Coleman v. Donahoe

• Citation: 667 F.3d 835,95 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44384,114 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 160
• Decision Date: 06 January 2012
• Docket Number: No. 10–3694.,10–3694.
• Parties: Denise COLEMAN, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Patrick R. DONAHOE, Postmaster General, Defendant–Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

114 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 160
667 F.3d 835
95 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 44,384

Denise COLEMAN, Plaintiff–Appellant,
v.
Patrick R. DONAHOE, Postmaster General, Defendant–Appellee.

No. 10–3694.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Sept. 14, 2011.Decided Jan. 6, 2012.

[667 F.3d 840]

Tiana N. Evans (argued), Attorney, Winston & Strawn LLP, Chicago, IL, for Plaintiff–Appellant.

Abigail L. Peluso (argued), Attorney, Office of the United States Attorney, Chicago, IL, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before WOOD, TINDER, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.

HAMILTON, Circuit Judge.

In 2006, the United States Postal Service terminated plaintiff Denise Coleman's 32 years of employment as a mail processing

[667 F.3d 841]

clerk. The Postal Service contends that it fired Coleman because she told her psychiatrist she was having thoughts of killing her supervisor, and it believed she posed a danger to her fellow employees. Coleman alleges that her termination was discriminatory (she is African American and a woman) and retaliatory (she had previously complained, both formally and informally, of discriminatory treatment). In support of her disparate treatment claims under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Coleman presented evidence that two white male employees at the same facility had recently threatened another employee at knife-point, yet received only one-week suspensions from the same manager who fired her.

The district court found that these comparator employees were not similarly situated to Coleman because they had different direct supervisors and held different positions. Coleman therefore failed, in the district court's view, to establish a prima facie case of discrimination under the “indirect method” of proof derived from McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). The district court also held that Coleman had not provided any evidence that the Postal Service's stated reason for firing her—that she violated its rule prohibiting workplace violence and threats—was pretextual. The district court therefore granted the Postal Service's motion for summary judgment on all claims. Coleman appeals.

We reverse summary judgment on Coleman's discrimination claims and her retaliation claims. This appeal raises two recurring questions concerning comparator evidence in employment discrimination cases using the indirect method of proof: First, just how alike must comparators be to the plaintiff to be considered similarly situated? Second, can evidence that a similarly situated employee received better treatment serve not only as an element of the plaintiff's prima facie case, but also satisfy the plaintiff's burden to show that the employer's legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its action was pretextual?

For the first question, we reiterate here that the similarly-situated inquiry is flexible, common-sense, and factual. It asks “essentially, are there enough common features between the individuals to allow a meaningful comparison?” Humphries v. CBOCS West, Inc., 474 F.3d 387, 405 (7th Cir.2007), aff'd, 553 U.S. 442, 128 S.Ct. 1951, 170 L.Ed.2d 864 (2008). There must be “sufficient commonalities on the key variables between the plaintiff and the would-be comparator to allow the type of comparison that, taken together with the other prima facie evidence, would allow a jury to reach an inference of discrimination.” Id. In other words, the proposed comparator must be similar enough to permit a reasonable juror to infer, in light of all the circumstances, that an impermissible animus motivated the employer's decision. Here, Coleman's two white, male co-workers were disciplined by the same decisionmaker, subject to the same code of conduct, and disciplined more leniently for violating the same rule as she. Their case is close enough to Coleman's to provide a “meaningful comparison” and to permit a reasonable jury to infer discrimination. Id.

The answer to the second question is yes. In McDonnell Douglas itself, the Supreme Court noted that comparator evidence would be “[e]specially relevant” at the pretext stage. 411 U.S. at 804, 93 S.Ct. 1817. Under our circuit precedents, too, an employment discrimination plaintiff may demonstrate pretext by providing evidence that a similarly situated employee outside her protected class received more favorable treatment. Coleman has done

[667 F.3d 842]

so. The evidence of selective application of the rule against violence and threats to Coleman—whose confidential expressions of anger during inpatient psychotherapy were not direct threats at all, and who was discharged as stable before the Postal Service even heard about those thoughts—undercuts the Postal Service's assertion that it was just neutrally enforcing its “no tolerance” policy. Together with other evidence calling into question the honesty of the Postal Service's rationale, Coleman's comparator evidence presents a jury question as to pretext.

I. Factual and Procedural Background

In assessing whether the Postal Service is entitled to summary judgment, we examine the record in the light most favorable to Coleman, the non-moving party, resolving all evidentiary conflicts in her favor and according her the benefit of all reasonable inferences that may be drawn from the record. O'Leary v. Accretive Health, Inc., 657 F.3d 625, 630 (7th Cir.2011). Our account of the facts therefore is not necessarily true in an objective sense, but reflects the standard that applies to motions for summary judgment.

Coleman began working for the Postal Service in 1974. She had a good employment record until January 2005, when her longtime supervisor retired. William Berry was selected as the replacement by William Sove, the plant's maintenance manager. Sove is white; Berry is black. Coleman believed Sove had passed over her for the promotion because she was female. She also felt Berry was treating her poorly in his new supervisory role. She related these complaints in an April 2005 email to Gregory Johnson, the head of the facility where she worked. The following month, Coleman emailed Sove, accusing him and Berry of discrimination and threatening to file a charge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

On June 5, 2005, Coleman learned that she would soon undergo surgery. Two days later, she submitted a request to Johnson and Sove to advance her two weeks of future paid sick leave for her convalescence. The same day, Berry directed Coleman to clean an especially dingy area behind a storeroom and to move some heavy boxes—tasks, she says, that were not among her regular duties. Coleman refused, telling Berry that she was unable to lift the boxes because of her upcoming surgery and that the storeroom's chemicals and dust would exacerbate her chronic asthma. Berry issued Coleman a “Letter of Warning” for failing to follow instructions. On June 9, 2005, Johnson denied her request for advanced sick leave.

As scheduled, Coleman had surgery on June 10, 2005. She returned to work on June 23, 2005, subject to the medical restriction that she avoid climbing stairs for two weeks. Because Coleman's usual work station was up one flight of stairs, Berry informed her that she could work in the ground-floor storeroom, but because of her asthma this was not an attractive alternative to Coleman. When she rejected it, Berry sent her home. She returned to the mail facility a week later with revised medical restrictions permitting her to climb stairs once or twice per day. But Berry then told Coleman that all employees had to clock in using a particular time-clock—a change that would require her taking more than the maximum stairs she was advised to ascend. She again left work. The following week, Berry issued Coleman an absent-without-leave notice because she had not worked or announced her absence in five days. As this conflict unfolded, Coleman filed an EEO request for pre-complaint counseling on June 21,

[667 F.3d 843]

2005, identifying Berry and Sove as the discriminating officials. She supplemented her request with additional information on July 1, 2005.

On July 12, 2005, Coleman checked herself into the psychiatric unit of a hospital complaining of depression, anxiety, and insomnia. In her admission interview, Coleman experienced “severe crying spells, helplessness, [and] hopelessness with suicidal ideation.” The treating psychiatrist, Dr. Ofelia Ionescu, observed Coleman's “extremely paranoid/obsessional thinking about being harassed by her supervisor, Mr. Berry,” and she described Coleman as “endorsing ... homicidal ideation ‘every time I'm talking about him [Berry].’ ” Coleman remained at the hospital for three weeks while she received talk therapy and various medication. The course of treatment did her good. When she was discharged on August 3, 2005, Coleman displayed “a marked reduction in depression and in particular the paranoid symptoms” and “a reasonable control for her anger and aggression.” In her final report, Dr. Ionescu described Coleman as a “model patient” in “stable” condition: “Alert, awake, ... oriented ... cooperative, [and] pleasant.... No formal thought disorder. Affect was reactive, smiling. Mood was ‘good.’ There were no reports of delusions[,] ... hallucinations[,] ... [or] suicidal or homicidal ideation.”

But on the day of Coleman's discharge, Dr. Ionescu returned a phone call from Berry, who had called to ask about Coleman's treatment. In her final report, Dr. Ionescu wrote: “I did inform Mr. Berry that I am not discussing with him about [sic] my patient; but it was considered to be my responsibility [sic] as the patient's physician to warn him that my patient had been expressing threats to his life in my presence.” The content and form of these “threats” remain something of a mystery: the record contains no elaboration from Dr. Ionescu beyond the vague “homicidal ideation” language in the discharge report. Coleman claims she never formed any plan to harm Berry and that a...