Carolyn Rawls v. State of Alabama Department of Human Resources , 507 F. App'x 895 ( 2013 )

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________
No. 12-13665
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 2:11-cv-00059-MHT-TFM
CAROLYN RAWLS,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
STATE OF ALABAMA
DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN RESOURCES,
Defendant-Appellee.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Middle District of Alabama
________________________
(February 11, 2013)
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Before CARNES, BARKETT and HULL, Circuit Judges.
Carolyn Rawls appeals the district court’s order granting summary judgment
in favor of her former employer, the Alabama Department of Human Resources
(“DHR”), in her action alleging that DHR disciplined her because she is black, in
violation of Title VII, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2, and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. The district
court concluded that Rawls had failed to present evidence that DHR’s proffered
nondiscriminatory reasons for reprimanding and transferring Rawls to another
department were pretextual. 1 After review, we affirm. 2
I. BACKGROUND FACTS
Plaintiff Rawls was the Director of the Office of Criminal History Checks
(“OCHC”), a department within DHR. OCHC performed background checks for
DHR. OCHC outsourced some background checks to the Department of Public
Safety (“DPS”), a separate state agency, which then submitted invoices to OCHC.
Over several years, a dispute developed between OCHC and DPS over a backlog
of DPS invoices that OCHC had not paid or only partially paid.
1
The district court also granted summary judgment on Rawls’s claim of constructive
discharge, a ruling Rawls does not challenge on appeal
2
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo, viewing the evidence in the light most
favorable to the party opposing the motion. Rioux v. City of Atlanta, Ga., 520 F.3d 1269, 1274
(11th Cir. 2008). Summary judgment is appropriate when there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact, and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Id.; Fed. R. Civ. P.
56(a).
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DPS made various claims for payment against DHR. In October 2008, the
dispute was submitted to the Alabama Board of Adjustment (“BOA”) for
resolution. The BOA hears claims for monetary damages against the state of
Alabama (including its agency DHR). The DHR attorney responsible for handling
the DPS claims before the BOA was Elizabeth Hendrix.
On November 4, 2008, DHR’s Hendrix sent Rawls a request to review a
DPS claim before the BOA for unpaid DPS invoices between October 2007 and
June 2008 totaling $217,055. On November 25, 2008, Rawls’s supervisor James
Long forwarded to Hendrix a chart prepared by Rawls. On January 7, 2009,
Hendrix sent Rawls a request to review a second DPS claim before the BOA for
unpaid DPS invoices between July and September 2008 totaling $78,201.50. After
receiving no response, DHR’s Hendrix sent a follow-up email on January 16, 2009,
asking Rawls to review the claim as soon as possible. On January 30, 2009, Rawls
sent Hendrix the same chart her supervisor Long had sent Hendrix in November.
According to Hendrix, Rawls’s chart did not completely reflect the amounts billed,
the payments DPS sought or the amounts DHR still owed and the chart was not
immediately helpful to Hendrix in preparing a response to the DPS claims before
the BOA.3
3
DHR’s Hendrix provided a similar chart attached to the Joint Consent Judgment
ultimately filed with the BOA. Hendrix’s chart showed some different amounts than those in
Rawls’s chart. As a result of these differences, Rawls’s chart had an outstanding balance of
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Although Hendrix was handling the DHR/DPS dispute before the BOA, on
February 2, 2009, unbeknownst to Hendrix, Rawls communicated directly via
several emails with Patricia Evans, a DPS employee, about unpaid invoices that
were the subject of DPS’s claims before the BOA. During their various exchanges,
Rawls stated that she worked in the “Legal Division” and that DPS would “be
eligible for an additional $8,330.00 payment” after the BOA hearing.
On the same day, DHR’s Hendrix and Rawls received an email from a DHR
employee, Paul Lista. Lista advised that he had received a call from Judy Earnest
at the BOA expressing concern that DHR was circumventing the BOA’s claims
process and asked Lista to get from Rawls a list of the amount already paid toward
the claims and the amount DHR expected to pay DPS.
On February 4, 2009, DPS employee Evans and her supervisor at DPS, Sgt.
Thornton, called DHR’s Hendrix about Rawls’s communication with Evans.
DHR’s Hendrix informed Sgt. Thornton and Evans that she was unaware of
Rawls’s communication, was still trying to determine how much DPS was owed
and that DHR had not yet submitted an answer to the DPS claims before the BOA.
Hendrix advised them that she did not think DHR was allowed to make partial
payments outside of the BOA claim process. Sgt. Thornton expressed frustration
about the delay in receiving payments for work DPS had already performed. Sgt.
$165,508.25, while Hendrix’s chart had an outstanding balance of $177,688.75. In other words,
Rawls’s chart understated the amounts owed to DPS.
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Thornton also expressed concern about “the inability to reign [sic] Carolyn [Rawls]
in about the recurring delay in payments” and questioned who was running DHR.
DHR’s Hendrix then emailed Rawls’s supervisor Long about these
developments. Long forwarded Hendrix’s email to Rawls and told her “[w]e may
need to stop communication [sic] so much info to ABI about how the cla[i]ms will
be resolved. They are feeding incorrect info to BOA and causing much concern.
Refer any claim resolution questions to me or Elizabeth Hendrix.”
On February 11, 2009, DHR’s Chief Legal Counsel Sharon Ficquette
officially reprimanded Rawls for her actions in connection with DPS’s claims
before the BOA. Long, who is also black, was also reprimanded. Rawls was
removed as Director of OCHC and transferred to the Office of Quality Control. In
addition, DHR Commissioner Nancy Buckner moved OCHC to the Center for
Public Integrity and, at the suggestion of the Acting Director of that agency, named
Tommy Crabtree, who is white, the Acting Director of OCHC.
II. DISCUSSION
A. General Principles
Both Title VII and § 1981 prohibit employment discrimination because of an
employee’s race. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a); Id. § 1981(a). When, as here, the
plaintiff’s employment discrimination case is based on circumstantial evidence,
courts apply the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. Rioux v. City of
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Atlanta, Ga., 520 F.3d 1269, 1274-75 (11th Cir. 2008). Under this framework, if a
plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of discrimination, and the defendant
articulates a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employment action, the
plaintiff must show that the defendant’s proffered reason was pretext for
discrimination. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-04, 93
S. Ct. 1817, 1824-25 (1973); Rioux, 520 F.3d at 1274-75.
To show pretext, the plaintiff must come forward with evidence “sufficient
to permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the reasons given by the
employer were not the real reasons for the adverse employment decision.”
Wascura v. City of South Miami, 257 F.3d 1238, 1243 (11th Cir. 2001) (quotation
marks omitted). A reason cannot be “a pretext for discrimination unless it is
shown both that the reason was false, and that discrimination was the real reason.”
St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515, 113 S. Ct. 2742, 2752 (1993)
(quotation marks omitted). If the employer’s proffered reason is one that might
motivate a reasonable employer, a plaintiff cannot merely recast the reason, but
must “meet that reason head on and rebut it.” Chapman v. AI Transp., 229 F.3d
1012, 1030 (11th Cir. 2000) (en banc).
“When a plaintiff chooses to attack the veracity of the employer’s proffered
reason, the inquiry is limited to whether the employer gave an honest explanation
of its behavior.” Kragor v. Takeda Pharms. Am., Inc., ___ F.3d ___, No. 11-
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16052, 2012 WL 6618360, at *5 (11th Cir. Dec. 20, 2012) (quotation marks
omitted); see also Rioux, 520 F.3d at 1278 (“[P]retext centers upon the employer’s
beliefs, and not the employee’s own perceptions of [her] performance.” (quotation
marks omitted)). Thus, a plaintiff cannot show pretext merely by showing that an
employer’s good faith belief that the plaintiff engaged in misconduct is mistaken.
EEOC v. Total Sys. Servs., Inc., 221 F.3d 1171, 1176-77 (11th Cir. 2000).
In the disciplinary context, the plaintiff may show pretext by identifying a
similarly situated employee who was not disciplined after engaging in similar
conduct as the plaintiff. Rioux, 520 F.3d at 1276-77. A comparator must be
“similarly situated to the plaintiff in all relevant respects,” and the “misconduct
must be nearly identical” to that of the plaintiff. Id.B. Rawls’s Claim
We assume, as the district court did, that Rawls established a prima facie
case of race discrimination. Thus, we focus on whether Rawls presented evidence
that DHR’s reasons for reprimanding and transferring her were pretextual.
DHR presented evidence that Rawls was reprimanded and transferred for
three reasons. First, Rawls did not respond promptly or adequately to DHR’s
Hendrix’s requests to review the two DPS claims before the BOA so that Hendrix
could formulate a legal response. Rawls took weeks to respond to Hendrix’s
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requests, and Hendrix found the information Rawls provided incomplete and
unhelpful.
Second, Rawls sent unauthorized emails to Evans, a DPS employee, about
one of the DPS claims pending before the BOA. In her emails, Rawls said she
worked in the Legal Division, which was not true, and also advised Evans that
DPS would be eligible for an $8,330.00 payment after the BOA hearing. DHR’s
Hendrix, the attorney representing DHR before the BOA, was unaware of and did
not authorize Rawls to send these emails, which Hendrix viewed as a binding
promise to pay. Rawls’s unauthorized emails to DPS’s Evans exacerbated tensions
between DHR and DPS and led a BOA employee to express concern that DHR
was trying to circumvent the BOA’s claim process.
Finally, Rawls failed to devise and implement a system for the timely
payment and processing of DPS invoices. Both DPS and OCHC had tried for
several years to develop software programs to track DPS invoices and OCHC’s
payments. However, by the time of Rawls’s reprimand, OCHC did not have such a
system in place. Several DHR or OCHC employees testified that while Rawls was
the Director of OCHC, the office was disorganized, had problems paying DPS
invoices in a timely manner, and received complaints about backlogs.
DHR chief counsel Ficquette’s reprimand stated that Rawls’s actions
violated several Rules of the State Personnel Board, including Rule (1)(a) 5, for
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failing to perform her job properly, Rule (1)(b) 6, for making a false statement, and
Rule (1)(b) 10, for serious violation of any other department rule. The reprimand
then listed six specific ways Rawls had violated work rules, including (1) failing
“to put in place processes to allow for quick processing, tracking and monitoring of
requests for clearances”; (2) failing “to put in place adequate processes to ensure
obtainable identifiable results in a timely manner”; (3) failing “to correct broken
processes that [she] knew and [had] known about since as early as 2006”; (4)
making “a false statement to the BOA without authority to do so”; 4 (5) violating
“Department policy by keeping money orders in the OCHC overnight and for as
long as several months”; and (6) compromising “the Department’s relationships
with other agencies.”
We conclude that Rawls’s evidence did not create a genuine issue of
material fact as to the credibility of these reasons. See Alvarez v. Royal Atl.
Developers, Inc., 610 F.3d 1253, 1265 (11th Cir. 2010) (stating that to prove
pretext, the plaintiff must show that there were “such weaknesses, implausibilities,
inconsistencies, incoherencies, or contradictions in the . . . proffered legitimate
reasons . . . that a reasonable factfinder could find them unworthy of credence.”
(quotation marks omitted)). Rawls does not dispute the timing and substance of
4
Although this list states that the false statement was made to the BOA, this appears to be
a typographical error as other portions of the reprimand make clear that the false statement was
made to DPS employee Evans.
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any of the email communications with Hendrix, Lista, Long or DPS employee
Evans. Nor does Rawls dispute that there were longstanding problems at OCHC
with unpaid DPS invoices and with developing a new system to track and reconcile
DPS billing. While Rawls presented evidence that she and Long were in the
process of implementing a new system for billing reconciliation, Rawls does not
dispute that this new system was not yet up and running when she and Long were
reprimanded.
Rawls submitted evidence that she and Long believed their reprimands were
discriminatory and orchestrated by DHR’s Ficquette to give Rawls’s job to
Crabtree. However, conclusory allegations, without more, do not raise an
inference of pretext. Mayfield v. Patterson Pump Co., 101 F.3d 1371, 1376 (11th
Cir. 1996). Rawls also submitted evidence that she and Long believed that
Rawls’s responses to Hendrix’s requests were adequate and that the delays in
reconciling unpaid DPS invoices were DPS’s fault.
However, Rawls’s own beliefs about her performance do not establish
pretext. See Alvarez, 610 F.3d at 1266 (explaining that the pretext inquiry centers
on the employer’s beliefs, rather than the employee’s beliefs). Moreover, when an
employer’s proffered reason for the employment action is poor performance; the
question is not whether the plaintiff’s performance was actually poor, but whether
the employer believed the plaintiff’s performance was poor, “even if mistakenly or
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unfairly so, or instead merely used those complaints about [the plaintiff] as cover
for discriminating against her because of her [protected characteristic].” Id. Rawls
did not present any evidence that DHR’s Ficquette or DHR Commissioner Buckner
did not honestly believe that Rawls had performed poorly.
In any event, Rawls cannot survive summary judgment unless her evidence
rebuts all of DHR’s proffered reasons. See Chapman, 229 F.3d at 1037. Perhaps
the pivotal reason Rawls was reprimanded and transferred (it certainly appears to
have been the straw that broke the camel’s back) was that she communicated
directly with Evans, a DPS employee, about the disputed claims pending before the
BOA and, without authorization, stated (falsely) that she worked in the legal office
and that DPS was entitled to additional payment. Rawls does not dispute the
substance of her email communications with Evans or the consequences, including
that a BOA official was concerned that DHR was circumventing the claim process
and that DPS officials became angry and questioned DHR’s leadership.
Rawls’s comparator evidence also does not show pretext. For all but one of
Rawls’s comparators, Rawls claimed only that the comparators generally
mismanaged their offices, which does not establish that they engaged in “nearly
identical” misconduct. See Rioux, 520 F.3d at 1280-81. The remaining
comparator, Cheryl Martin, was the Director of the Center for Information
Services, the office Rawls testified was tasked with creating software to reconcile
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DPS invoices. As such, Rawls claimed that Martin was equally responsible for the
failure to address the backlog of unpaid DPS invoices, yet Martin was not
reprimanded. However, Rawls was not reprimanded simply for failing to
implement a reconciliation system, but also for failing to timely and completely
respond to Hendrix’s requests to review the DPS claims before the BOA and, more
importantly, for communicating, without authorization, with DPS employee Evans
about those claims. Rawls did not present any evidence that Martin or any of the
other comparators engaged in this kind of misconduct.
For all these reasons, we cannot say that the district court erred in
concluding that Rawls failed to present evidence that DHR’s reasons for
reprimanding and transferring her were pretext for racial discrimination. 5
Accordingly, we affirm the district court’s order granting summary judgment to
DHR on Rawls’s Title VII and § 1981 claims.
AFFIRMED.
5
The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Rawls’s motion to alter or
amend the judgment, which merely attempted to reargue matters already decided by the district
court, raised arguments that could have been, but were not, raised in response to the summary
judgment motion and sought to introduce new evidence that could have been discovered prior to
summary judgment. See Michael Linet, Inc. v. Vill. of Wellington, Fla., 408 F.3d 757, 763 (11th
Cir. 2005); Mays v. U.S. Postal Serv., 122 F.3d 43, 46 (11th Cir. 1997).
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