Where a postal service employee alleged she was subjected to a hostile work environment based on her race and because of her prior complaints about discrimination, but the record showed the supervisor treated other employees in a similar fashion and the alleged conduct was not “severe or pervasive,” the postal service prevailed on the claim.
Background
Monica Andrews, an employee of the United States Postal Service, or USPS, claims that her immediate supervisor (Dennis Ley) discriminated against her and created a hostile work environment in reprisal for filing administrative complaints against him. She also alleges that he created a hostile work environment based on her race. Among other things, the plaintiff claims that he was responsible for suspending her on several occasions and eventually terminating her employment, although pursuant to a union contract arbitration, she was reinstated and paid her lost wages. Defendant has filed a motion for summary judgment.
Hostile work environment
To survive summary judgment on her hostile work environment claim, Andrews must show “(1) unwelcome conduct; (2) that is based on [her] [protected status]; (3) which is sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter her conditions of employment and to create an abusive work environment; and (4) which is imputable to the employer.” Andrews does not satisfy the second and third elements of a hostile work environment.
While the record shows that Ley subjected Andrews — and the other clerks and carriers at the Norton post office — to harassing and otherwise unwelcome conduct, it does not show that Ley behaved that way because of Andrews’s race or her filing of EEO complaints. And the record does not establish that Ley’s treatment was “sufficiently severe or pervasive to alter her conditions of employment and to create an abusive work environment.”
Retaliation
Andrews does not establish a prima facie case because she does not show a causal connection between her EEO reporting and her suspensions or her removal. While the record establishes that she engaged in protected EEO activity, that her suspensions and removal were adverse actions, and that some of the adverse actions occurred after her EEO activity, this sequence of events does not amount to the “little” that is required to show a causal connection between the two because of Andrews’s “history of poor work performance.”
And even if Andrews had made a prima facie case of retaliation, she cannot show that the non-retaliatory reasons for her suspensions and removal are pretext. The record shows that Andrews worked at the Norton post office for about half a year in 2020 and in that time refused direct orders from her supervisor Ley, apparently never learned how to complete her required distribution tasks, came to work tardy on multiple occasions, did not follow the uniform requirements to her supervisor’s satisfaction and continued to have performance issues until her employment was terminated in June. The record shows Andrews admitted to most of these issues in her deposition, EEO submission and pre-disciplinary interview forms. Andrews, therefore, does not show that the defendant pointing to these issues as the non-retaliatory reasons for her suspensions and removal is pretext.
Andrews argues instead that an independent arbitrator ultimately downgrading her removal to a suspension shows there are material facts in dispute over whether the adverse actions were justifiable. As a preliminary matter, the arbitrator’s decision covers only her removal, not the other suspensions that Ley issued to her. Therefore, the decision could only show that the justification for the removal alone is in question. But it does not.
Summary judgment is inappropriate when there is a genuine dispute as to material facts. All reasonable inferences must be drawn in Andrews’s favor. But it is not reasonable to infer, from the arbitrator’s decision that “just cause” supported “the imposition of severe disciplinary action” on Andrews, that Ley removed her from the USPS because he was retaliating against her for protected activity. Nor is it reasonable to infer, from the arbitrator’s decision, that there is a genuine dispute as to whether Ley removed Andrews in retaliation.
This is because there is not sufficient evidence in the summary judgment record favoring Andrews’s claims for a reasonable jury to return a verdict for her. Rather, the record overwhelmingly shows that Andrews was removed for her seriously insufficient work performance.
Defendant’s motion for summary judgment granted.