Sanders v. Christwood
| Decision Date | 14 August 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. 19-30550,19-30550 |
| Parties | Iona SANDERS, Plaintiff - Appellant v. CHRISTWOOD, a Louisiana Non-Profit Corporation, Improperly Named as Christwood L.L.C., Defendant - Appellee |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Iona Sanders, Pro Se
Christine S. Keenan, Kullman Firm, Baton Rouge, LA, for Defendant - Appellee
Michael O. Adley, Charles M. Kreamer, Sr., Esq., Gibson Law Partners, L.L.C., Lafayette, LA, for Amicus Curiae Acadiana Concern for Aids Relief Education and Support
Before HIGGINBOTHAM, ELROD, and HAYNES, Circuit Judges.
Plaintiff Iona Sanders challenges the district court's summary judgment dismissal of her suit for intentional discrimination under two federal statutes and retaliation under Louisiana's Whistleblower Statute. We affirm the district court's dismissal of Sanders's discrimination claims, and we reverse as to the dismissal of her whistleblower claim and remand for further consideration.
In 2008, Iona Sanders, who is African-American, began working for Christwood, L.L.C., a nonprofit corporation that owns and operates a continuing care retirement community in Covington, Louisiana. Sanders was promoted to the position of assisted living unit (ALU) director at some point between March 2015 and November 2016.1 On December 4, 2016, Christwood notified Louisiana's Department of Health that Sanders was the new ALU director.
On December 19, 2016, a resident of the ALU wandered off the premises and was found three hours later with hypothermia. Christwood was required to file an incident report with the state within 24 hours.2 Later that day, the nurse on duty, Ian Thompson, prepared a report and Sanders signed off on it. The report was submitted to Sanders's immediate supervisor, Tami Perry, who as residential health services director was responsible for overseeing Christwood's ALU, among other units.
Perry asked Sanders to work with Thompson to redo or revise the report by noon the next day, but Sanders believed it was illegal and inappropriate to require Thompson to make changes to the report and did not order him to do so. That night, Perry emailed Sanders, reminding her that the report was due the next day, December 20, at noon. According to Perry, Sanders called her on December 21 and said that she had not submitted the report. On December 24, Perry completed and submitted the incident report without Sanders's assistance.
On Friday, January 27, 2017, Perry and Christwood's Executive Director, the Reverend L. Stephen Holzhalb, decided to reassign Sanders from the ALU director position to the quality assurance coordinator position in Christwood's skilled nursing unit. Holzhalb told Sanders that she was being reassigned but would retain the same pay, benefits, and hours.
Over the weekend, a nurse could not make her shift, resulting in a staffing shortage and a delay in the administration of medication to the ALU residents. Sanders did not notify Perry of the delay.
Sanders met with Perry and Holzhalb on Monday morning, telling them, "I'm not taking a demotion." After the meeting, Holzhalb told Perry that the medication delay was an additional reason to reassign Sanders, though by that point the decision had already been made. Later that day, Perry and Christwood's HR director, Ladonna Allen, prepared a letter stating that Christwood was reassigning Sanders due to her failure to file the incident report within the mandated timeframe and her failure to notify "Residential Health Services of a nurse call in and [delay in] medication delivery to independent residents." Perry and Allen met with Sanders and gave her the letter. After Sanders did not call in or show up to work for the next two days, Christwood, concluding that Sanders had voluntarily resigned, ended her employment.
In September 2017, Sanders filed the instant suit against Christwood.3 In December 2018, Christwood moved for summary judgment, which the district court granted. Sanders, proceeding pro se , appealed.
We review a grant of summary judgment de novo .4 Summary judgment is proper "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law."5
Sanders asserts multiple claims of intentional discrimination under 42 U.S.C. § 1981 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as a claim of retaliation under Louisiana's Whistleblower Statute ("LWS").6
To state a prima facie case of intentional discrimination under Title VII, Sanders must demonstrate that she:
(1) is a member of a protected group; (2) was qualified for the position at issue; (3) was discharged or suffered some adverse employment action by the employer; and (4) was replaced by someone outside h[er] protected group or was treated less favorably than other similarly situated employees outside the protected group.7
Because Sanders provides no direct evidence of racial discrimination, we apply the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.8 Under this framework, the plaintiff "carr[ies] the initial burden under the statute of establishing a prima facie case of racial discrimination."9 Once the plaintiff has met this burden, it "shift[s] to the employer to articulate some legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for the employee's rejection."10 If the employer has articulated such a reason, then the plaintiff must show that the stated reason "was in fact pretext."11
In essence, Sanders asserts four claims of intentional discrimination. The first is rooted in Christwood's failure to timely list her with the state as the ALU director. The remaining claims are for discriminatory pay, discriminatory demotion, and constructive discharge.
Sanders maintains that as early as 2015, Christwood was required under state regulations to notify the state that she was the ALU director. But even if Sanders is correct, she fails to explain how she was adversely affected. This claim fails.
Sanders provides two arguments in support of her discriminatory pay claim. Sanders argues that she was not paid the "directors’ annual bonus." The record establishes that Sanders was not part of the "Director's Group," a group of about 15 senior leaders that met on a weekly basis, and was therefore ineligible for the "annual Director's bonus." There is no indication that Sanders’ exclusion from the group was due to race. According to Christwood's HR director, Christwood was downsizing and reorganizing the group. Sanders's presence in the Group was not needed because Perry was a group member and continued to oversee the ALU. Likewise, since the administrator of the skilled nursing unit was a group member, the unit's director of nursing—a position held by two white women during the relevant period—was not. Similarly, Christwood removed its directors of environmental services and of special projects, both white, from the group and added a single plant director to the group instead. These examples undermine Sanders's claim that she should have been a member of the director's group because her title had the word "director" in it. We also note that Sanders's replacement as ALU Director, a white woman, was not a member of the Director's Group either. We see no basis for concluding that these explanations are merely pretextual.
Last, Sanders argues that she was paid less than Perry. She concedes, however, that there is no evidence in the record on Perry's compensation. Without this information, Perry cannot serve as a valid comparator. We conclude that Sanders's discriminatory pay claim fails.
Sanders argues that her reassignment from ALU director to quality assurance coordinator was a discriminatory demotion. She also argues that as a result of this demotion, she was forced to resign and was constructively discharged. We assume arguendo that Sanders has made out prima facie cases of discriminatory demotion and constructive discharge.
In response, Christwood maintains that it reassigned Sanders due to her mishandling of the "mandatory reporting incident, including her failure to timely submit the incident report to the State and her refusal to obtain a clarified incident report."
Sanders does not dispute that Christwood has produced a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for her termination.
She instead attempts to establish pretext by proving discriminatory intent. First, she argues that only African-American employees—two certified nursing assistants (CNAs) and herself—were terminated or demoted because of the December 19 incident, while white employees—Thompson and Perry—were not. The two CNAs are inapt comparators as they were terminated for falsifying documents related to the incident. There is no indication that any other employee falsified documents. Thompson is also an improper comparator, as Sanders was involved in the decision to issue him a written warning. According to Christwood's HR director, Sanders told her that she did not want to terminate Thompson.
Next, Sanders argues that Perry received preferential treatment, as she was not disciplined for refusing to send the report to the state. But Perry never refused to send the report; she ordered Sanders to submit a report, and when Sanders ultimately failed to comply, prepared and submitted the report herself.12 We therefore affirm summary judgment for Christwood on Sanders's intentional discrimination claims.
The Louisiana Whistleblower Statute provides: "An employer shall not take reprisal against an employee who in good faith, and after advising the employer of the violation of law ... [o]bjects to or refuses to participate in an employment act or practice that is in violation of law."13 As the LWS does not define the term "employer," the district court looked to the Louisiana Employment Discrimination Law's (LEDL) definition of the term:
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