Didier v. Laboratories
| Decision Date | 31 July 2015 |
| Docket Number | No. 14-3125,14-3125 |
| Parties | JEREMY DIDIER, Plaintiff - Appellant, v. ABBOTT LABORATORIES; ABBOTT LABORATORIES, INC.; ABBOTT PRODUCTS, INC.; ABBVIE, INC., Defendants - Appellees. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
(D. Kan.)
ORDER AND JUDGMENT*Before HARTZ, HOLMES, and PHILLIPS, Circuit Judges.
From 2002 until her termination in 2012, Jeremy Didier, a woman, was an employee of Abbott Laboratories ("Abbott") and its predecessor Solvay Pharmaceuticals ("Solvay"). Didier began working at Solvay as a sales representative, and by 2010 she had been promoted to the position of District Manager. Her promotion brought with it a new supervisor, K. Byron Rex. Didier contends that while they worked together Rex made numerous comments about her ability to balance caring for her young children with her work responsibilities, comments he never uttered to male employees with young children.
Three events form the backdrop of this case. First, in 2011 Didier requested and was granted intermittent leave under the Family Medical Leave Act ("FMLA") to take her two young children to medical and therapy appointments for a few hours each week. Second, later in 2011, Didier submitted what the company considered an inappropriate reimbursement request for gifts to the sales representatives she supervised. She had been counseled against making such requests, and Abbott's continued concern over problems in her expense reports led it to launch an investigation. Third, and concurrent with this investigation, Rex expressed concern over other reimbursement requests Didier submitted. Abbott's numerous concerns regarding Didier's reimbursement requests led it to launch a second investigation that culminated in Didier's termination in March 2012.
After her termination, Didier filed charges with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). She alleged sex and religious discrimination, interference with her FMLA rights, FMLA retaliation, and other violations not pursued on appeal. Didier eventually received a right-to-sue letter and filed suit in federal district court. She alleged claims similar to those she had brought before the EEOC.
After the parties conducted discovery in district court, Abbott filed a motion for summary judgment on all claims. Without a hearing, the district court granted summary judgment in Abbott's favor. Didier now appeals the district court's grant of summary judgment on three of the five claims she raised below: (1) sexdiscrimination under Title VII; (2) FMLA interference; and (3) FMLA retaliation. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we affirm.
From 2002 until 2010, Didier was an employee of Solvay. After Abbott acquired Solvay in 2010, Didier became an employee of Abbott and remained as such until her termination on March 8, 2012. During her employment with Solvay/Abbott, Didier was promoted three times, her last position being Kansas City District Manager. Her final promotion to District Manager was approved by the man who became her direct supervisor, K. Byron Rex.2
Before turning to Didier's termination, we first lay out a few necessary details regarding the background of her employment and her relationship with her supervisor. The first details pertain to her supervisor. Didier contends that Rex has a history of making inappropriate comments regarding his views on the role of women in society and in the workplace. Didier highlights the following: (1) in 2001, Rex voiced his opinion that young women with children should stay home, suggesting to a female sales representative who resigned after these comments that she shouldwelcome the opportunity to remain home with her children; (2) in 2009, Rex questioned Didier during her district-manager interview about whether she could do the job with four young children and a husband who worked full-time; (3) in 2009, Rex urged Didier not to report a male employee who was making false and disparaging comments about her, and then became angry at Didier after he was reprimanded for giving that advice; (4) in 2010, Rex reported Didier for personal use of a corporate credit card although he had failed to report his male subordinates for similarly using their corporate cards for personal expenses despite their frequently doing so; (5) in 2012, Rex instructed Didier to "focus on your faith and your family" when she expressed worry for her job security during Abbott's investigation of her, and he repeatedly sought assurances from Didier throughout Abbott's investigation that her husband had a good job and that her family "would be okay" if she was fired; (6) in 2012, during a discussion of a female sales representative, Rex mentioned to Troy Petrick, a District Manager, that one way to get rid of employees was to turn them in for expense-reporting violations; and (7) in 2012, after Didier's termination, Rex raised concerns with Terri Garrett, Didier's successor as District Manager, about the commitment of two high-performing female representatives to their work due to their childcare responsibilities.3
The second pieces of necessary background concern Abbott and Solvay's reimbursement policies for food reimbursement and travel booking. Regarding foodreimbursement, Solvay had a written policy stating that employees could incur only those travel and entertainment expenses that were reasonable and necessary to conduct business: for meals, it offered ballpark figures of $15 for breakfast, $20 for lunch, and $50 for dinner. Abbott's policies and approval procedures are a bit more detailed and are contained in its Travel & Entertainment ("T&E") policy. The T&E policy requires supervisor approval of all corporate expenses, prohibits reimbursement for personal expenses, and disallows corporate reimbursement of expenses incurred for anyone other than an Abbott employee (except for meals for spouses required to attend an Abbott event). Abbott generally reimburses dinner expenses only for employees traveling overnight on a business trip, but if an employee is not traveling overnight on a business trip, the policy also reimburses dinner when an employee arrives home late due to work if the employee annotates such an expense in the explanation of her expense report.
Despite these clear policies, Didier maintains there were also certain unwritten guidelines regarding travel and food expenses that were widely known and followed by employees at both Solvay and Abbott. These included wide latitude regarding the application of suggested amounts to food expenses, which she contends meant she could apply that amount towards the cost of a meal that she ate either by herself or with her family. Didier states that she frequently did this, and that Rex routinely approved these expenses when he was her supervisor at both Solvay and Abbott.
Concerning travel booking, only Abbott's policies are relevant here. Abbott requires employees to book all travel through its authorized travel agency. If forwhatever reason an employee must book travel through an alternative channel, she must submit a Travel Agency Exception Form together with her expense report for corporate reimbursement. Among other requirements, this form requires that the employee explain why she did not book her ticket through Abbott's travel agency and requires a signature from her supervisor.
Finally, given that two of Didier's three claims before us concern her use of FMLA leave, we provide background concerning Didier's FMLA usage. In November 2011, Didier began taking intermittent FMLA leave to take her two young sons to therapy and medical appointments for a few hours each week. Rex and his supervisor, Marty Comer, were aware of Didier's FMLA leave. In 2012, Didier took a few hours of such leave on January 9th, 12th, 18th, 20th, and 27th, as well as February 6th and 10th.
We now turn to the key issues undergirding the claims before us. These began in December 2011, when Didier sought reimbursement for gift baskets she had purchased for members of her sales team. In April and May 2010, Abbott had counseled Didier that such expenses were inappropriate for reimbursement. Abbott's Corporate Disbursement Department flagged this submission, causing Susan Ballard—a Disbursement Analyst—to review more closely Didier's recent reimbursement requests. In her review, Ballard noted that Didier had frequently submitted meals for reimbursement without an overnight stay and—based on these irregularities—Ballard initiated an audit of the past two years of Didier's reimbursement requests. Ballard summarized these findings in a CorporateDisbursement Case Report, which she submitted to Abbott's Office of Ethics and Compliance ("OEC") for further investigation.4
Contemporaneous with this series of events, Rex was having his own issues with Didier's unrelated January 12, 2012, expense report. Specifically, Rex had two concerns: (1) Didier had submitted a Travel Agency Exception Form without obtaining his signature (Didier had instead written Rex's name on the signature line and noted that his signature was "on file"); and (2) Didier had submitted for reimbursement a dinner on January 2, 2012 for her family in the amount of $53.53. Regarding the first concern, Rex discussed with Didier her use of a method other than Abbott's designated travel agency to book travel and asked her to revise and resubmit the form, which he eventually signed. Regarding the second, however, Rex had more issues. He was alarmed both because January 2 was a company holiday on which Didier would not have been traveling for work and because she had submitted an expense for a family dinner. Upon confronting Didier about the family-dinner expense, Rex said to Didier, "Please tell me we've not been paying for dinners for your family all this time." In response, Didier told Rex that he had approved family-dinner expenses for years and that she believed these expenses complied with the T&E policy....
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