Villa v. Cavamezze Grill, LLC

• Decision Date: 07 June 2017
• Docket Number: No. 15-2543,15-2543
• Citation: 858 F.3d 896
• Parties: Patricia VILLA, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. CAVAMEZZE GRILL, LLC ; CavaMezze Grill Mosaic, LLC, Defendants–Appellees, and Cava Group, Inc., Defendant. Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association; U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amici Supporting Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

858 F.3d 896

Patricia VILLA, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v. CAVAMEZZE GRILL, LLC ; CavaMezze Grill Mosaic, LLC, Defendants–Appellees,andCava Group, Inc., Defendant.Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association; U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Amici Supporting Appellant.

No. 15-2543

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: March 21, 2017

Decided: June 7, 2017

ARGUED: Matthew B. Kaplan, THE KAPLAN LAW FIRM PLLC, Arlington, Virginia, for Appellant. Sarah Catherine Crawford, UNITED STATES EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae. David Barmak, MINTZ, LEVIN, COHN, FERRIS, GLOVSKY AND POPEO, P.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Dennis Corkery, Christine Tschiderer, WASHINGTON LAWYERS' COMMITTEE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS AND URBAN AFFAIRS, Washington, D.C., for Appellant. Alta M. Ray, MINTZ, LEVIN, COHN, FERRIS, GLOVSKY AND POPEO, P.C., Washington, D.C., for Appellees. Stephen Z. Chertkof, HELLER, HURON, CHERTKOF & SALZMAN, PLLC, Washington, D.C.; Erik D. Snyder, PASSMAN & KAPLAN, P.C., Washington, D.C.; Alan R. Kabat, BERNABEI & KABAT, PLLC, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Metropolitan Washington Employment Lawyers Association. P. David Lopez, General Counsel, Jennifer S. Goldstein, Associate General Counsel, Lorraine C. Davis, Assistant General Counsel, Anne W. King, Office of General Counsel, UNITED STATES EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION, Washington, D.C., for Amicus United States Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

Before MOTZ, TRAXLER, and AGEE, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Traxler wrote the opinion, in which Judge Motz and Judge Agee joined.

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

Patricia Villa appeals a district court order granting summary judgment against her in her Title VII retaliation case against CavaMezze Grill, LLC, and CavaMezze Grill Mosaic, LLC (together, "Cava" or "the employer"). Finding no error, we affirm.

I.

CavaMezze Grill, LLC ("CMG") is a Maryland limited-liability company and the parent company of several restaurants, each of which is owned and operated by a wholly owned subsidiary of CMG. CavaMezze Grill Mosaic, LLC ("Mosaic") is a Virginia limited-liability company and wholly owned subsidiary of CMG that owns and operates the Cava Mezze Grill restaurant located in Merrifield, Virginia.

Rob Gresham was CMG's Director of Operations and oversaw the operations of each restaurant, including the Merrifield restaurant. Sergio Valdivia was Cava's Area Manager and managed a total of five restaurants, including the Merrifield restaurant.

Villa began working at Cava in the spring of 2012. In October 2013, she was a low-level manager for Mosaic, and she reported directly to Mosaic's General Manager, Marcelo Butron.

On October 28, 2013, Villa called Gresham and reported that Judy Bonilla, a former line-level Mosaic employee whom she had sometimes supervised, had told Villa that Butron had offered to give Bonilla a raise in exchange for sex. Villa told Gresham that this conversation occurred in the presence of Osmar Marinero, another Mosaic employee. During her conversation with Gresham, Villa told Gresham that she also suspected that Jessica Arias, another former Mosaic employee, had left Mosaic because Butron made Arias a similar offer.

Gresham informed Villa that he would investigate the allegations. He informed Bret Schulman, Cava's Chief Executive Officer, of Villa's report, and Schulman instructed him to investigate the allegations by speaking to the people involved.

Gresham subsequently met with Bonilla at a restaurant. Because Bonilla spoke Spanish but little English, Valdivia was also present and he translated for Gresham. When Gresham asked Bonilla why she had left Mosaic, Bonilla responded that she left for a better paying job. When he asked whether she left because Butron told her he would only give her a raise in exchange for sex, Bonilla denied that that occurred. Bonilla also denied making the statements that Villa had reported.

Gresham spoke to Arias by phone. During the conversation, Arias explained that she left Mosaic because she lived far away. When asked specifically whether she left because Butron offered to give her a raise in exchange for sex, Arias laughed, denied that Butron made such an offer, and added that whoever told Gresham that was lying.

Gresham also informally spoke with Marinero, who told Gresham that Bonilla left Mosaic "for more money" and Arias left because her "family[ was] crazy." J.A. 77. He denied knowing anything about either of them leaving because of sexual harassment from Butron.

As a result of his investigation, Gresham concluded that Villa had made up the allegations. Gresham met with Villa and Butron on November 5, 2013, and explained to Villa that he had spoken with Bonilla and Arias and they both had denied that Butron had offered them a raise in exchange for sex, and that as a result, he determined that Villa made a false report regarding Butron. Gresham informed Villa that her employment was terminated. Villa told Gresham she was sorry but did not deny fabricating the report.

Villa subsequently filed a retaliation complaint with the Fairfax County, Virginia, Office of Human Rights, which was cross-filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission ("EEOC"). The Office of Human Rights did not reach the merits of the issue, and Villa received a right-to-sue letter. She then filed suit in federal district court, alleging Title VII retaliation.

In her deposition for this case, Bonilla changed her story and acknowledged that Villa had in fact accurately reported their conversation, and she claimed that she had lied to Gresham when she told him otherwise. Bonilla also testified that although she had told Villa that Butron offered to give her a raise for sex, Butron, unbeknownst to Villa, never actually made such an offer.

Following discovery, Cava moved for summary judgment, contending that even if it had incorrectly concluded that Villa had fabricated her allegation, Cava's termination of her for the fabrication did not constitute Title VII retaliation. Cava maintained that it was undisputed that its conclusion that Villa had made up her allegations was Cava's true reason for terminating Villa and not a pretext for retaliatory animus. Cava pointed to paragraph 43 of its statement of undisputed facts in its memorandum supporting summary judgment, which stated in relevant part:

Since Ms. Arias and Ms. Bonilla denied the allegations about Mr. Butron, and denied that they have ever made the allegations to Ms. Villa, Mr. Gresham concluded that Ms. Villa made up the allegations. As a result, Mr. Gresham decided to terminate Ms. Villa's employment for fabricating the report against Mr. Butron.

J.A. 32-33. In Villa's response to Cava's asserted undisputed facts, Villa specifically did "not dispute the assertions in th[at] paragraph." J.A. 189.

Although conceding that Cava's conclusion that she fabricated the report was the true reason she was terminated, Villa argued that because she acted in good faith when she made her complaint to Gresham, her termination constituted illegal retaliation, regardless of what Cava honestly believed. In fact, she maintained that Cava's admission that it terminated her for her report of Bonilla's allegations was direct evidence of retaliatory animus, rendering irrelevant the McDonnell Douglas burden scheme. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green , 411 U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). Villa alternatively argued that there was a genuine factual dispute regarding whether Cava's investigation was reasonably thorough.

The district court rejected Villa's arguments and concluded that Villa had failed to create a genuine factual dispute concerning whether Cava's desire to retaliate against her was the but-for cause of her termination. The court also reasoned that Villa "ha[d] conceded that her termination would have occurred regardless of the presence or absence of retaliatory animus." J.A. 404. The court concluded that the fact that Villa, unbeknownst to her employer, actually had not fabricated her conversation with Bonilla could not be a basis for Title VII liability, nor could any lack of thoroughness by Cava in investigating Villa's misconduct.

II.

Villa contends that the district court erred in granting summary judgment against her on her Title VII retaliation claim. We disagree.

"We review a district court's decision to grant summary judgment de novo, applying the same legal standards as the district court, and viewing all facts and reasonable inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party." T–Mobile Ne., LLC v. City Council of Newport News , 674 F.3d 380, 384–85 (4th Cir. 2012) (internal quotation marks omitted). Summary judgment is appropriate "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." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).

Title VII makes it illegal for "an employer to discriminate against any of his employees ... because [the employee] has opposed any practice made an unlawful employment practice by" Title VII "or because he has made a charge, testified, assisted, or participated in any manner in an investigation, proceeding, or hearing under" Title VII. 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a) (emphasis added). The first part of this statute is known as the "opposition clause," while the second is the "participation clause."

Under either clause, since the statute only prohibits an employer from discriminating "because" the employee has engaged in a certain type of conduct, "Title VII retaliation claims require proof that the desire to retaliate was the but-for cause of the challenged employment action." University of Tx. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar , ––– U.S. ––––, 133 S.Ct. 2517, 2528, 186 L.Ed.2d 503 (2013) (emphasis added); see Foster v. University of Maryland-Eastern Shore , 787 F.3d 243, 246, 252 (4th Cir. 2015) (" Nassar ... held that a successful...