Stephanie Davis v. Infinity Insurance Co ( 2022 )


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  • USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022     Page: 1 of 13
    [DO NOT PUBLISH]
    In the
    United States Court of Appeals
    For the Eleventh Circuit
    ____________________
    No. 21-11446
    Non-Argument Calendar
    ____________________
    STEPHANIE DAVIS,
    Plaintiff-Appellant,
    versus
    INFINITY INSURANCE CO,
    INFINITY PROPERTY AND CASUALTY CORP,
    ROBIN ADAMS,
    in his capacity as Plan Administrator and Trustee of
    Infinitys Profit Sharing Bonus Plan,
    Defendants-Appellees.
    ____________________
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022     Page: 2 of 13
    2                      Opinion of the Court                 21-11446
    Appeal from the United States District Court
    for the Northern District of Alabama
    D.C. Docket No. 2:15-cv-01111-JHE
    ____________________
    Before WILSON, BRASHER, and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
    PER CURIAM:
    Stephanie Davis appeals from the district court’s orders
    granting her former employer, Infinity Insurance Company and In-
    surance Property and Casualty Corporation’s (collectively, Infin-
    ity) motions to dismiss and for summary judgment in her civil ac-
    tion alleging disparate treatment based on national origin discrim-
    ination, disparate impact based on national origin discrimination,
    and disparate treatment based on race discrimination, in violation
    of 
    42 U.S.C. § 1981
    , Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title
    VII), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. Davis argues that she stated a plau-
    sible claim of disparate treatment based on national origin. Davis
    further argues that she established a genuine issue of material fact
    as to whether Infinity discriminated based on national origin
    against non-Hispanic employees, thus creating a disparate impact
    on its non-Hispanic employees. Finally, Davis argues that she es-
    tablished a genuine issue of material fact as to whether Infinity dis-
    criminated based on race, thus creating disparate treatment of
    Black employees. We affirm.
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 3 of 13
    21-11446                Opinion of the Court                         3
    I.
    The undisputed facts in this case are as follows. Infinity is a
    property and casualty insurance company with locations across the
    country. Infinity’s customer service department consists of two
    units: the Call Center and Policy Services. The Call Center handles
    phone calls from customers and employs Customer Service Con-
    sultants (CSCs). The Policy Services handles reviewing and pro-
    cessing policy information and employs Policy Service Specialists
    (PSSs). Infinity hired Davis in 2002 as a Cash Clerk, but she was
    promoted to PSS in 2006.
    Beginning in 2014, Infinity underwent a restructuring to
    consolidate its operations to locations with large Hispanic popula-
    tions. This aligned with Infinity’s new corporate strategy of being
    “a low cost provider of choice for urban and Latino markets.” As
    part of this restructuring, Infinity transitioned positions from the
    company’s Birmingham location to other offices, such as Tucson,
    Miami, and McAllen, Texas. Infinity decided to hire more bilingual
    (Spanish and English speaking) employees in those locations while
    terminating employees in its Birmingham location. Infinity sought
    to achieve 100% bilingual CSC capability at its new locations. In
    addition, Infinity decided to staff a team of PSSs at those locations,
    which would be more efficient then having to rely on the PSSs in
    Birmingham. Infinity did not require that its PSSs be bilingual, but
    there is evidence in the record that it preferred bilingual PSSs. A
    majority of the new PSSs hired in McAllen and Tucson were bilin-
    gual.
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022     Page: 4 of 13
    4                      Opinion of the Court                21-11446
    In June 2014, Infinity began a two-phase reduction in force
    (RIF) for its Birmingham employees. Phase I of the RIF was com-
    pleted on June 27, 2014, resulting in the elimination of four PSSs.
    Infinity primarily focused on employees with disciplinary history
    in Phase I. Phase II of the RIF was completed on October 31, 2014
    and involved a more complicated metric in terminating PSSs. Em-
    ployees were ranked based on three components: Year to Date
    (YTD) Raw Score, Years of Service (YOS) Score, and Impact Factor.
    YTD Raw Score took into account an employee’s performance
    from January 2014 through July 2014, measuring productivity and
    quality of work for that period. YOS Score consisted of a PSS’s total
    years of service divided by 10. Impact Factor measured input from
    the four PSS supervisors, who assigned each PSS a score between
    0 and 4. The Impact Factor apparently went to an employee’s abil-
    ity to adapt to changes in the work environment.
    On September 17, 2014, Infinity informed Davis via a writ-
    ten memo that she had been selected to be laid off on October 31,
    2014. In relevant part, the memo stated:
    As previously announced[,] we will be transitioning
    some positions from the call center and policy ser-
    vices in Birmingham to McAllen, Tucson and/or Mi-
    ami to increase the number of employees with bilin-
    gual Spanish/English skills to better service our cus-
    tomers as the company continues to grow.
    The decisions to lay-off employees were extremely
    difficult due to the high quality of work and
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022    Page: 5 of 13
    21-11446               Opinion of the Court                       5
    dedication of the employees in Infinity’s workforce.
    We regret to inform you that you have been selected
    as one of the people who will be laid off on October
    31, 2014. Criteria for lay-off was based on a combina-
    tion of factors, including performance, seniority, dis-
    ciplines and relevant skill sets. We sincerely thank
    you for your service to Infinity and hope to make this
    transition as easy as possible.
    The memo went on to explain Davis’s severance package and en-
    couraged Davis to apply for other positions within the company.
    In total, 15 PSSs were terminated during Phase II of the RIF. Da-
    vis’s cumulative score was near the bottom of the PSSs in the Bir-
    mingham location, ranking 29th out of 37. Of the PSSs that were
    retained in the Birmingham office, none of them spoke Spanish.
    Based on the preceding, Davis alleged that when Infinity ter-
    minated her, it engaged in disparate impact discrimination based
    on national origin (Count I), disparate treatment discrimination
    based on national origin (Count II), and disparate treatment dis-
    crimination based on race in violation of Title VII and 
    42 U.S.C. § 1983
     (Count III). The district court granted Infinity’s motion to
    dismiss Count II because Infinity retained non-Hispanic employ-
    ees. Thus, Davis’s complaint was insufficient to show that Infinity
    intentionally treated non-Hispanics differently than Hispanics.
    After discovery, Infinity moved for summary judgment on
    Count I and Count III. The district court found that Davis col-
    lapsed the overarching goal of reorganization to increase bilingual
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022     Page: 6 of 13
    6                      Opinion of the Court                21-11446
    staff into a requirement that PSSs be bilingual. Since the record
    refuted the point that Infinity had a policy requiring PSSs to be bi-
    lingual, the district court granted summary judgment in favor of
    Infinity on Count I. As to Count III, the district court granted sum-
    mary judgment in favor of Infinity because Davis failed to show
    that Infinity’s reasons for terminating her were pretextual. Davis
    timely appealed.
    II.
    Our analysis proceeds in three parts. First, we will address
    Davis’s disparate impact based on national origin claim. Second,
    we turn to Davis’s disparate treatment based on race claim. Lastly,
    we address Davis’s claim of disparate treatment based on national
    origin.
    Davis argues that the district court erred by granting sum-
    mary judgment on her disparate impact claim based on national
    origin because it incorrectly found that Spanish was not used as a
    factor in terminating and replacing Davis. Davis claims that the
    termination memo specifically stated that she was being termi-
    nated “to increase the number of employees with bilingual Span-
    ish/English skills.” Further, she argues that there is evidence show-
    ing that Infinity preferred Spanish speaking PSSs. Since the ability
    to speak Spanish favors Hispanic over non-Hispanic employees, the
    argument goes, Infinity’s reorganization had a disparate impact
    based on national origin.
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 7 of 13
    21-11446                Opinion of the Court                         7
    “We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary
    judgment, viewing all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable in-
    ferences, in favor of the non-moving party.” Vessels v. Atlanta In-
    dep. Sch. Sys., 
    408 F.3d 763
    , 767 (11th Cir. 2005) (per curiam). Sum-
    mary judgment is appropriate when the record shows that there is
    no genuine issue as to any material fact and the movant is entitled
    to a judgment as a matter of law. 
    Id.
    To establish a prima facie case of disparate impact discrimi-
    nation, the complaining party must (1) identify a specific and fa-
    cially-neutral employment practice that caused a disparate impact
    based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin and (2) demon-
    strate causation by offering statistical evidence sufficient to show
    that the challenged practice has resulted in prohibited discrimina-
    tion. E.E.O.C. v. Joe’s Stone Crab, Inc., 
    220 F.3d 1263
    , 1274–75
    (11th Cir. 2000). Once the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case,
    the burden shifts to the defendant to establish that the challenged
    employment practice serves a legitimate, nondiscriminatory busi-
    ness objective. 
    Id. at 1275
    . If the defendant meets their burden,
    the plaintiff may still prevail by proving that an alternative, nondis-
    criminatory practice would have served the defendant’s stated ob-
    jective equally well. 
    Id.
    The parties dispute what the facially-neutral employment
    practice that caused a disparate impact is here. Starting with the
    operative complaint, Davis alleges:
    In June 2014, Infinity announced that it was imple-
    menting a termination and hiring plan based on a new
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022    Page: 8 of 13
    8                      Opinion of the Court               21-11446
    policy that conditioned hiring and continued employ-
    ment on being fluent in Spanish. Based on such pol-
    icy, Infinity began to terminate employees not fluent
    in Spanish and replace them with new hires who were
    fluent in Spanish.
    This allegation that employment was conditioned on the
    ability to speak Spanish is consistent with the language Davis uses
    in her opposition to Infinity’s motion to dismiss her third amended
    complaint. There, she argues that “[t]he plaintiff has consistently
    alleged that . . . the defendants terminated the plaintiff and other
    employees pursuant to a policy which required new Policy Service
    Specialists to be bilingual” (emphasis added). This contrasts with
    her opposition to Infinity’s motion for summary judgment, where
    she identified the “specific employment practice” as Infinity’s “bi-
    lingual transition plan” that preferred new employees who spoke
    Spanish. A policy conditioning employment on bilingualism is a
    different employment practice from a “transition plan” that prefers
    bilingual employees. Because “[a] plaintiff may not amend her
    complaint through argument in a brief opposing summary judg-
    ment,” Gilmour v. Gates, McDonald & Co., 
    382 F.3d 1312
    , 1315
    (11th Cir. 2004) (per curiam), we reject Davis’s attempt to rechar-
    acterize her alleged employment practice. Thus, we analyze Da-
    vis’s disparate impact based on national origin claim through the
    lens that she alleges Infinity conditioned her employment based on
    her ability, or lack thereof, to speak Spanish.
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 9 of 13
    21-11446                Opinion of the Court                         9
    Davis cannot establish a prima face case under this theory
    because her employment was not conditioned on being bilingual.
    This is clearly supported by the fact that none of the PSSs in Bir-
    mingham who were retained after the second phase of the RIF
    spoke Spanish. Further, the written memorandum she received
    does not support her claim. While the memorandum stated that
    the reason for the transitioning of employees to other offices was
    to increase the number of bilingual employees, she herself was not
    terminated because she could not speak Spanish. The memoran-
    dum explained that the criteria for her termination was “based on
    a combination of factors, including performance, seniority, disci-
    plines and relevant skill sets.” Lastly, the record establishes that
    there was no policy that newly hired PSSs in other locations speak
    Spanish. Although the vice president of the company admitted to
    preferring job candidates who spoke Spanish, this is different from
    a policy that conditioned termination and hiring based on the abil-
    ity to speak Spanish.
    In sum, Davis fails on the first prong which requires a plain-
    tiff to identify a specific employment practice that caused a dispar-
    ate impact based on national origin. Joe’s Stone Crab, 220 F.3d at
    1274. Assuming that the ability to speak Spanish favors Hispanic
    employees over non-Hispanic ones, the record rebuts Davis’s claim
    that Infinity conditioned employment based on the ability to speak
    Spanish. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of sum-
    mary judgment in favor of Infinity on Davis’s discrimination claim
    of disparate impact based on national origin.
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446            Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 10 of 13
    10                         Opinion of the Court                  21-11446
    III.
    Next, we turn to Davis’s disparate treatment claim based on
    race. Davis argues that Infinity discriminated against her based on
    her race, Black, by terminating her employment while retaining
    several similarly-situated White employees. A plaintiff asserting a
    disparate treatment claim under Title VII must show that the de-
    fendant acted with discriminatory intent through direct or circum-
    stantial evidence. Joe’s Stone Crab, 220 F.3d at 1286. “Direct evi-
    dence is evidence that establishes the existence of discriminatory
    intent behind the employment decision without any inference or
    presumption.” Id. A plaintiff may use circumstantial evidence to
    prove intentional discrimination through the McDonnell Douglas1
    framework by showing that she was: (1) a member of a protected
    class, (2) subjected to an adverse employment action, (3) her em-
    ployer treated similarly situated employees more favorably, and
    (4) she was qualified to do the job. Id.
    If the plaintiff meets the pleading requirements, the burden
    shifts to the defendant to identify a legitimate, non-discriminatory
    reason for the adverse employment action. Id. If the defendant
    proffers such a legitimate purpose, the burden shifts back to the
    plaintiff to ultimately prove that the defendant's stated reason was
    a pretext for unlawful discrimination. Id.
    1   McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 
    411 U.S. 792
     (1973).
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 11 of 13
    21-11446                Opinion of the Court                         11
    The undisputed facts in the record show that Davis estab-
    lished a prima facie case of disparate treatment based on race be-
    cause she was a member of a protected class based on her race, was
    terminated during the 2014 RIF, similarly situated employees were
    treated more favorably because some Birmingham PSSs retained
    their jobs, and she was qualified to do her job because she met or
    exceeded her annual employee evaluations and had been working
    as a PSS since 2006.
    At the second step, the burden shifts to Infinity to offer a le-
    gitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the adverse employment
    action. Infinity satisfies this burden because Davis ranked 29th out
    of 37th in the three-factor criteria that Infinity used to rank each
    PSS based on their YOS, YTD raw score, and Impact Factor. None
    of the three factors were discriminatory. The YOS was simply the
    number of years an employee worked at the company divided by
    ten. The YTD raw score measured a worker’s productivity. Thus,
    the more productive and longer-tenured employees were more
    likely to be retained. The Impact Factor is somewhat more subjec-
    tive and relates to the employee’s ability to adapt to change. Be-
    cause these factors are non-discriminatory, we find that Infinity of-
    fered a legitimate non-discriminatory reason for its decision to ter-
    minate Davis.
    Davis argues that the reason is pretextual because she was
    more qualified than some of the employees who were not let go
    during the second phase of the RIF and the real reason for her ter-
    mination was her race. We reject this argument. It’s hard to
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446        Date Filed: 04/19/2022      Page: 12 of 13
    12                      Opinion of the Court                  21-11446
    envision a more objective standard for terminating employees, par-
    ticularly for the YTD and YOS scores. Davis contends that she was
    more qualified than similarly-situated White employees who were
    not terminated, but this is not a sufficient basis to show pretext. As
    we have noted before, “[a] plaintiff is not allowed to recast an em-
    ployer’s proffered nondiscriminatory reasons or substitute [her]
    business judgment for that of the employer. Chapman v. AI
    Transport, 
    229 F.3d 1012
    , 1030 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc). While
    Davis may disagree with the reasons for her termination, that is not
    sufficient to show that those reasons were pretext for racial dis-
    crimination. Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s grant of
    summary judgment in favor of Infinity on Davis’s disparate treat-
    ment based on race claim.
    IV.
    Lastly, we turn to Davis’s appeal of the district court’s dis-
    missal of her disparate treatment based on national origin claim.
    According to Davis, the district court erred in concluding that she
    did not state a plausible claim.
    We review de novo the district court’s grant of a motion to
    dismiss under 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim, accepting the al-
    legations in the complaint as true and construing them in the light
    most favorable to the plaintiff. Hill v. White, 
    321 F.3d 1334
    , 1335
    (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam). Although a complaint need not set
    forth detailed factual allegations, the plaintiff must allege sufficient
    facts to render the claim “plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v.
    Twombly, 
    550 U.S. 544
    , 570 (2007). Stating a plausible claim for
    USCA11 Case: 21-11446       Date Filed: 04/19/2022     Page: 13 of 13
    21-11446               Opinion of the Court                        13
    relief requires pleading factual content that allows the court to
    draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the
    misconduct alleged. Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 
    556 U.S. 662
    , 678 (2009). Le-
    gal conclusions must be supported by factual allegations, and
    pleadings that merely contain conclusions do not demonstrate suf-
    ficient grounds for relief. 
    Id.
     at 678–79.
    To establish a prima facie case of disparate treatment based
    on a protected class, a plaintiff must prove, among other things,
    that “her employer treated similarly situated employees outside
    her classification more favorably.” Knight v. Baptist Hosp. of Mi-
    ami, Inc., 
    330 F.3d 1313
    , 1316 (11th Cir. 2003) (per curiam) (altera-
    tions adopted and emphasis added). For her disparate treatment
    based on national origin claim, Davis alleges that her protected
    class is “non-Hispanic employees.” Therefore, to establish a plau-
    sible claim, Davis must allege that Infinity treated employees out-
    side her protected class, Hispanic employees, more favorably than
    her. Davis fails to do this because none of the employees who were
    retained in the Birmingham office following the RIF were His-
    panic. Accordingly, Davis failed to state a plausible disparate treat-
    ment based on national origin claim.
    AFFIRMED.