NetCentrics president, Cynthia Barreda, hoped that plaintiff would be able to grow the CFPB work.
When the CFPB contract came up for a rebid, and while plaintiff was out on medical leave, NetCentrics failed to win the rebid on the contract. On October 21, 2014, while plaintiff was still on medical leave, she was reassigned to a new contract, known as the Network Stabilization Contract. Specifically, plaintiff was assigned to work as a senior program manager on Task D. When plaintiff returned from medical leave on November 24, 2014, she began working as a senior program manager, *681and continued to work on Task D until September 2015.
On April 21, 2015, during her assignment to Task D, plaintiff informed NetCentrics that she was scheduled to have hip surgery on December 11, 2015, and would be out of work for approximately six weeks. NetCentrics approved plaintiff's request for leave at that time.
In June 29, 2015, while plaintiff was still working as a senior program manager on Task D, NetCentrics listed plaintiff as "key personnel" on a bid for a Coast Guard contract known as the TESS contract. During that June, plaintiff assisted with the proposal for TESS.
In July 2015, NetCentrics was required to engage in a re-compete process for Task D of the Network Stabilization Contract, the contract to which plaintiff was assigned. Because NetCentrics could not re-compete as a prime contractor, it partnered with a company called Trowbridge & Trowbridge to work as a subcontractor on Task D, now renamed TED. Although Trowbridge won the contract and NetCentrics was slated to work as a subcontractor on TED, NetCentrics was given only 25 of the 45 positions it previously held on Task D. As a result, a number of NetCentrics employees would have to be removed from TED or terminated.
In September 2015, NetCentrics held a meeting with plaintiff and other employees working on Task D and gave them termination letters stating that as a result of the loss of the Task D contract, their last day would be September 30, 2015 and that they should look for alternative positions. NetCentrics ultimately terminated a number of Task D employees, including four men, Claude Blair, Kevin Fu, Chandra Muppala, and David Whitney, and one woman, Erin Lewis.
On the same day NetCentrics held a termination meeting with Task D employees, plaintiff spoke to a supervisor about why she had received the termination letter. Plaintiff was told that she would not be terminated, but would instead continue working as "overhead" at NetCentrics headquarters until the Coast Guard contract, TESS, was won. Based on plaintiff's conversation with her supervisor, her termination letter was rescinded.
On October 1, 2015, NetCentrics won TESS and plaintiff began working on TESS. Shortly after work on TESS began, however, a Stop Work notice was issued due to a protest of the award of the TESS contract to NetCentrics. Plaintiff could not perform any more billable work on TESS, but she continued to do some work related to TESS, including creating job descriptions for various roles associated with the project. Plaintiff continued to prepare for TESS until her scheduled surgery on December 11, 2015.
Plaintiff did not return to work until January 25, 2016. When plaintiff returned, she was using crutches and could not perform manual labor. On the day plaintiff returned, Melissa Bristol emailed plaintiff, welcoming her back and requesting that she send a plan for her work for the week on TESS. Plaintiff continued to work on overhead in anticipation of the protest of TESS being lifted.
On February 16, 2016, NetCentrics was informed that it had lost TESS as a result of the protest process. Plaintiff learned about it the same day, and on February 19, 2016, Barreda met with plaintiff and instructed her to contact Caron Hummer, an internal recruiter, to determine if alternative positions were available. Barreda also told plaintiff that if she could not find another position within the company, she would be terminated at the end of the month.
On February 19, 2016, plaintiff met with Hummer to look for other jobs within the company and Hummer indicated that there *682were no jobs available at her level. After that meeting, plaintiff left NetCentrics and did not return to work until her out-processing on February 26, 2016. On February 29, 2016, plaintiff was given her termination memo and was offered four weeks' severance. On March 1, 2016, NetCentrics president Barreda terminated plaintiff.
B.
Plaintiff points to the treatment of a number of other employees at NetCentrics as evidence that plaintiff was terminated for discriminatory reasons, and as such a brief statement of the facts concerning those employees is necessary.
1. Courtney Davis ("Davis") was hired as a Software Development Project Manager/Deputy Program Manager on Task D in January 2013 at a salary of $118,000. Davis worked with plaintiff on Task D. On September 29, 2015, Davis was informed that Task D was ending on September 30, 2015 and that her last day would be September 30, 2015 unless she found another position. During September and October 2015, as Task D was being terminated, Davis began working on a proposal for a contract with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC"). Davis was allowed to stay on overhead while NetCentrics awaited the resulted of the SEC bid. NetCentrics ultimately lost the SEC bid, but at the client's request Davis was reassigned to work as a Deputy Program Manager on Task B of the Network Stabilization contract.
2. Jill Czelusniak ("Czelusniak") worked as a program manager on Task B of the Network Stabilization contract. On September 16, 2015, the client asked that Czelusniak be removed from that position, and NetCentrics terminated her.
3. Darryl Yaplee ("Yaplee") was hired on May 11, 2015 as a program manager on Task D at a salary of $150,000. When NetCentrics lost Task D on September 29, 2015, Yaplee was transferred to work on overhead at NetCentrics headquarters. Yaplee helped NetCentrics to finish up some of the work on closing the Task D contract and transitioning Task D to the new company taking it over. Yaplee was allowed to stay in a temporary position on overhead until April 1, 2016. Though Yaplee was originally scheduled to be terminated in March 2016, he was allowed to stay to continue his work assisting with the Task D transition.
4. Carver Pace ("Pace") applied for and was offered a position as a Cyber Security program manager on February 8, 2016. Pace was offered this position in part due to his extensive cyber security experience
5. Matt Parsons ("Parsons"), another employee, was hired in January 2016 to work as a program manager on the Coast Guard contract, TESS. Parsons only accepted the job at NetCentrics because he was promised that if TESS was lost NetCentrics would find him another position at the company. Following the termination of TESS, Parsons was reassigned to a Senior Account Executive position at NetCentrics headquarters, a position that NetCentrics felts plaintiff was not qualified for.
6. Susan Kuiler ("Kuiler") was hired to work as a program manager at NetCentrics in July 2014. Kuiler, just like plaintiff, had hip surgery during her time at NetCentrics. In 2015, the contract Kuiler was working on was terminated. As a result, NetCentrics *683reassigned Kuiler to work on TED. At the request of the client, Kuiler was removed from TED and was ultimately terminated by NetCentrics.
7. Jill Czelusniak ("Czelusniak") took short-term disability leave in 2015 while working at NetCentrics as a Program Manager. In September 2015, she was terminated by NetCentrics at the request of the government client.
II.
Summary judgment is appropriate "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Rule 56(a), Fed. R. Civ. P. A "fact is material if it might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law." Vannoy v. Fed. Reserve Bank of Richmond ,
Plaintiff asserts claims for unlawful discrimination under Title VII, the ADEA, and the ADA based on her February 26 termination.
A.
Plaintiff contends that her termination in February 2016 violated the ADA. The ADA provides that "[n]o covered entity shall discriminate against a qualified individual on the basis of disability in regard to ... discharge... [or] other terms, conditions, and privileges of employment."
Although defendant, for summary judgment purposes, does not dispute that plaintiff has a disability and that she is a qualified individual under the ADA, the parties do dispute the third requirement of plaintiff's prima facie case, namely whether the undisputed record evidence shows a triable issue of fact with respect to whether defendants discharged plaintiff because of her disability.
The record reflects that plaintiff was terminated because the contract on which she was working ended. To overcome this, and to establish a prima facie case in this respect, plaintiff points to the reassignment to new contracts of two non-disabled individuals who worked with her on Task D. This argument fails, as the undisputed record reflects first that five non-disabled employees who worked with plaintiff on Task D were also terminated once the contract had been lost, suggesting that the defendants' proffered reason for terminating plaintiff -that the contract she was working on was terminated-was not pretextual. Moreover, this argument fails because the record establishes that plaintiff's disability, the inability to walk for long periods and to engage and vigorous physical activity, was never discussed as a reason for her termination or by anyone employed by defendants. In sum, plaintiff has no evidence of discriminatory intent beyond temporal proximity; she was terminated two months following the surgery that led to her disability.
With respect to proof via temporal proximity, the Supreme Court has stated that the "cases that accept mere temporal proximity between an employer's knowledge of protected activity and an adverse employment action as sufficient evidence of causality to establish a prima facie case uniformly hold that the temporal proximity must be very close." Clark Cty. Sch. Dist. v. Breeden ,
Based on these precedents, it is unclear whether a two month gap would be enough for plaintiff to establish that her termination was caused by her employer's awareness of her disability. Assuming without deciding that two months is enough, plaintiff's claim still fails because the defendant had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for terminating plaintiff, and plaintiff cannot show that those reasons were pretextual. Defendant's burden at the second step is one of production, not persuasion. Warch v. Ohio Casualty Insurance Co. ,
The burden then shifts back to plaintiff to show pretext, which plaintiff can do "either by showing that [the defendants'] explanation is unworthy of credence or by offering other forms of circumstantial evidence sufficiently probative of [ ] discrimination." Mereish v. Walker ,
Defendant has put forward "reason[s] for [terminating] plaintiff not forbidden by law," and as a result it is inappropriate to "decide whether the reason[s] [were] wise, fair, or even correct, ultimately, so long as [they] truly [were] the reason[s] for plaintiff's [demotion and termination]."
B.
The ADEA prohibits an employer from "discharg[ing] any individual or otherwise discriminat[ing] against any individual with respect to his compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual's age."
*687Plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie case with respect to her February 2016 termination because she cannot show that her duties were reassigned to substantially younger employees. Plaintiff does not dispute that defendants eliminated her previous program manager position because the contract to which plaintiff had been assigned ended. Plaintiff could not have been replaced because her previous program manager position had been eliminated, and her duties could not have been reassigned either. Thus, the fact that substantially younger individuals were hired for different positions does not show that plaintiff was "replaced by [ ] substantially younger worker[s]." Mitchell ,
Plaintiff's alternative theory is that she was entitled to be reassigned to the new positions that the younger individuals were ultimately hired for. Plaintiff bases this argument on an assessment of her own qualifications in her deposition testimony, but as the Fourth Circuit "has repeatedly explained [ ] it is the perception of the decision maker which is relevant, not the self-assessment of the plaintiff." DeJarnette v. Corning, Inc. ,
Matt Parsons, the other individual plaintiff alleges replaced her, was hired in an overhead Senior Account Executive role. It is true that Parsons was originally hired as a program manager on TESS and was ultimately reassigned to the Senior Account Executive role, but Parsons' reassignment was the result of a prior contractual arrangement between Parsons and defendants. Because Parsons already had a secure job at another company, he needed an assurance that he would have a job at defendants even if the TESS contract was lost. Defendants agreed that they would find him another position if the TESS contract was lost in part because of their perception that he was well-qualified for potential overhead positions. Plaintiff presents no evidence that the decision to reassign Parsons to an overhead position, rather than move plaintiff to that position, was based on age-based discriminatory animus.
It is also worth noting that plaintiff never applied for the positions in question, and instead asserts that it was the practice *688of defendants to offer new positions for reassignment. As the undisputed record reflects, there is no evidence to show that the defendants' practice was to always offer reassignment. Defendants did meet with plaintiff about other program manager positions and informed her that none were available, and did not offer different positions to the plaintiff. Defendants had no duty to offer plaintiff any new positions,
Even if plaintiff could establish a prima facie case of age discrimination, her ADEA claim would still fail because defendants had a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for plaintiff's February 2016 termination and plaintiff has not pointed to any evidence in the summary judgment record to show that this legitimate nondiscriminatory reason was pretextual. As noted, even if plaintiff's claim were to proceed on a theory that she should have been reassigned to the positions the younger individuals were ultimately hired for, it is undisputed that the defendants viewed the younger employees as more qualified for their positions and the plaintiff's assertion that she was in fact most qualified is insufficient to rebut the defendants' preference. See Evans ,
In sum, plaintiff has failed to meet her burden of showing the defendants' judgment about the relative qualifications of the plaintiff and the two younger new hires were not the true reasons for the decision to hire those individuals instead of plaintiff, and accordingly she cannot show that age was the "determining factor" behind the decision to fire her. Duke v. Uniroyal Inc. ,
C.
Plaintiff contends that her termination in February 2016 violated Title VII's prohibition on sex discrimination. Here, too, the undisputed record warrants the grant of summary judgment to defendant on this claim.
To establish a prima facie case of sex discrimination under Title VII, a plaintiff must show: "(1) membership in a protected class; (2) satisfactory job performance; (3) adverse employment action; and (4) that similarly-situated employees outside of the protected class received more favorable treatment." Young v. United Parcel Service, Inc. ,
Plaintiff's theory of sex discrimination mirrors her theory of age discrimination. She argues that Pace and Parsons were hired to replace her position, or in the alternative that Pace and Parsons were given reassignment opportunities instead of plaintiff, on account of sex as well as age. Putting aside the effect that such a *689hybrid theory might have on plaintiff's ability to demonstrate causation for her claims,
D.
Plaintiff's final claim is for retaliation under the FMLA. She contends that her February 2016 termination was in retaliation for plaintiff's taking medical leave following her December 2015 hip surgery. To establish a prima facie case of retaliation in violation of the FMLA, a plaintiff must establish: "(1) the employee engaged in a protected activity, such as taking FMLA leave; (2) the employer then took an adverse employment action against her; and (3) the adverse action was causally connected to the plaintiff's protected activity." Weth v. O'Leary ,
The first question is whether a causal connection exists between plaintiff's firing and her taking medical leave in December 2015. Defendants were aware of plaintiff's December surgery in April 2015 and approved her requested medical leave. Plaintiff was allowed to take leave and returned to work for two months after her surgery was completed and she was cleared to return to work. Plaintiff again argues that the two month gap between her leave and termination is sufficient to support the inference that defendants acted in retaliation for plaintiff's taking protected leave.
III.
In summary, the undisputed factual record reflects that plaintiff cannot establish a prima facie case of disability discrimination, age discrimination, sex discrimination, or FMLA retaliation, and plaintiff cannot rebut defendants' legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for the plaintiff's February 2016 termination. Furthermore, there is no basis in the record for concluding that defendants' reasons for terminating plaintiff were pretextual. As such, a separate order will be entered granting summary judgment in favor of defendants on all counts.
The crux of plaintiff's claim is that she was wrongfully terminated in February 2016. Plaintiff's Amended Complaint does include a number of other allegations, including that her veteran status was used to secure contracts, that she was transferred from contract to contract by defendants, and that she allegedly did not receive work assignments after returning from leave. For some of these allegations, it is unclear that they constitute "adverse employment actions because they do not "affect hiring, granting leave, discharging, promoting, or compensating." Brockman v. Snow ,
Defendants also argue that plaintiff cannot prove age discrimination because the new employees were not substantially younger, despite being about 11 years younger than plaintiff. As plaintiff correctly points out, there is no bright line for what age qualifies as "substantially younger." See O'Connor v. Consol. Coin Caterers Corp. ,
It is worth noting that contrary to plaintiff's contention, these two individuals were hired before plaintiff's termination, and thus could not have been hired afterwards to replace plaintiff.
See Simpson ,
Defendants argue that because plaintiff asserts multiple bases of discrimination, including age, sex, and disability, she cannot establish causation for any of her claims. Because plaintiff is unable to show pretext with respect to any of her claims, however, there is no need to address this issue. It is sufficient to point out that the Supreme Court has allowed claims alleging multiple forms of discrimination, see, e.g., Phillips v. Martin Marietta Corp ,
Plaintiff points to the termination of two other employees, Susan Kuiler and Jill Czelusniak, as well to show retaliation. The circumstances surrounding their terminations and their testimony does not support plaintiff's claim. First, Kuiler never took protected leave and so her ultimate termination does not support an inference of retaliatory intent or that the defendants had a practice of terminating employees who took leave. Second, while Czelusniak did take leave in 2014 and 2015, her termination came in September 2015 at the request of the government client, not in retaliation for her having taken protected leave. Finally, both individuals and the defendants agree that Kuiler and Czelusniak were terminated for legitimate, non-discriminatory reasons. Thus, plaintiffs reliance on these other employees to establish a pattern or practice of discrimination is misplaced.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- Ramona Rae GOMEZ v. HAYSTAX TECHNOLOGY, INC.
- Cited By
- 5 cases
- Status
- Published