661 Fed.Appx. 638 (11th Cir. 2016), 15-14943, Banks v. iGov Techs., Inc.
| Citation | 661 Fed.Appx. 638 |
| Opinion Judge | PER CURIAM |
| Party Name | MIQUIEL BANKS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. IGOV TECHNOLOGIES, INC., Defendant-Appellee |
| Attorney | MIQUIEL BANKS, Plaintiff - Appellant, Pro se, ATLANTA, GA. For IGOV TECHNOLOGIES INC., Defendant - Appellee: Steven David Brown, Alison D. Hurt, IslerDare, PC, RICHMOND, VA. |
| Judge Panel | Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JULIE CARNES, and FAY, Circuit Judges. |
| Case Date | September 28, 2016 |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals, U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit |
Page 638
DO NOT PUBLISH. (See Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure Rule 32.1)
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Florida. D.C. Docket No. 8:14-cv-02701-EAK-JSS.
MIQUIEL BANKS, Plaintiff - Appellant, Pro se, ATLANTA, GA.
For IGOV TECHNOLOGIES INC., Defendant - Appellee: Steven David Brown, Alison D. Hurt, IslerDare, PC, RICHMOND, VA.
Before WILLIAM PRYOR, JULIE CARNES, and FAY, Circuit Judges.
OPINION
PER CURIAM
Plaintiff-Appellant Miquiel Banks (" Plaintiff" ) appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendant-Appellee iGov Technologies, Inc. (" Defendant" ) on his pro se employment action for race discrimination and retaliation asserted under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (" Title VII" ), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. After careful review of the briefs and record, we affirm.
BACKGROUND
I. Factual Background
A. Plaintiff's Hiring
Plaintiff, who is African-American, began working as a technical writer supporting the Combat Operations Command (" COC" ) project in Defendant's Tampa, Florida office in October 2012. Plaintiff originally reported to Sean Kenney, the Program Manager for COC. Beginning in March 2013, Plaintiff reported to Joey Williams, the Deputy Program Manager. Plaintiff was hired as the only full-time salaried technical writer. As such, Plaintiff's work was expected to be " substantially error free, grammatically correct, and properly formatted." Plaintiff does not contest this expectation, but he asserts that he was held to a higher standard than the other writers in the office. It is undisputed, however, that the other writers were subcontractors who were paid by the hour and had different duties and responsibilities than Plaintiff.
When he was hired, Plaintiff signed an acknowledgement form indicating that he had read Defendant's employee handbook outlining its policies and procedures. The handbook stated that employees must work eight hours a day, five days a week during their designated core work hours. Plaintiff's core work hours were from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M. Because Plaintiff was enrolled as a college student when he was first hired, Defendant temporarily accommodated his work schedule on the days that he had class. After Plaintiff's first semester, Kenney granted Plaintiff's request to extend the temporary accommodation through the spring semester.
Apart from his accommodated schedule, Plaintiff was expected to follow the policies laid out in the handbook. Included among those policies was the expectation that every employee work 40 hours a week. Further, an employee was expected to notify a manager and obtain approval for any anticipated tardiness or absence. The handbook emphasized that regular attendance and punctuality were essential conditions of employment and that poor attendance or excessive tardiness would lead to disciplinary action, up to and including termination.
B. Plaintiff's Initial Misconduct and Human Resources Complaint
Just a few months into Plaintiff's employment, in February 2013, Williams and Kenney began noticing problems with his work product, dress, and attendance. On February 25, 2013, Kenney reminded Plaintiff of Defendant's attendance policy and made clear that Plaintiff needed to discuss absences ahead of time with Williams. On April 1, 2013, Plaintiff informed Williams at 3:56 P.M. that he was leaving for the afternoon and would be gone the next day. Williams advised Plaintiff that he needed to request time off prior to taking it, and then he reported his concerns about Plaintiff to Human Resources Vice President Kim Schmitt on April 3, 2013. On that same date, Plaintiff sent an email to human resources stating that " something [wa]s amiss at igov."
On the morning of April 5, 2013, Williams met with Plaintiff to address his concerns.1 Williams subsequently emailed Schmitt and Kenney a summary of the meeting. According to the summary, Williams informed Plaintiff that he needed to adhere to the handbook regarding requests for time off and personal appearance-specifically advising him that sweatpants are inappropriate " even on Casual Friday." 2 Williams also provided Plaintiff examples of his poor work product. In addition, Williams informed Plaintiff that (1) he was not the " lead" technical writer, (2) everyone was held to the same standards, and (3) Plaintiff would need to meet with Williams again in 30 days to assess Plaintiff's improvement.
Three days later, Plaintiff filed a human resources complaint. The complaint verified the summary of Plaintiff's meeting with Williams and asked for clarification as to whether Plaintiff was the lead technical writer and whether he was required to quit school to continue his employment with Defendant. The complaint did not allege any discrimination by Defendant; rather it centered on Plaintiff's annoyance with various co-workers.3
Defendant took multiple steps to address the problems Plaintiff raised in his complaint, including holding a mandatory staff meeting to address " respect in the workplace." Additionally, Schmitt met with Plaintiff to review his human resources complaint on April 12, 2013. A copy of Schmitt's notes from the meeting show that she informed Plaintiff that (1) he was not the lead technical writer, (2) his school hours were a temporary accommodation that had ended and would not be extended, (3) all of Plaintiff's work, including drafts, must be approved by Williams before being released, and (4) Plaintiff should work with Williams and Kenney to remain a productive member of the team. After the meeting, Plaintiff sent an email to Schmitt stating, " Thanks again for the incredible phone call and walking me through how to resolve my issues, worked like a charm! The work environment has improved a great deal and things are slowing [sic] blending into a cohesive corporate climate." Schmitt indicated that she took no further action after receiving Plaintiff's April 30, 2013 email because she believed Plaintiff's problems had been resolved.
C. Plaintiff's Continuing Misconduct and Disciplinary Action
Plaintiff's performance, however, did not improve after the discussions described above. On April 29, 2013, Plaintiff again told Williams he was leaving the office early without getting permission beforehand. Williams and Kenney informed Schmitt of the incident and met with Plaintiff on April 30, 2013 to once again review Defendant's policies on requesting time off and leaving early. On May 10, 2013, Plaintiff announced to Williams that he would be in an hour late at 9 A.M. because " it's going to be a LONG DAY." On June 24, 2013, Plaintiff was late getting into the office and left at 3:30 PM without giving Williams or Kenney any reason for his absence. Plaintiff admits that he changed his schedule without permission at various times during his employment, but he argues that this was normal in the workplace and that he was the only worker punished for it.
In addition to Plaintiff's attendance problems, Williams and Kenney repeatedly found errors in Plaintiff's work. On May 6, 2013, Plaintiff submitted an assignment to Williams with typographical and grammatical errors. Williams asked Plaintiff to correct the errors, but Plaintiff re-submitted the assignment without the corrections. On June 4, 2013, Plaintiff left early without checking in with Williams or Kenney. Prior to leaving, he submitted an assignment to Kenney, due to be passed on to the client, that contained errors. In addition, Kenney started receiving complaints from other managers about errors in Plaintiff's work. Once again, Plaintiff does not deny that these incidents happened, but he claims that he was held to a higher standard than the other writers and that the cited examples are only a few out of many assignments he prepared during his employment.
Due to his ongoing performance problems, Kenney, Williams, and Schmitt presented Plaintiff with a disciplinary form on July 1, 2013. The form advised Plaintiff that immediate improvement was necessary to avoid additional discipline or termination, and that there would be a review of his progress in 30 days. Plaintiff refused to sign the form.
Even after receiving the form, Plaintiff's conduct did not improve. Throughout July and August 2013, Plaintiff continued to change his hours without informing his managers and to submit work that contained errors. In August 2013, Defendants discovered that Plaintiff had unauthorized programming on his computer. Around the same time, Plaintiff started having an issue with his coworker, Dwight Durham. Specifically, Plaintiff complained that Durham " sneezes all over his hands and his keyboard and mouse and then eats LUNCH without washing or cleaning his hands and then wants to come over and shake hands with the Plaintiff." Plaintiff requested supplies from Williams in order to deal with this " medical problem." He claims that he was the only worker required to ask Williams for supplies, and that this is another example of discrimination towards him.
On August 22, 2013, when Williams was unable to find Plaintiff at 4:40 P.M., he sent Plaintiff an email asking what time he had left for the day. Plaintiff did not reply to the email; instead, he forwarded the email to human resources and requested " HR's position on 'Toxic Work Environment', 'Harassment', and treating all employees equally." On August 29, 2013, Plaintiff received a performance improvement plan from Schmitt, Williams, and Kenney. The plan highlighted Plaintiff's continuing...
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