Rodgers v. U.S. Bank, N.A.

• Decision Date: 05 August 2005
• Docket Number: No. 04-3000.,04-3000.
• Citation: 417 F.3d 845
• Parties: Carla RODGERS, Appellant, v. U.S. BANK, N.A., Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

417 F.3d 845

Carla RODGERS, Appellant, v. U.S. BANK, N.A., Appellee.

No. 04-3000.

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

Submitted: April 15, 2005.

Filed: August 5, 2005.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

Brendon J. Donelon, argued, Kansas City, MO, for appellant.

Sara Elizabeth Welch, argued, Kansas City, MO, for appellee.

Before MELLOY, COLLOTON and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

GRUENDER, Circuit Judge.

Carla Rodgers ("Rodgers") appeals the decision of the district court¹ granting summary judgment to U.S. Bank, N.A. ("U.S.Bank"), on her claims of employment discrimination based on race under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Missouri Human Rights Act. We agree with Rodgers that she established a prima facie case of racial discrimination. However, because we conclude that Rodgers failed to raise a triable question of material fact as to whether U.S. Bank's legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for her termination was a pretext for discrimination, we affirm the district court.

I. BACKGROUND

Rodgers, an African-American woman, was employed at the Picture Hills Branch of U.S. Bank as a drive-through teller for approximately eleven months in 2002. When Rodgers joined U.S. Bank, she received the employee handbook and attended, three days of teller training. The employee handbook contains a number of policies, including U.S. Bank's policy prohibiting employees from processing transactions on their own accounts and its policy on progressive discipline.² Rodgers was trained on the proper way to do a "multi" transaction-a type of transaction in which a teller processes a combination of transactions for a customer. She also was trained on the bank's policy against employees processing transactions on their own accounts.

In November 2002, a suspicious-activity report generated by U.S. Bank's Loss Prevention Group triggered an investigation into Rodgers's account activity. Suspicious-activity reports identify transactions where the last name of the customer matches the last name of the employee performing the transaction. The reports are then reviewed and analyzed by loss-prevention analysts in the Employee Fraud Detection Group.

Rodgers's suspicious-activity report showed that she had processed five transactions on one of her personal bank accounts involving credits of more than $35,000. Many of the credits appeared to come from CD/IRA or Loan in Process accounts. Rodgers did not have any of these accounts and, as a drive-through teller, never processed transactions on these types of accounts. A subsequent investigation revealed four additional suspicious transactions, including a credit to her account in the amount of $620,003.14. Because there was no paper support for these transactions, they washed out of the system at the end of each day, and Rodgers never tried to remove money from her account while credits were posted there.

A loss-prevention analyst contacted Beth Money, East Region District Manager, and Jan Scaletta, Human Resources Manager, and asked that they follow up on the report. Money and Scaletta passed along the information to Pathe Price, corporate security investigator for U.S. Bank. Price, along with Vickie Gabbert, District Operations Manager, conducted the investigation.

Price and Gabbert interviewed Rodgers as part of their investigation. Rodgers explained that she had used her account number to get out of a multi-transaction when she entered the function accidentally and continued to enter data. Although there are other ways to get out of the multi-transaction function, Rodgers used her account number to "zero out" the transaction. Rodgers further explained that she did not believe there was anything wrong with this procedure because she had been taught the "trick" by a senior teller, Kathy Nichols. Although she offered to show them the mistakes on the keyboard, neither investigator had her do so.

Price and Gabbert did not find Rodgers's explanation credible for several reasons. First, the multi-transaction function could not be entered in the manner Rodgers described. Rodgers said that she had entered the multi-transaction function accidentally by hitting the enter key twice, but the function can only be entered by hitting another particular key on the keyboard. The investigators also had difficulty locating a corresponding transaction which Rodgers would have zeroed out with the transactions she processed on her account. In addition, several of the transactions Rodgers processed, such as CDs and loans, were not normally handled by drive-through tellers. There were other suspicious circumstances, including the presence of an overdraft-fee waiver on Rodgers's account, which was not permitted, and the fact that Rodgers had repeatedly checked her account balance on one of the days on which she processed some of the erroneous transactions.³ Price formed the opinion that Rodgers was testing the bank's computer system by putting money into her account and seeing if anything would "stick."

Price and Gabbert reported their findings and opinions to Jennifer Crim, the branch manager. Crim discussed the findings with her manager, Money. Based on the information obtained during the investigation, Money recommended that Rodgers be terminated. Crim agreed with Money's recommendation because she, like Price and Gabbert, did not find Rodgers's explanation to be credible. As a result, Crim terminated Rodgers's employment because she believed the risk associated with the suspicious transactions was too great to allow Rodgers to continue her employment.

The investigators did not interview Nichols because she was on vacation during U.S. Bank's investigation of Rodgers. However, as a result of Rodgers's explanation that she had learned from Nichols that she could use her account number to "zero out" a transaction, U.S. Bank conducted a follow-up investigation of Nichols. Nichols had been a teller at U.S. Bank and its predecessors for more than seventeen years. Shortly before the investigation of Rodgers, Nichols had been placed on written "final notice" for violating a U.S. Bank dual-control security policy which prohibits one person from having both the key and the combination to a vault.⁴

The Employee Fraud Detection Group investigated Nichols's account activity to determine whether she had used her own account number for any transactions. Investigators found one such transaction. However, in contrast to Rodgers's account activity, they were able to determine how Nichols had gotten to the point where she found it necessary to use her account number and the specific transaction she was attempting to reverse. Additionally, Nichols immediately reversed the transaction on her own account rather than allowing it to wash out at the end of the day. The branch manager found Nichols's explanation to be credible and did not discipline her.

Rodgers filed a complaint against U.S. Bank alleging that her termination constituted racial discrimination in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1981, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Missouri Human Rights Act. Specifically, she alleged that she suffered disparate treatment based on race when she was terminated for violating the same U.S. Bank policy as Nichols, a white employee who was not disciplined for violating the policy. U.S Bank moved for summary judgment. The district court granted U.S. Bank's motion, concluding that Rodgers did not establish a prima facie case of racial discrimination. Rodgers now appeals.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Introduction

We review the district court's grant of summary judgment to U.S. Bank de novo. Pope v. ESA Services, Inc., 406 F.3d 1001, 1006 (8th Cir.2005). "Summary judgment is appropriate only when there is no genuine issue of material fact and the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Randolph v. Rodgers, 170 F.3d 850, 856 (8th Cir.1999). On summary judgment, "[t]he burden of demonstrating that there are no genuine issues of material fact rests on the moving party." Winthrop Resources Corp. v. Eaton Hydraulics, Inc., 361 F.3d 465, 468 (8th Cir.2004). The non-moving party, however, must still "present[] evidence sufficiently supporting the disputed material facts that a reasonable jury could return a verdict in [her] favor." Gregory v. City of Rogers, Ark., 974 F.2d 1006, 1010 (8th Cir.1992) (en banc). "[W]e must view the evidence and the inferences that may be reasonably drawn from the evidence in the light most favorable" to Rodgers, the non-moving party. Winthrop Resources, 361 F.3d at 468. While summary judgment "should seldom be utilized" in employment discrimination cases, Stidham v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg., Inc., 399 F.3d 935, 937 (8th Cir.2005), "there is no `discrimination case exception' to the application of Fed. R.Civ.P. 56, and it remains a useful pretrial tool to determine whether or not any case, including one alleging discrimination, merits a trial." Berg v. Norand Corp., 169 F.3d 1140, 1144 (8th Cir.1999).

In this case, we employ the familiar McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. Turner v. Honeywell Fed. Mfg. & Techs., LLC, 336 F.3d 716, 720 (8th Cir.2003) (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 801-04, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973)). "Under the McDonnell Douglas framework, a presumption of discrimination is created when the plaintiff meets [her] burden of establishing a prima facie case of employment discrimination. A minimal evidentiary showing will satisfy this burden of production." Pope, 406 F.3d at 1006-07 (citations omitted). Once the plaintiff establishes a prima facie case of discrimination, "[i]t then falls to the employer to promulgate a non-discriminatory, legitimate justification for its conduct, which rebuts the employee's prima facie case." Sprenger v. Fed. Home Loan Bank of Des Moines, 253 F.3d 1106, 1111 (8th Cir.2001) (citing St. Mary's Honor Center v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 507, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d...