Cartagena v. Aegis Mtge Corp ( 2001 )

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
____________________
No. 01-20324
Summary Calendar
____________________
JOSE CARTAGENA
Plaintiff - Appellant
v.
AEGIS MORTGAGE CORPORATION, INC, ET AL
Defendant
AEGIS MORTGAGE CORPORATION, INC
Defendant - Appellee
_________________________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Texas
USDC No. H-00-CV-1548
_________________________________________________________________
October 16, 2001
Before KING, Chief Judge, and DAVIS and EMILIO M. GARZA, Circuit
Judges.
PER CURIAM:*
Plaintiff-Appellant Jose Cartagena appeals the district
court’s judgment in favor of Defendant-Appellee Aegis Mortgage
*
Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 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that this opinion should not be published and is not precedent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 CIR. R.
47.5.4.
Corporation on Cartagena’s claims of employment discrimination.
For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.
I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
In May 1997, Defendant-Appellee Aegis Mortgage Corporation
(“Aegis”) hired Plaintiff-Appellant Jose Cartagena, a Hispanic
male, as manager of its government insurance department. Almost
two years later, in February 1999, Aegis discharged Cartagena.
On the day before Cartagena was discharged, he overheard
Jennifer Marquez, one of the employees working under him, tell
Suzanne Janzack, another employee working under him, about an
alleged affair between Janzack and Cartagena. Cartagena
approached Marquez and asked her to reveal the source of her
information. Marquez refused, and, according to Cartagena, he
told Marquez that they would discuss the matter the following
morning with the president of Aegis. After Cartagena left the
office, Marquez reported the incident first to Deborah Nelson,
who was then a vice president, and then, at Nelson’s suggestion,
to Terry Nagle, Cartagena’s immediate supervisor. Marquez told
Nelson and Nagle that Cartagena had threatened her when she
refused to reveal who had told her about Cartagena’s alleged
affair with Janzack.
Nagle related Marquez’s account of her encounter with
Cartagena to Robert Ward, an executive vice president of Aegis,
who agreed with Nagle that Cartagena should be discharged. Nagle
2
discharged Cartagena when he arrived at work on the morning of
February 11, 1999, the day following the incident with Marquez.
Pamela Whitford, a white female, worked as manager of the
government insurance department for one month after Cartagena’s
discharge. During that time, Whitford was not paid by Aegis, but
rather by the employment agency that Aegis had retained to fill
Cartagena’s position.
On May 5, 2000, Cartagena filed suit in federal district
court against Aegis,1 alleging various violations of Title VII of
the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. (“Title
VII”). Specifically, Cartagena claimed (1) racial and gender
discrimination in the form of unequal compensation and discharge
in violation of § 2000e-2(a)(1), and (2) retaliation for opposing
sexual harassment in violation of § 2000e-3(a). Each party filed
summary judgment motions, and on February 22, 2001, the district
court issued summary judgment against Cartagena on all his Title
VII claims and denied as moot all pending procedural motions,
including Cartagena’s motion for reconsideration of the district
court’s previous denial of his requests for interrogatories and
document production. Cartagena timely appealed, challenging the
summary judgment on each of his Title VII claims and the denial
of his discovery requests.
1
Cartagena also named Marquez and Nagle as defendants,
but the district court dismissed them from the case on July 24,
2000. Cartagena does not challenge their dismissal on appeal.
3
II. PROPRIETY OF THE SUMMARY JUDGMENT DISMISSING
THE TITLE VII CLAIMS
A. Standard of Review
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de
novo, applying the same Rule 56 standard as the district court.
Blow v. City of San Antonio, 236 F.3d 293, 296 (5th Cir. 2001)
(citing FED. R. CIV. P. 56). “Although summary judgment is not
favored in claims of employment discrimination, it is nonetheless
proper when ‘there is no genuine issue as to any material fact
and . . . the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of
law.’” Waggoner v. City of Garland, 987 F.2d 1160, 1164 (5th
Cir. 1993) (quoting FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c)). In reviewing a
summary judgment decision, this court bears in mind that
“[c]redibility determinations, the weighing of the evidence, and
the drawing of legitimate inferences from the facts are jury
functions, not those of a judge.” Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing
Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150-51 (2000) (quoting Anderson v.
Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 255 (1986)). Accordingly,
“[d]oubts are to be resolved in favor of the nonmoving party, and
any reasonable inferences are to be drawn in favor of that
party.” Evans v. City of Bishop, 238 F.3d 586, 589 (5th Cir.
2000).
If the moving party shows that there is no genuine issue of
material fact, then the burden shifts to the nonmoving party, who
“may not rest upon the mere allegations or denials of the
4
[moving] party’s pleadings,” but rather “must set forth specific
facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial.” FED. R.
CIV. P. 56(e); see also Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317,
322 (1986). After the nonmoving party has been given an
opportunity to raise a genuine factual issue, if no reasonable
juror could find for that party, summary judgment is proper. See
FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c); Anderson, 477 U.S. at 252.
B. The McDonnell Douglas Analytical Framework
In McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, the Supreme Court set
forth the burden-shifting framework for proving a claim of
intentional discrimination by circumstantial evidence. See 411
U.S. 792, 80-04 (1973). First, the plaintiff must establish a
prima facie case of discrimination. Id. at 802. The elements of
the prima facie case vary depending on the type of adverse
employment action that the plaintiff claims was the result of
unlawful discrimination. See Siler-Khodr v. Univ. of Tex. Health
Sci. Ctr. San Antonio, No. 00-50092, 2001 WL 897189 (5th Cir.
Aug. 24, 2001); see also McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802 n.13
(“The facts necessarily will vary in Title VII cases, and the
specification above of the prima facie proof required from
respondent is not necessarily applicable in every respect to
differing factual situations.”).
By establishing a prima facie case, the plaintiff raises a
“mandatory inference of discrimination.” Russell v. McKinney
5
Hosp. Venture, 235 F.3d 219, 222 (5th Cir. 2000) (quoting Tex.
Dep’t of Cmty. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 255 n.10
(1981)). To rebut that inference of discrimination, the
defendant must produce evidence of a legitimate,
nondiscriminatory reason for the adverse employment action on
which the discrimination claim is based. McDonnell Douglas, 411
U.S. at 802. The defendant’s burden “is only one of production,
not persuasion, involving no credibility assessments.” Russell,
235 F.3d at 222; see also Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253 (“The ultimate
burden of persuading the trier of fact that the defendant
intentionally discriminated against the plaintiff remains at all
times with the plaintiff.”).
If the defendant defeats the inference of discrimination
raised by the plaintiff’s prima facie case, “the ultimate
question” remaining for the trier of fact is “whether [the]
plaintiff has proven [intentional discrimination].” Russell, 235
F.3d at 222 (citing St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502,
511 (1993)) (alterations in original). In most cases, a
plaintiff will make a showing of intentional discrimination
sufficient to survive summary judgment by relying on the prima
facie case and on evidence that the defendant’s nondiscriminatory
explanation for the adverse employment action is pretextual. See
Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147-48; Russell, 235 F.3d at 223.
C. Application of the Framework
6
Although Cartagena clearly failed to establish prima facie
cases of discriminatory compensation and retaliation, the
question whether he succeeded in establishing a prima facie case
of discriminatory discharge is less clear. However, summary
judgment was nevertheless proper because the district court
correctly concluded that Cartagena failed to present sufficient
evidence that Aegis’s nondiscriminatory explanation for
discharging Cartagena was a mere pretext for discrimination.
1. Discriminatory Discharge
To establish a prima facie case of discriminatory discharge,
Cartagena must show that (1) he is a member of a protected class,
(2) he was discharged, (3) he was otherwise qualified for the
position from which he was discharged, and (4) that he was
replaced by an individual outside his protected class. Reeves,
530 U.S. at 142. Cartagena is a Hispanic male who was discharged
from a position for which he was qualified, and he was replaced
by Pamela Whitford, a white female. Aegis apparently argues that
the fourth element of the prima facie case is not met because
Whitford’s employer was an employment agency rather than Aegis.
Aegis claims that it hired Whitford for a different position,
after eliminating the position that Cartagena had held. We need
not determine the legal import of such circumstances to resolve
this appeal. Assuming Cartagena established a prima facie case,
summary judgment against him was still proper because he failed
7
to present sufficient evidence that Aegis’s nondiscriminatory
explanation was a pretext for discrimination.
Aegis met its burden of producing a nondiscriminatory,
legitimate reason for discharging Cartagena. According to Nagle
(Cartagena’s immediate supervisor) and Ward (the executive vice
president who approved Nagle’s decision to discharge Cartagena),
they agreed that Nagle should discharge Cartagena because they
believed Marquez’s claim that Cartagena had threatened her.
Nagle and Nelson (the then vice president to whom Marquez first
reported the incident) both stated in their depositions that
Marquez reported to them that Cartagena had told her that if she
would not reveal the source of the rumors about his alleged
affair, then “something would happen to her.” Nagle and Nelson
also both stated that Marquez appeared frightened when she came
into their offices after the incident with Cartagena.
Standing alone, Marquez’s allegation that Cartagena
threatened her satisfies Aegis’s burden of producing a
legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason that rebuts the inference of
discrimination raised by Cartagena’s prima facie case. However,
Aegis also points to prior incidents that it claims contributed
to its decision to discharge Cartagena. Nagle stated in her
deposition that one of the reasons why she believed Marquez’s
account was that Caryn Landauer, a former Aegis employee who had
also worked under Cartagena, had resigned because she was afraid
of Cartagena. According to both Nagle and Ward, Landauer was so
8
intimidated by Cartagena that she asked Ward and Nagle not to
tell Cartagena the reason for her resignation.
Nagle also stated that employees in addition to Landauer and
Marquez had reported that they “were afraid of [Cartagena]” and
that “he was rude to them, short with them, and occasionally
would not help them when they asked for help.” Nagle further
stated that she had questioned Cartagena’s managerial competence
several times throughout his employment with Aegis, such as when
she saw him touching female employees in inappropriate ways
(including Landauer), when he refused to turn his personal time
sheets in to her, when customers of Aegis complained about the
way Cartagena treated them, and when other supervisors complained
to her that Cartagena was instructing the employees in their
departments.
Where, as here, the defendant claims that it discharged the
plaintiff primarily because of complaints about the plaintiff by
fellow employees, the pretext “inquiry is limited to whether the
employer believed the [complaints] in good faith and whether the
decision to discharge the employee was based on that belief.”
Waggoner v. City of Garland, 987 F.2d 1160, 1165-66 (5th Cir.
1993).
Further, in undertaking the pretext inquiry, we must
consider Cartagena’s evidence in light of the fact that the same
individual —— Nagle —— both hired and discharged Cartagena. Such
circumstances create “an inference that discrimination was not
9
the employer’s motive in terminating the employee.” Faruki v.
Parsons S.I.P., Inc., 123 F.3d 315, 320 n.3 (5th Cir. 1997)
(citing Brown v. CSC Logic, Inc., 82 F.3d 651, 658 (5th
Cir.1996)). In adopting the “same actor” inference in Brown, we
highlighted the Fourth Circuit’s explanation of the rationale
underlying the inference: “From the standpoint of the putative
discriminator, ‘[i]t hardly makes sense to hire workers from a
group one dislikes (thereby incurring the psychological costs of
associating with them), only to fire them once they are on the
job.’” 82 F.3d at 658 (quoting Proud v. Stone, 945 F.2d 796, 797
(4th Cir. 1991) (quoting John J. Donohue III & Peter Siegelman,
The Changing Nature of Employment Discrimination Litigation, 43
STAN. L. REV. 983, 1017 (1991))) (alterations in original).
Cartagena relied on four categories of evidence in his
attempt to establish that Aegis’s proffered explanation was a
pretext for discrimination. First, he stated in an affidavit and
in his deposition (1) that he did not threaten Marquez, but
rather merely stated that they would speak to Rick Thompson, the
president of Aegis, the next day, and (2) that he was not in fact
having an affair with Janzack. Even assuming both of those
claims to be true, as we must under a summary judgment analysis,
Aegis correctly argues that Cartagena may not rely on them to
establish pretext because they do not call into question that
10
Nagle and Ward decided to discharge Cartagena because they
believed Marquez.2
Second, Cartagena points to Aegis’s favorable evaluations of
his ability to manage the loan-insuring process effectively and
efficiently. Again, such evidence does not tend to undermine the
credibility of Aegis’s explanation for Cartagena’s discharge.
Nagle and Ward did not deny —— and in fact they acknowledged ——
that Cartagena succeeded at the “loan-insuring” aspect of his
job. Rather, Nagle and Ward claimed that the deficiency in
Cartagena’s performance was his misconduct, most significantly
toward his subordinates, but also toward customers and co-workers
outside his department. Evidence of Cartagena’s success in
getting loans insured cannot help Cartagena make a showing of
pretext because it is irrelevant to whether Nagle and Ward in
2
Also in support of his claims that he did not have an
affair with Janzack and that he did not threaten Marquez,
Cartagena points to the findings made by the Texas Workforce
Commission in determining whether he was entitled to benefits
under the Texas Labor Code. As explained above, those claims are
irrelevant to the inquiry into whether Nagle and Ward believed
Marquez. Moreover, as Aegis correctly points out, Texas law
precludes the findings of the Texas Workforce Commission from
being “used as evidence in an action or proceeding, other than an
action or proceeding [before the Texas Workforce Commission],
even if the action or proceeding is between the same or related
parties or involves the same facts.” TEX. LAB. CODE ANN. § 213.007
(Vernon 2001); see also Waggoner, 987 F.2d at 1165 (holding that
article 5221b-9 of the Texas Revised Civil Statutes, the
predecessor of section 213.007, rendered findings of the Texas
Employment Commission inadmissible as evidence of the plaintiff’s
age discrimination claim).
11
good faith believed the allegations of Marquez and other
employees that Cartagena had engaged in misconduct.
Third, Cartagena attempts to show pretext by arguing that
Aegis’s discrimination against him is evinced by a comparison of
Aegis’s treatment of him to its treatment of two white females
who were also in managerial positions, but who, unlike Cartagena,
were not discharged when Ward was made aware of deficiencies in
their job performances. Such disparate-treatment evidence is
relevant to a discrimination claim only if the employees outside
the plaintiff’s protected class are “similarly situated” to the
plaintiff. See Williams v. Trader Pub. Co., 218 F.3d 481, 484
(5th Cir. 2000) (citing Polanco v. City of Austin, 78 F.3d 968,
977 (5th Cir.1996)); cf. Nieto v. L&H Packing Co., 108 F.3d 621,
623 n.5 (5th Cir. 1997) (“The Supreme Court has explained that
th[e] inquiry [into whether a similarly-situated employee outside
the plaintiff’s protected class was treated more favorably] is
especially relevant to a showing that the employer’s proffered
legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for its decision was
pretext for discrimination.”).
The district court properly concluded that Cartagena failed
to show that the two white females —— Debbie Poppe and Micki Bong
—— were similarly situated to Cartagena. Like Cartagena, Poppe
was accused of misconduct toward one of her subordinates, but,
12
unlike Cartagena, she was not discharged.3 Specifically, Poppe
allegedly stated that she “almost slapped” Donna McDowell and
that she “felt like she could slap a couple of other people in
[her] department.” Poppe’s situation was not sufficiently
similar to that of Cartagena, however, because, unlike Cartagena,
Poppe did not already have a history of misconduct when the
specific incident occurred. See Nieto, 108 F.3d at 623 (in
concluding that the plaintiff was not similarly situated to
another employee outside the plaintiff’s protected class,
pointing to evidence that the plaintiff had a prior disciplinary
record, but the other employee did not). Further, in relating
the incident to Ward, McDowell did not accuse Poppe of making a
threat or express that she was afraid of Poppe, as Marquez did
when she reported her encounter with Cartagena to Nagle.
Bong, the other white female who Cartagena claims was
treated differently than he, was placed on probation for sixty
days because she failed to obtain the necessary approval of a
loan. That, however, is a significantly different sort of
performance deficiency than behaving inappropriately toward
subordinates. Thus, like Poppe, Bong was not sufficiently
similarly situated to Cartagena. Cf. Nieto, 108 F.3d at 622-23
(in concluding that the plaintiff was not similarly situated to
3
Cartagena claims that Poppe was not subject to any
disciplinary action, but according to Aegis, she was placed on
probation.
13
another employee, noting that the other employee “did not disobey
a direct instruction from his supervisor,” as the plaintiff had
done, but rather failed to ensure that a subordinate had properly
followed his instructions).
Finally, Cartagena attempts to establish pretext by arguing
that discriminatory animus underlaid some of Nagle’s remarks and
thus that a jury could reasonably infer that such animus also
underlaid Nagle and Ward’s decision to discharge him. Cartagena
asserts that during a few staff meetings, Nagle admonished the
attendees to listen carefully to Cartagena because he did not
speak English well. Aegis argues that Nagle’s remarks are
irrelevant because they were not made in the context of
Cartagena’s discharge.
Although Aegis is correct that Nagle’s remarks are not
sufficient evidence to present a factual issue on pretext, the
reason is not, as Aegis contends, that Nagle did not make the
remarks in the context of Cartagena’s discharge. This court has
recognized that the Supreme Court “emphatically stat[ed] [in
Reeves] that requiring evidence of discriminatory animus to be
‘in the direct context’ of the employment decision is incorrect.”
Evans, 238 F.3d at 591 (citing Reeves, 530 U.S. at 152-53).
Rather, “[t]he value of such remarks is dependent upon the
content of the remarks and the speaker.” Russell, 235 F.3d at
225. Specifically, the speaker must be in a position to
influence the employment decision in question, and the content of
14
the remarks must indicate discriminatory animus. See id. at 226,
229.
There is no question that Nagle had significant influence in
the decision to discharge Cartagena. Moreover, it is likely that
remarks such as Nagle’s could, under other circumstances, provide
support for a charge of discrimination based on national origin.
See EEOC Guidelines on Discrimination Because of National Origin,
29 C.F.R. § 1606.1 (2001) (“The Commission defines national
origin discrimination broadly as including, but not limited to,
the denial of equal employment opportunity because of an
individual’s, or his or her ancestor’s, place of origin; or
because an individual has the physical, cultural or linguistic
characteristics of a national origin group.”) (emphasis added).4
In the instant case, however, given Cartagena’s failure to
present other evidence tending to undermine the credibility of
Aegis’s nondiscriminatory explanation for his discharge, Nagle’s
remarks at most create a weak factual issue. Standing alone, her
4
See also, for example, Fragante v. City and County of
Honolulu, 888 F.2d 591, 596 (9th Cir. 1989) (noting that “[i]t
would . . . be an easy refuge . . . for an employer unlawfully
discriminating against someone based on national origin to state
falsely that [the reason for the employment decision was] the
candidate’s inability to measure up to the communications skills
demanded by the job”); Carino v. Univ. of Okla. Bd. of Regents,
750 F.2d 815, 819 (10th Cir. 1984) (affirming the district
court’s finding that “the decision to demote the Plaintiff . . .
was made on the basis of his national origin and related
accent”); and Berke v. Ohio Dep’t of Pub. Welfare, 628 F.2d 980,
981 (6th Cir. 1980) (affirming the district court’s finding “that
the plaintiff was denied two positions . . . because of her
accent which flowed from her national origin”).
15
remarks cannot defeat the inference created by the fact that
Cartagena was discharged by Nagle, the same individual who hired
him —— i.e., the inference that the discharge was not motivated
by discrimination. See Brown, 82 F.3d at 658 (concluding that
“the facts in this particular case are not sufficiently egregious
to overcome the [“same actor”] inference that [the defendant’s]
stated reason for discharging [the plaintiff] was not pretext for
age discrimination”).
Cartagena’s prima facie case of discriminatory discharge and
his other summary judgment evidence fail to raise a factual issue
on the question whether Aegis’s explanation for his discharge was
a pretext for discrimination. The district court thus properly
entered summary judgment against Cartagena on his discriminatory-
discharge claim.
2. Discriminatory Compensation
Cartagena argues that he presented sufficient evidence to
raise a factual issue on whether Aegis discriminated against him
in paying him less than Nelson, a white female. Aegis asserts
that Cartagena’s claim fails because Nelson’s job did not involve
substantially the same duties and responsibilities as
Cartagena’s.
Aegis misstates the law. In Plemer v. Parsons-Gilbane, 713
F.2d 1127 (5th Cir. 1983), we recognized that under the Supreme
Court’s decision in County of Washington v. Gunther, 452 U.S. 161
(1981), a Title VII discriminatory-compensation claim is not
16
limited to cases in which the plaintiff can “show that he or she
was being paid less than an employee [outside the plaintiff’s
protected class] for performing equal, or substantially equal,
work.” 713 F.2d at 1131 (citing Gunther, 452 U.S. at 181).
However, we also recognized that courts are loath to undertake
the “subjective assessment of the value of the [relevant] jobs”
that would be necessary in order to evaluate a “Gunther”
discriminatory-compensation claim in the absence of direct
evidence of discrimination. We thus inferred from the Gunther
Court’s reasoning that to establish a prima facie case of
discriminatory compensation when the two relevant jobs are not
equal or substantially equal, a plaintiff must produce direct
evidence showing that the defendant would have paid the plaintiff
more if he or she were not in the protected class. See id. at
1133-34.5
5
The Gunther Court emphasized that such a subjective
assessment was unnecessary in that case:
Respondents’ claim is not based on the
controversial concept of “comparable worth,” under
which plaintiffs might claim increased
compensation on the basis of a comparison of the
intrinsic worth or difficulty of their job with
that of other jobs in the same organization or
community. Rather, Respondents seek to prove, by
direct evidence, that their wages were depressed
because of intentional sex discrimination,
consisting of setting the wage scale for female
guards, but not for male guards, at a level lower
than [the defendant’s] own survey of outside
markets and the worth of the jobs warranted.”
Gunther, 452 U.S. at 166 (citations omitted).
17
At the time Cartagena was hired, Nelson was manager of the
closing department, and her salary was $500 less than
Cartagena’s. However, about nine months after Cartagena was
hired, Nelson was promoted to vice president, and she received a
raise. Consequently, at the time of Cartagena’s discharge,
Nelson was making $7600 more than he was. Six months after
Cartagena’s discharge, Nelson was again promoted, this time to
senior vice president and operations manager, and the
differential between their salaries increased to $17,600.
Cartagena also points out that Nelson consistently received
higher bonuses than he did.
Cartagena argues that because his and Nelson’s salaries were
essentially equal before Nelson was promoted, Aegis must have
assigned their two jobs essentially the same value. Those
relative values did not change as a result Nelson’s promotions,
he claims, because the additional responsibilities and duties
that Nelson took on did not justify an increase in the value of
her job beyond that of his job. Cartagena uses similar reasoning
in arguing that the differences in their jobs before Nelson was
promoted —— i.e., manager of the government insurance department
and manager of the closing department, respectively —— could not
have been the basis for Nelson’s receiving higher bonuses.
Under Gunther as interpreted by this court in Plemer,
Cartagena failed to establish a prima facie case of
discriminatory compensation because he did not base his claim
18
either on a showing that his job and Nelson’s job were
substantially equal in terms of the type of work involved (i.e.,
a “classic” discriminatory-compensation claim) or on direct
evidence of discrimination (such as Aegis’s own evaluation of the
relative value of the jobs, see supra note 5). Cartagena’s
conclusory assertion that the differences in their work did not
translate into a difference in the value of their jobs is
insufficient.6
The district court’s prima facie case analysis is correct as
applied to Cartagena’s claim of discriminatory compensation, and
the district court thus properly issued summary judgment against
Cartagena on his discriminatory-compensation claim.7
6
Even assuming Cartagena established a prima facie case
of discriminatory compensation, he did not present sufficient
evidence to raise a factual issue on whether Aegis’s explanation
for the discrepancy between his salary and bonuses and those of
Nelson was pretextual. According to Aegis, it increased Nelson’s
salary because of her promotions, and she received higher bonuses
because the employees in her department had not complained about
her, as the employees in Cartagena’s department had complained
about him. Cartagena’s claims about the relative value of their
jobs, along with his other evidence discussed supra, Section
C.1., is insufficient to withstand summary judgment.
7
In his brief on appeal, Cartagena relies entirely on
Nelson’s situation as a basis for his discriminatory-compensation
claim. In his summary judgment motion, Cartagena not only
pointed to Nelson, but also to Pamela Whitford, the white female
who replaced Cartagena as manager of the government insurance
department. However, adding Whitford to our analysis would not
change the result. It is undisputed that while Whitford was
working as government insurance manager, she was paid by an
employment agency, not by Aegis. Rather than presenting evidence
of the amount that Aegis paid the employment agency for
Whitford’s services, Cartagena presented evidence of the amount
that Whitford received from Aegis after it dissolved Cartagena’s
19
3. Retaliation
To establish a prima facie case of retaliation, Cartagena
must show “(1) that [he] engaged in activity protected by Title
VII, (2) that an adverse employment action occurred, and (3) that
a causal link existed between the protected activity and the
adverse employment action.” Evans v. City of Houston, 246 F.3d
344, 352 (5th Cir. 2001) (quoting Long v. Eastfield Coll., 88
F.3d 300, 304 (5th Cir. 1996)). Cartagena claims that in telling
Janzack about the alleged affair between Cartagena and Janzack,
Marquez was being “hostile and abusive,” thereby creating “a
hostile work environment” amounting to sexual harassment in
violation of Title VII. Thus, Cartagena contends, he engaged in
a protected activity when he confronted Marquez, and Aegis
retaliated against him when it discharged him because of that
activity. Aegis correctly argues that Cartagena failed to
establish the first and third elements of a prima facie case for
retaliation.
Cartagena engaged in a “protected activity” only if he “had
at least a ‘reasonable belief’ that the practices [he] opposed
were unlawful [under Title VII].” Long, 88 F.3d at 304 (citing
Payne v. McLemore’s Wholesale & Retail Stores, 654 F.2d 1130,
former position and hired her as its compliance officer and
licensing manager. Cartagena failed to present any direct
evidence that a discriminatory motive underlaid the difference
between his salary as manager of the government insurance
department and Whitford’s salary as compliance officer/licensing
manager.
20
1140 (5th Cir. Unit A Sept. 1981)). Cartagena admitted in his
deposition that when he confronted Marquez, he did not believe
that sexual harassment was occurring. Rather, he claimed that he
concluded in hindsight that sexual harassment had occurred and
that in confronting Marquez, he had attempted to prevent such
harassment. This court has not determined whether the “protected
activity” element of a retaliation claim includes a subjective
component as well as an objective component —— i.e., whether a
plaintiff must not only show that a belief is objectively
reasonable, but also that she or he held that belief in good
faith. See Payne, 654 F.2d at 1140 n.11. We need not make that
determination here, however, because even if Cartagena believed
in good faith that he was opposing sexual harassment that was
unlawful under Title VII, that belief is objectively
unreasonable.
Even assuming that it would have been reasonable to believe
that Marquez was “hostile and abusive” toward Janzack, it would
not have been reasonable to believe that Marquez’s actions were
motivated by discrimination against Janzack because she was
female, and thus it would not have been reasonable to believe
that Marquez was sexually harassing Janzack. See 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-2(a)(1) (“It shall be an unlawful employment practice for
an employer . . . to discriminate against any individual . . .
because of such individual’s . . . sex . . . .”) (emphasis
added); see also Oncale v. Sundowner Offshore Serv’s, Inc., 523
21
U.S. 75, 81 (1998) (noting that to establish a Title VII claim of
sexual harassment, “the plaintiff . . . must always prove that
the conduct at issue was not merely tinged with offensive sexual
connotations, but actually constituted ‘discrimina[tion] . . .
because of . . . sex’”) (emphasis omitted).
Cartagena also failed to establish the third element of a
prima facie case of retaliation —— i.e., a causal link between
the alleged protected activity and his discharge. According to
Cartagena, Aegis retaliated against him by discharging him
primarily because of the Marquez incident. But there is no
causal link unless Aegis knew that Cartagena was engaging in a
protected activity. See Watts v. Kroger Co., 170 F.3d 505, 512
(5th Cir. 1999) (holding that as a matter of law, the defendant
could not retaliate against the plaintiff “because [the
defendant] did not know [the plaintiff] had engaged in a
protected activity”). Given that Cartagena himself apparently
did not hold such a belief, it is difficult to see why Nagle or
Ward would. Moreover, Cartagena admitted in his deposition that
he did not tell Nagle or Ward that he confronted Marquez to stop
what he believed to be sexual harassment of Janzack.
Thus, the district court properly granted summary judgment
against Cartagena on his Title VII retaliation claim as well as
on his discriminatory-discharge and discriminatory-compensation
claims.
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III. PROPRIETY OF THE DISCOVERY RULING
A. Standard of Review
We review a district court’s discovery rulings for abuse of
discretion. Duke v. Univ. of Tex. at El Paso, 729 F.2d 994, 995
(5th Cir. 1984). Although “discovery matters are committed
almost exclusively to the sound discretion of the trial Judge
. . . the Judge’s discovery rulings . . . are not entirely
sacrosanct.” Id. at 997 (quoting Burns v. Thiokol Chemical
Corp., 483 F.2d 300, 304-05 (5th Cir. 1973)).
B. A District Court’s Discretion to Deny Discovery
Before Granting Summary Judgment
Upon granting Aegis’s motion for summary judgment, the
district court denied as moot all the pending procedural motions,
including Cartagena’s motion for reconsideration of the district
court’s previous denial of his requests for interrogatories and
document production. Cartagena argues that the district court
abused its discretion by thus denying him the opportunity to
engage in further discovery.
A district court abuses its discretion if it “denies a party
an adequate opportunity to discover facts to oppose a motion for
summary judgment.” Willamson v. United States Dep’t of Agric.,
815 F.2d 368, 382 (5th Cir. 1987). Accordingly, in this case,
the district court should not have granted Aegis’s summary
judgment motion without permitting Cartagena to conduct further
discovery if Cartagena could have thereby “uncover[ed] one or
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more substantial fact issues.” Id. at 373. Rather than
specifying how his requested discovery could have aided him in
showing that there was a genuine issue of material fact
precluding summary judgment, Cartagena merely protests generally
the district court’s discovery ruling, claiming only that further
discovery was necessary because the district court had “strictly
controlled” discovery. It is clear from the record both (1) that
the discovery requested by Cartagena would not have been “likely
to produce the facts needed . . . to withstand . . . summary
judgment,” id. at 382, and (2) that the discovery the parties did
conduct pursuant to the district court’s orders provided
Cartagena with an adequate opportunity to oppose Aegis’s summary
judgment motion.
Thus, the district court did not abuse its discretion in
denying Cartagena’s discovery requests when it granted Aegis’s
summary judgment motion.
IV. CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the district court’s judgment in
favor of Defendant-Appellee is AFFIRMED.
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