Barthelus v. G4S Government Solutions: Panel Summarily Reverses Grant of Summary Judgment in Employment Discrimination Case

Barthelus v. G4S Government Solutions, Inc., No. 13-14121, from SDFla

Per curiam opinion joined by Circuit Judge Tjoflat, Circuit Judge Wilson and Senior Circuit Judge Anderson.

Summary:  The plaintiff sued his former employer for violations of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a) and e-2(3), and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 premised on workplace discrimination, denials of promotions, termination of employment on account of age, race, and national origin, and retaliation for complaining about discrimination.  The defendant moved for summary judgment, and the district court granted summary judgment on all claims.

The plaintiff only appealed the grant of summary judgment on his claims of unlawful national origin discrimination in violation of Title VII and unlawful race discrimination in violation of § 1981. Plaintiff alleged that he was Haitian and was denied promotions and pay raises because of his accent, even though all other non-black, non-Haitian employees received raises. 

The defendant filed an answer and the case proceeded through discovery where a motion for summary judgment was filed.  The defendant contended in its motion for summary judgment that the complaint only asserted a claim for national origin discrimination, and conceded that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of such discrimination.  The district court found, however, that the defendant satisfied its burden of showing a legitimate, non-discriminatory reason for the plaintiff’s termination, namely his poor performance, and further found that plaintiff had not demonstrated that this reason was a pretext. 

The panel reversed and remanded because it could not conclude that the evidence failed to establish a genuine issue of material fact regarding the existence of pretext.  Specifically, the panel noted that some of the plaintiff’s performance reviews were positive, that a supervisor stated that negative comments in one of the reviews was the result of a misunderstanding, and that an external audit revealed that the plaintiff’s performance may not have been as uniformly negative as the district court believed.  Further, the panel noted that the district court had apparently failed to consider the plaintiff's claims of discrimination based on race (as opposed to national origin).

The panel thus affirmed the grant of summary judgment on all counts of the complaint other the race and national origin discrimination claims, reversed and vacated the district court’s grant of summary judgment on those claims, and remanded for further proceedings with instructions about the burden of proof based on Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v. Nassar, 133 S. Ct. 2517 (2013).

Note: The panel noted (footnote 6) that the defendant had bypassed filing a motion to dismiss or motion for more definite statement and suggested that discovery would have been far less costly and extensive if either variety of motion had been filed to get to the root of the controversy.

Note: This opinion is strange in that there is very little legal citation.  The panel does not, for example, cite any precedents governing Title VII’s burden-shifting framework, which was obviously followed by the district court.  This could be a signal to the district court that the panel was displeased with the level of attention given to this case.