Gribcheck v. Runyon, Jr., 00-3279

Citation245 F.3d 547
Decision Date06 March 2001
Docket NumberNo. 00-3279,00-3279
Parties(6th Cir. 2001) Jerry Gribcheck, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Marvin T. Runyon, Jr., Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Defendant-Appellee. Argued:
CourtUnited States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit)

Page 547

245 F.3d 547 (6th Cir. 2001)
Jerry Gribcheck, Plaintiff-Appellant,
v.
Marvin T. Runyon, Jr., Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Defendant-Appellee.
No. 00-3279
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SIXTH CIRCUIT
Argued: March 6, 2001
Decided and Filed: March 30, 2001

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio at Cleveland. No. 97-02547, Lesley Brooks Wells, District Judge.

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Copyrighted Material Omitted

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Michael T. Conway, MICHAEL TERRENCE CONWAY COMPANY, Brunswick, Ohio, for Appellant.

Annette G. Butler, ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Cleveland, Ohio, for Appellee.

Before: MARTIN, Chief Judge; BATCHELDER and MOORE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION

BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Chief Judge.

Jerry Gribcheck appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to the U.S. Postal Service on his retaliation claim filed under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794. For the following reasons, we AFFIRM.

I.

Gribcheck has worked as an electronics technician for the U.S. Postal Service since March 1984. On February 12, 1997, in the process of repairing a machine, Gribcheck moved a portable conveyor table out of its usual position. Another postal employee, Tracy Williams, had been instructed to use the machine, which she did not know was broken, and she moved the conveyor table back to its usual position. According to a statement written by Williams soon after the incident, Gribcheck began "yelling and cursing" and "was grabbing the portable conveyor table, swinging it back around with force, causing me to jump out of the way." The supervisor who had told Williams to use the machine in question, Jean Gist, approached the scene and stated that she "observed . . . Gribcheck swinging the portable conveyor belt and yelling 'the machine is broke.'" Gist stated that when she told Gribcheck that he was behaving inappropriately, "[h]e just kept yelling 'the machine is broke' and waving his arms in the air, refusing to acknowledge me." Gist then reported the incident to other supervisors, including Maintenance Supervisor Sam Brucchieri.

Because Gribcheck and Williams gave differing versions of the event, no disciplinary action was immediately taken against Gribcheck. On the following Monday, however, three supervisors - Charles Kirkman, Robert Czech, and Brucchieri - determined that Gribcheck should be fired, and on March26, they issued him a Notice of Proposed Removal. Gribcheck filed a grievance with the American Postal Workers Union AFL-CIO, and his termination was reduced to a fourteen-day suspension. The suspension was upheld in arbitration.

On October 2, Gribcheck sued under the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 794, seeking compensation for the suspension, which he alleges was in retaliation for a 1995 Rehabilitation Act lawsuit he filed against the Postal Service, which was ongoing at

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the time of the incident with Williams1. The supervisors contend that the suspension was based on the incident with Williams as well as Gribcheck's history of violence in the workplace.

On December 3, 1998, the Postal Service filed a motion for summary judgment, which the district court granted on January 28, 2000. Gribcheck appeals that decision.

II.

We review de novo a district court's grant of summary judgment. See Junger v. Daley, 209 F.3d 481, 484 (6th Cir. 2000). Summary judgment is granted if there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and the moving party is entitled to a judgment as a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c). Inferences drawn from the underlying facts "must be viewed in the light most favorable to the party opposing the motion" for summary judgment. United States v. Diebold, Inc., 369 U.S. 654, 655 (1962).

While we have never explicitly stated our framework for reviewing retaliation claims under the Rehabilitation Act, our prior analysis of both retaliatory claims and Rehabilitation Act claims points us to the familiar McDonnell Douglasframework used by other circuits in such cases. See Sherman v. Runyon, 235 F.3d 406 (8th Cir. 2000) (applying McDonnell Douglas test to retaliation claim under the Rehabilitation Act); Wrenn v. Gould, 808 F.2d 493 (6th Cir. 1987) (applyingMcDonnell Douglas to Title VII retaliation claim). McDonnell Douglas Corporation v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973), andTexas Department of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248 (1981), establish a three-step burden-shifting framework for analyzing claims of employment discrimination. First, a plaintiff must set forth a prima facie case of discrimination. See McDonnell Douglas, 411 U.S. at 802. The burden then shifts to the employer "to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason" for its actions. Id. If the defendant carries this burden, the plaintiff must then prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the reasons offered by the employer were a pretext for discrimination. See Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253. The ultimate burden of persuasion remains at all times with the plaintiff. See id.

A prima facie case of retaliation has four elements: 1) the plaintiff engaged in legally protected activity; 2) the defendant knew about the plaintiff's exercise of this right; 3) the defendant then took an employment action adverse to the plaintiff; and 4) the protected activity and the adverse employment action are causally connected. See Wrenn, 808 at 500. In the present case, Gribcheck set forth his prima facie case as follows: 1) his earlier discrimination claim under the Rehabilitation Act was a protected activity; 2) the supervisors who suspended him were aware of his claim; 3)he was then suspended for fourteen days; and 4) the events were causally connected because the suspension occurred while his Rehabilitation Act suit was pending and because the supervisors who suspended him did not witness the encounter with Williams and therefore had no basis for the suspension.

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