Daumont-Colon v. Coop de Ahorro y Cred Caguas ( 2020 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 19-1709
WANDA E. DAUMONT-COLÓN,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
COOPERATIVA DE AHORRO Y CRÉDITO DE CAGUAS and
IRMA HILERIO-ARROYO, as officer and in her personal capacity,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Camille L. Vélez-Rivé, U.S. Magistrate Judge]
Before
Barron and Selya, Circuit Judges,
and Katzmann, Judge.*
Godwin Aldarondo-Girald and Aldarondo Girald Law Office on
brief for appellant.
Enrique J. Mendoza Méndez and Mendoza Law Offices on brief
for appellees.
December 4, 2020
* Of the United States Court of International Trade, sitting
by designation.
SELYA, Circuit Judge. Plaintiff-appellant Wanda E.
Daumont-Colón (Daumont) asserts that she was fired from her
position as a branch manager for defendant-appellee Cooperativa de
Ahorro y Crédito de Caguas (the Credit Union) because of her age.
The Credit Union demurs, asserting that Daumont was discharged
because of a material breach of its rules of conduct. A jury trial
ensued and, at the close of Daumont's evidence, the district court
granted the Credit Union's motion for judgment as a matter of law.
See Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). On appeal, Daumont challenges what she
characterizes as the district court's misapplication of the law of
the case doctrine, its exclusion of evidence as to the discipline
meted out to other employees, and its determination that she failed
to present facts sufficient to take her case to the jury.
Concluding, as we do, that Daumont is foraging in an empty
cupboard, we affirm.
I. BACKGROUND
Many of the facts are uncontroverted and were stipulated
by the parties. We supplement that account with other
uncontroversial facts, mindful that the nub of the parties' dispute
is not on the raw facts, but on what those facts signify.
The Credit Union is located in Caguas, Puerto Rico, and
offers financial services to its members. In March of 2015,
Daumont — then sixty years of age — was serving as the branch
manager for one of the Credit Union's branches. Irma Hilerio-
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Arroyo (Hilerio) was the Credit Union's chief executive officer
(with the title of "Executive President").1
The events leading up to Daumont's dismissal can be
succinctly summarized. On February 20, 2015, Daumont was at work
when she received a telephone call from her husband, José Tirado,
who was a long-time member of the Credit Union. Tirado asked
Daumont to withdraw eighty dollars from his line of credit at the
Credit Union and deposit it into his checking account. Daumont
proceeded to fill out a withdrawal slip and, on the line provided
for the member's signature, signed Tirado's name. Daumont then
gave the withdrawal slip to a teller, Norberto Santos, and
instructed him to obtain the necessary authorization for the
transaction.
At trial, Santos testified that he could not recall
whether he tried to obtain authorization from his immediate
supervisor, Joanny Torres. What is clear, though, is that the
transaction was never properly authorized. And once Torres learned
of the transaction, she brought it to the attention of Ramon
Adorno, vice president of operations. At a later meeting with
Adorno, Daumont admitted that she had signed Tirado's name to the
withdrawal slip. She added that she had signed for Tirado on prior
1
Daumont's suit named both the Credit Union and Hilerio as
defendants. On appeal, Daumont does not press any particularized
claims against Hilerio. For ease in exposition, then, we refer
throughout to the Credit Union as if it were the sole defendant.
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occasions and represented that she was on file with the Credit
Union as an "authorized signature" for Tirado's line of credit.
On March 10, 2015, Daumont was discharged by the Credit
Union. In a letter from Hilerio, she was told that her dismissal
stemmed from signing Tirado's name to withdrawal slips, which
violated (among other things) the Credit Union's rules against
offering false information on official documents. Pertinently,
Hilerio's letter noted that those rules called for an employee's
firing after a single offense of this genre and that, in all
events, the Credit Union's investigation had revealed that Daumont
was not an authorized signatory on Tirado's line of credit.
Daumont did not go quietly. Instead, she brought suit
in the federal district court pursuant to the Age Discrimination
in Employment Act (ADEA), 29 U.S.C. § 623(a)(1), which prohibits
adverse employment actions against any individual when carried out
"because of such individual's age." Her complaint also set forth
a medley of supplemental claims under Puerto Rico law. The parties
consented to proceed before a magistrate judge. See 28 U.S.C.
§ 636(c); Fed. R. Civ. P. 73. After the close of discovery, the
Credit Union moved for summary judgment. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 56.
The district court jettisoned two of Daumont's claims (neither of
which is implicated on appeal) but otherwise denied the motion.
See Daumont-Colón v. Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito de Caguas,
No. 15-3120, 2018 WL 10741870, at *4-6 (D.P.R. May 9, 2018).
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The Credit Union subsequently moved in limine to
exclude, among other things, Daumont's proffered evidence
concerning the Credit Union's allegedly disparate treatment of
younger employees who had engaged in misconduct. The district
court denied this motion without prejudice. See Daumont-Colón v.
Cooperativa de Ahorro y Crédito de Caguas (Daumont I), No. 15-
3120, 2019 WL 8808083, at *1 n.1 (D.P.R. June 12, 2019).
During the trial, Daumont admitted that she had signed
withdrawal slips in Tirado's name not only on February 20, 2015,
but also on seven previous occasions. Tirado confirmed that he
had verbally authorized the transactions, and Santos testified as
to his role in effectuating the February 20 withdrawal. By
agreement, the Credit Union's rules of conduct were introduced as
an exhibit. But when Daumont attempted to adduce evidence
concerning discipline meted out to other employees for different
kinds of infractions, the Credit Union renewed its objection to
the introduction of the challenged evidence. This time, the
district court — first ruling ore sponte and then elaborating its
reasoning in a written rescript filed in connection with Daumont's
motion for reconsideration — excluded the comparator evidence,
primarily because the other employees were not similarly situated
to Daumont in material respects. See id. at *2.
Once Daumont rested, the Credit Union moved for judgment
as a matter of law. See Fed. R. Civ. P. 50(a). The district court
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granted the motion. See Daumont-Colón v. Cooperativa de Ahorro y
Crédito de Caguas (Daumont II), No. 15-1320, 2019 WL 8809765, at
*1 (D.P.R. June 14, 2019). The effect of this ruling was to
dismiss with prejudice all of Daumont's remaining claims under
both the ADEA and Puerto Rico law. See id. at *5. This timely
appeal followed.
II. ANALYSIS
Daumont's asseverational array begins with a claim that
the district court contradicted the law of the case doctrine when
— after denying the Credit Union's pretrial motions in limine and
for summary judgment — it excluded her proffered comparator
evidence at trial and eventually granted the Credit Union's Rule
50(a) motion. Next, Daumont challenges those latter rulings on
their merits. We consider these claims of error sequentially.
A. Law of the Case.
Daumont insists that when the district court ruled in
her favor on the Credit Union's motion in limine and its motion
for summary judgment, those decisions became binding as the "law
of the case." Because none of the "exceptional circumstances"
permitting a court to deviate from the law of the case doctrine
was in play, United States v. Matthews, 643 F.3d 9, 14 (1st Cir.
2011), the district court (in her view) was not at liberty either
to exclude her comparator evidence at trial or to grant the Credit
Union's Rule 50(a) motion. We do not agree.
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The essence of the law of the case doctrine is the notion
that "when a court decides upon a rule of law, that decision should
continue to govern the same issues in subsequent stages in the
same case." Arizona v. California, 460 U.S. 605, 618 (1983). In
practice, though, the doctrine has two separate branches. See
United States v. Moran, 393 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2004). The first
branch, known as the mandate rule, constrains trial courts in the
aftermath of appellate rulings. See id. That branch is not
implicated here.
"The second branch contemplates that a legal decision
made at one stage of a criminal or civil proceeding should remain
the law of that case throughout the litigation, unless and until
the decision is modified or overruled by a higher court." Id.This aspect of the doctrine is "prudential" and, thus, "more
flexible" than the mandate rule. Id. Especially because the Civil
Rules authorize district courts to revise their own orders and
decisions at any time before entering final judgment, see Fed. R.
Civ. P. 54(b), such interlocutory rulings ordinarily "do not
constitute the law of the case," Harlow v. Children's Hosp., 432
F.3d 50, 55 (1st Cir. 2005) (quoting Pérez-Ruiz v. Crespo-Guillén,
25 F.3d 40, 42 (1st Cir. 1994)). At least in the absence of
extraordinary circumstances (and no such circumstances exist
here), the law of the case doctrine is inherently discretionary
insofar as it affects a trial court's power to revisit its prior
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interlocutory orders. See id. at 55-56. Against this backdrop,
we have said that a trial court's decision to revisit its earlier
rulings is reviewable only for "particularly egregious" abuses of
discretion. Id. at 56.
Seen in this light, Daumont's argument is hopeless. The
record in this case reflects nothing more than a routine exercise
of the district court's discretion. Take, for example, the court's
decision to grant judgment as a matter of law after previously
denying the same party's motion for summary judgment. As a general
matter, it is unremarkable to grant a party's motion for judgment
as a matter of law after having denied that party's motion for
summary judgment. See, e.g., Delgado v. Pawtucket Police Dep't,
668 F.3d 42, 44-45 (1st Cir. 2012); Wilson v. Moreau, 492 F.3d 50,
52 (1st Cir. 2007); cf. Flibotte v. Pa. Truck Lines, Inc., 131
F.3d 21, 25 (1st Cir. 1997) (characterizing as "perfectly
appropriate" granting of judgment notwithstanding the verdict
after court earlier had denied motion for directed verdict).
Although the district court's task is much the same at both stages,
the evidence that it may properly consider is not: motions for
summary judgment are decided based on affidavits and other pretrial
filings, whereas motions for judgment as a matter of law are
"decided on the evidence that has been admitted" at trial.
Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 251 (1986) (quoting
Bill Johnson's Rests., Inc. v. NLRB, 461 U.S. 731, 745 n.11
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(1983)). Those bodies of evidence may be similar, but in the
typical case — as here — they are not identical. See Thorpe v.
Mut. of Omaha Ins. Co., 984 F.2d 541, 545 (1st Cir. 1993).
Much the same reasoning applies to the district court's
revisiting of the Credit Union's objections to the comparator
evidence. The district court explained that it originally denied
the Credit Union's motion in limine mainly because it considered
exclusion "to be premature" at that juncture. Daumont I, 2019 WL
8808083, at *1 n.1; cf. Fusco v. Gen. Motors Corp., 11 F.3d 259,
263 (1st Cir. 1993) (acknowledging that courts hesitate to exclude
evidence before trial because "many issues are best resolved in
context and only when finally necessary"). By not definitively
excluding the evidence through a pretrial ruling, the district
court gave Daumont an opportunity to put her best foot forward and
establish, in the setting of the trial, why the proffered evidence
satisfied applicable standards of relevance and probative value.
At the same time, the court gave itself "a chance to reconsider
the ruling with the concrete evidence presented" at trial. Fusco,
11 F.3d at 262. Even if Daumont's proffer at trial remained
substantially identical to her proffer at the motion-in-limine
stage, the district court remained "free, in the exercise of sound
judicial discretion, to alter [its] previous in limine ruling."
Luce v. United States, 469 U.S. 38, 41-42 (1984) (emphasis in
original). It follows that the law of the case doctrine did not
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foreclose the district court's reappraisal of the admissibility of
the proffered comparator evidence.
B. Exclusion of Comparator Evidence at Trial.
Daumont contends that even if the district court's
denial of the Credit Union's motion in limine did not constitute
the law of the case, the court nonetheless erred in refusing to
admit her proffered comparator evidence at trial. This evidence,
she says, would have shown disparate treatment and, thus, would
have given the jury a basis for finding that the Credit Union's
stated ground for her discharge was pretextual.
On appeal, "[w]e review rulings admitting or excluding
evidence for abuse of discretion." Downey v. Bob's Disc. Furniture
Holdings, Inc., 633 F.3d 1, 8 (1st Cir. 2011). Under this
deferential standard, "we may overturn a challenged evidentiary
ruling only if it plainly appears that the court committed an error
of law or a clear mistake of judgment." Torres-Arroyo v. Rullán,
436 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2006).
To support an inference of discriminatory animus,
evidence that an employer has engaged in disparate treatment "must
rest on proof that the proposed analogue is similarly situated in
material respects." Vélez v. Thermo King de P.R., Inc., 585 F.3d
441, 451 (1st Cir. 2009) (quoting Perkins v. Brigham & Women's
Hosp., 78 F.3d 747, 751 (1st Cir. 1996)). "[W]hile the plaintiff's
case and the comparison cases that [she] advances need not be
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perfect replicas, they must closely resemble one another in respect
to relevant facts and circumstances." Conward v. Cambridge Sch.
Comm., 171 F.3d 12, 20 (1st Cir. 1999).
Here, Daumont avers that the district court applied the
wrong legal standard, requiring her to show that the other
employees' circumstances were "almost identical" to her own. She
also avers that the court's determination that the proffered
evidence lacked probative value usurped what should have been a
question of fact for the jury. And, finally, she argues that
because the Credit Union's policies state that its disciplinary
procedures are to be applied uniformly to all employees, the court
abused its discretion in not weighing the other employees' actions
against her own to gauge their "comparative seriousness."
In our view, the district court did not abuse its
discretion in excluding Daumont's proffered comparator evidence.
To begin, Daumont's contention that the district court applied an
overly stringent "almost identical" standard to her comparator
evidence appears to derive from language used by the court at
sidebar in a discussion of the use of comparator evidence. But as
virtually everyone experienced in trial practice knows, judges'
extemporaneous comments at sidebar are sometimes imprecise.
Unless there is good reason to believe that such an imprecise
statement affected a party's substantial rights, it should not be
accorded decretory significance. See, e.g., Lenn v. Portland Sch.
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Comm., 998 F.2d 1083, 1087-88 (1st Cir. 1993) (concluding that,
given totality of circumstances, an "infelicitous choice of
phrase" does not indicate that trial court deviated from "proper
rule of decision"); cf. Loja-Tene v. Barr, 975 F.3d 58, 61 n.2
(1st Cir. 2020) (treating isolated misstatement of legal standard
by Board of Immigration Appeals as "lapsus linguae" and refusing
to accord it "dispositive weight"). In this instance, the critical
datum is that the district court, in making its exclusionary
ruling, faithfully recited and applied the correct legal standard.
See Daumont I, 2019 WL 8808083, at *2; see also Perkins, 78 F.3d
at 751 (explicating "similarly situated in material respects"
standard). We therefore reject Daumont's claim of error.
This brings us to Daumont's contention that the
determination of whether the employees to whom the comparator
evidence related were similarly situated to her was a question of
fact for the jury. It is true, of course, that juries serve as
factfinders and, in that capacity, are entitled to weigh properly
admitted evidence and to draw reasonable inferences therefrom.
See, e.g., Blake v. Pellegrino, 329 F.3d 43, 47 (1st Cir. 2003).
But the Federal Rules of Evidence entrust district courts with
threshold issues as to the admissibility of evidence, including
issues of relevance and the balancing of probative value and
unfairly prejudicial effects. See Fed. R. Evid. 401, 403. Such
issues must be determined on a case-by-case basis, in light of
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both the particular factual context and the applicable law. See,
e.g., Franchina v. City of Providence, 881 F.3d 32, 49 (1st Cir.
2018); United States v. Mehanna, 735 F.3d 32, 61 (1st Cir. 2013).
Our case law teaches that an employer's relative
leniency toward one employee is only persuasive evidence of
discrimination with respect to disciplinary action taken against
a plaintiff-employee if the factfinder may reasonably infer from
material similarities between the circumstances of the two that
the discrepancy was likely correlated with the plaintiff's
protected characteristic. See Dartmouth Rev. v. Dartmouth Coll.,
889 F.2d 13, 19 (1st Cir. 1989) ("Much as in the lawyer's art of
distinguishing cases, the 'relevant aspects' are those factual
elements which determine whether reasoned analogy supports, or
demands, a like result."). Material distinctions between the two
sets of circumstances increase the danger that any such inference
would amount to no more than mere speculation, and the district
court bears the responsibility of separating the wheat from the
chaff. See Morales Feliciano v. Rullán, 378 F.3d 42, 58 (1st Cir.
2004); Conward, 171 F.3d at 20-21.
Here, we discern no abuse of discretion in the district
court's application of these tenets. Cf. Freeman v. Package Mach.
Co., 865 F.2d 1331, 1340 (1st Cir. 1988) ("Only rarely — and in
extraordinarily compelling circumstances — will we, from the vista
of a cold appellate record, reverse a district court's on-the-spot
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judgment concerning the relative weighing of probative value and
unfair effect."). Although the Credit Union's motion in limine
sought to exclude evidence regarding seven possible comparators,
its objection at trial came in response to Daumont's attempt to
introduce evidence regarding Dalitza Caez, a teller-supervisor.
After banning the introduction of evidence as to Caez, the district
court indicated that it would exclude evidence of the other
proposed comparators on essentially the same grounds. See Daumont
I, 2019 WL 8808083, at *1. Even so, the only other specific
comparator evidence that Daumont later offered at trial concerned
Carlos Vazquez, a branch manager.
In this venue, Daumont focuses exclusively on the
exclusion of evidence relating to Caez and Vazquez. She has,
therefore, waived any argument that the district court should have
allowed her to adduce evidence as to comparators other than Caez
and Vasquez. See United States v. Zannino, 895 F.2d 1, 17 (1st
Cir. 1990) ("[I]ssues adverted to in a perfunctory manner,
unaccompanied by some effort at developed argumentation, are
deemed waived.").
In excluding testimony regarding Caez — who was
suspended for thirty days and demoted to teller after an incident
in which she cashed a check for her mother — the court highlighted
two primary distinctions between Caez's circumstances and
Daumont's circumstances. First, Caez did not hold a "senior
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position" comparable to Daumont's position as a branch manager.
Daumont I, 2019 WL 8808083, at *2. Second, Caez did not commit
misconduct as serious as signing another person's name to an
official Credit Union document. See id. Moreover, Daumont was
(by her own admission) seven times a repeat offender, while Caez
was not shown to have engaged in more than one isolated act of
misconduct. Last — but far from least — the rule of conduct that
Daumont violated specified dismissal as the penalty for a first
offense; in contrast, Caez violated a rule that called only for
progressive discipline, starting with warnings.
These differences are consequential and, taken together,
undercut Daumont's argument that comparator evidence concerning
Caez's troubles should have been allowed into evidence.
Distinctions as to an employee's position and as to the severity
or frequency of her misconduct are proper factors in determining
that a plaintiff and a proposed comparator are not similarly
situated. See, e.g., Murray v. Kindred Nursing Ctrs. W. LLC, 789
F.3d 20, 27 (1st Cir. 2015); Woodward v. Emulex Corp., 714 F.3d
632, 636 (1st Cir. 2013).
In an effort to blunt the force of this reasoning,
Daumont argues that the Credit Union's stated policy of applying
its disciplinary rules uniformly to all employees renders their
relative job classifications irrelevant. We agree with the premise
of Daumont's argument: an employer's policies can be germane to
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the analysis of comparator evidence. See Murray, 789 F.3d at 28.
We disagree, though, with the conclusion that Daumont would have
us draw. She has cited no authority for the much different
proposition that the Credit Union's policy somehow compelled the
court to disregard employees' roles and responsibilities in
determining if those employees were similarly situated "in all
relevant aspects." Dartmouth Rev., 889 F.2d at 19. In the
circumstances of this case, we think it well within the district
court's discretion to have considered the differences between
Daumont's position and the comparators' positions. See, e.g.,
Cardona Jiménez v. Bancomercio de P.R., 174 F.3d 36, 42 & n.4 (1st
Cir. 1999).
Daumont's attempt to introduce comparator evidence
concerning Vazquez fares no better. At trial, the district court
rejected this proffer, finding that Daumont did not establish that
Vazquez had engaged in comparable misconduct. On its face,
Vasquez's misconduct appears to be a far cry from Daumont's: he
abandoned his post at one Credit Union branch and traveled to
another branch, where he instructed a security guard, without rhyme
or reason, to forbid the public from entering.2 Although the
Credit Union's disciplinary letter informed Vasquez that he could
2
This bizarre incident apparently occurred in connection with
a larger dispute over the internal governance of the Credit Union.
The details of that larger dispute are lost in the mists of time.
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have been terminated (and would be if his behavior was repeated),
he was only suspended for one week.
Excluding this evidence was within the district court's
discretion. Although the Credit Union's rules of conduct delineate
a scheme of progressive discipline, they prescribe immediate
termination for particularly serious infractions. Whereas Daumont
had violated the Credit Union's rules relating to the provision of
false information on official documents (the stated penalty for
which was dismissal, even for a first offense), Vasquez's
transgressions (such as exhibiting a lack of courtesy and inducing
misconduct on the part of other employees) were first offenses for
which the rules specified either verbal or written warnings. In
sum, the probative value of this evidence was slight and was
outweighed by the likelihood that it would sow the seeds for
conjecture. See Freeman, 865 F.2d at 1340.
We add a coda. While Daumont complains that, overall,
the district court failed to weigh the "comparative seriousness"
of other employees' misconduct against her own, we have held that
"[n]o valid comparison can be drawn between two incidents for the
purpose of proving disparate treatment if 'differentiating or
mitigating circumstances' distinguish either the employee's
conduct or the employer's response to it." Murray, 789 F.3d at 27
(quoting Conward, 171 F.3d at 21). So it is here: the district
court supportably concluded that the Credit Union was interpreting
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its own policy according to the tenor of that policy. See Daumont
I, 2019 WL 8808083, at *2. The burden was on Daumont to establish
the material equivalence of the comparators' misconduct, see
Perkins, 78 F.3d at 751, and she failed to carry that burden.3
The bottom line is that "[a] district court is accorded
a wide discretion in determining the admissibility of evidence."
Sprint/United Mgmt. Co. v. Mendelsohn, 552 U.S. 379, 384 (2008)
(quoting United States v. Abel, 469 U.S. 45, 54 (1984)). Here,
the court acted within the compass of that discretion in concluding
that "[a]pples and apples [were] not being compared." Daumont I,
2019 WL 8808083, at *2.
C. Judgment as a Matter of Law.
We next examine Daumont's substantive assignments of
error regarding the district court's entry of judgment as a matter
of law. Even without the excluded comparator evidence, Daumont
says, the district court should have allowed her claims to go to
the jury. The challenged ruling engenders de novo review. See
Downey, 633 F.3d at 9. Such review requires us to take the facts
"and the inferences reasonably extractable therefrom in the light
most hospitable to the nonmovant." Martínez-Serrano v. Quality
3We note — as did the district court, Daumont I, 2019 WL
8808083, at *1 & n.2 — that Daumont's opposition to the Credit
Union's motion in limine was virtually bereft of factually specific
arguments as to how "each of the proposed employees' circumstances"
compared to her own, leaving evidentiary gaps that she did not
fill when the Credit Union objected to her proffers at trial.
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Health Servs. of P.R., Inc., 568 F.3d 278, 284 (1st Cir. 2009).
In performing this tamisage, we cannot "pass upon the credibility
of the witnesses, resolve evidentiary conflicts, or engage in a
comparative weighing of the proof." Id. at 285. When all is said
and done, judgment as a matter of law is appropriate only when the
record dictates "a result as to which reasonable minds could not
differ." Id.On appeal, Daumont submits that the court below should
have allowed three distinct causes of action to go to the jury.
We examine those three causes of action in sequence.
1. The ADEA Claim. To prevail on a claim of wrongful
discharge under the ADEA, an employee must carry the burden of
proving "that [she] would not have been fired but for [her] age."
Dávila v. Corporación de P.R. Para La Difusión Pública, 498 F.3d
9, 15 (1st Cir. 2007) (quoting Mesnick v. Gen. Elec. Co., 950 F.2d
816, 823 (1st Cir. 1991)). In the absence of direct evidence of
discriminatory animus — and none has been tendered here — an
employer's discriminatory motive may be established through
circumstantial evidence. See Acevedo-Parrilla v. Novartis Ex-Lax,
Inc., 696 F.3d 128, 138 (1st Cir. 2012). Taking that route
requires resort to the McDonnell Douglas framework. See McDonnell
Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-05 (1973); see also Soto-
Feliciano v. Villa Cofresí Hotels, Inc., 779 F.3d 19, 22-23 (1st
Cir. 2015); Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 823.
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At the first stage of the framework, the plaintiff must
set forth her prima facie case. See Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 823. In
this instance, that required Daumont to show "1) [she] was at least
40 years old at the time [she] was fired; 2) [she] was qualified
for the position [she] had held; 3) [she] was fired, and 4) the
employer subsequently filled the position, demonstrating a
continuing need for the plaintiff's services." Vélez, 585 F.3d at
447. Even though this is a "modest" showing, id. (quoting Rathbun
v. Autozone, Inc., 361 F.3d 62, 71 (1st Cir. 2004)), it suffices
to create a rebuttable presumption that the adverse employment
action was motivated by age-based discrimination.
To rebut this presumption, the employer must then
proffer a legitimate, nondiscriminatory rationale for having taken
the adverse employment action. See Dávila, 498 F.3d at 16;
Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 823. This stage of the analysis is not meant
to shift the burden of proof but, rather, is intended merely to
impose a burden of production. See Sanchez v. P.R. Oil Co., 37
F.3d 712, 720 (1st Cir. 1994).
At the third and final stage of the McDonnell Douglas
framework, the employee must "prove by a preponderance of the
evidence that the legitimate reason[] offered" in the employer's
defense was "not its true reason[], but w[as] a pretext for
discrimination." Vélez, 585 F.3d at 447-48 (quoting Reeves v.
Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 143 (2000)).
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Because the presumption of discrimination has vanished at this
stage, see Dávila, 498 F.3d at 16, the employee "must 'elucidate
specific facts which would enable a jury to find that the reason
given is not only a sham, but a sham intended to cover up the
employer's real motive: age discrimination,'" Soto-Feliciano, 779
F.3d at 25 (quoting Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 824).
In granting the Credit Union's motion for judgment as a
matter of law, the district court determined that "[a]bsolutely no
evidence (neither direct or circumstantial) was presented that
would enable a jury to conclude or reasonably infer that
Defendants’ actions were carried out because of [Daumont]’s age."
Daumont II, 2019 WL 8809765, at *2. Elaborating on this
conclusion, the court noted that Daumont had stipulated to signing
Tirado's name to withdrawal slips on at least eight occasions;
that those actions clearly violated the Credit Union's rules of
conduct; that the rules of conduct prescribed termination of
employment as the penalty for even a single infraction; and that
Daumont had introduced no evidence from which a reasonable jury
could conclude that the Credit Union's response to Daumont's
misconduct was either unreasonable or at odds with its usual
practice. See id. at *3.
Before us, Daumont complains that the district court
failed to draw reasonable inferences from the evidence in her
favor. The record, though, belies this plaint. It shows with
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conspicuous clarity that the court correctly focused on the
ultimate issue of age discrimination. See id. at *2-4. Daumont
bore the burden of establishing that age discrimination was the
but-for cause of her discharge. See Gross v. FBL Fin. Servs.,
Inc., 557 U.S. 167, 177 (2009). She attempted to satisfy this
burden by showing that the Credit Union's stated reason for
cashiering her was pretextual, but a demonstration of pretext
demands something more than existential doubt or an error of
judgment on the employer's part. See Murray, 789 F.3d at 27;
Mesnick, 950 F.2d at 825. And none of the evidence in this record
was capable of grounding a reasonable inference that the Credit
Union did not believe Daumont had violated its rules and terminated
her for that reason.
To illustrate, Lourdes Rodriguez, the Credit Union's
human resources director, testified that an employee signing
another person's name on a withdrawal slip was unacceptable to the
Credit Union and that such conduct violated the rule prohibiting
the falsification of official documents. She also pointed out
that the rules prescribed termination of employment as the penalty
for even a first offense. Tellingly, Rodriguez's testimony in
these particulars was both uncontradicted and unimpeached.
Daumont tries to parry this thrust by pointing to the
Credit Union's treatment of Santos (the teller who actually
effectuated the February 20 withdrawal). Santos testified that he
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received only a written reprimand for his role in the incident.
Even so, Daumont's claim of disparate treatment is more cry than
wool: given Santos's subordinate relationship to Daumont, the
fact that he did not sign Tirado's name on the slip, and the fact
that Daumont had signed Tirado's name on several previous
occasions, he and Daumont were not fair congeners. See, e.g.,
Cardona Jiménez, 174 F.3d at 42; Dartmouth Rev., 889 F.2d at 20.
It follows that the evidence as to the manner in which the Credit
Union disciplined Santos cannot support a reasonable inference of
discrimination vis-à-vis Daumont.
By the same token, the record does not contain any basis
for a claim in the nature of an estoppel. Contrary to Daumont's
insinuations, there is simply no evidence to suggest that either
Adorno or Hilerio authorized the earlier transactions in which
Daumont signed Tirado's name. Indeed, nothing in the record
supports an inference that Daumont's superiors were aware of the
provenance of those transactions at any time before the Credit
Union commenced its investigation into the February 20
transaction.
Finally, Daumont argues that the cause of her firing
could not have been the February 20 transaction, since both Tirado
and Santos testified that the Credit Union did not speak to them
about the transaction before Hilerio made the decision to terminate
Daumont's employment. But Daumont is aiming at the wrong target:
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she identifies no new facts that either of these individuals could
have contributed, which might have changed the decisional
calculus. Importantly, the Credit Union never challenged
Daumont's statement that Tirado had verbally authorized her to
make the withdrawals; instead, it based her discharge on the fact
— stipulated to by Daumont — that Daumont signed another person's
(Tirado's) name to an official document.
The short of it is that Daumont — in order to survive
summary judgment — needed to adduce "minimally sufficient evidence
to permit a reasonable [jury] to conclude that [she] was fired
because of [her] age." Dávila, 498 F.3d at 16. Although she
attempted to do so by suggesting that the Credit Union's
explanation for her discharge was pretextual, "[m]ere questions
regarding the employer's business judgment are insufficient to
raise a triable issue as to pretext." Acevedo-Parrilla, 696 F.3d
at 140. As we have said, "[w]hether a termination decision was
wise or done in haste is irrelevant, so long as the decision was
not made with discriminatory animus." Rivera–Aponte v. Rest.
Metropol No. 3, Inc., 338 F.3d 9, 11 (1st Cir. 2003). Without any
evidence that the Credit Union did not believe in good faith that
Daumont's act of signing Tirado's name to a withdrawal slip
constituted falsification of an official document and thus
warranted termination — and there is no such evidence in this
record — "it is not our province to second-guess [its] decision."
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Dávila, 498 F.3d at 17. Consequently, the district court did not
err in granting the Credit Union's motion for judgment as a matter
of law on Daumont's ADEA claim.
2. The Law 100 Claim. Daumont also pursued an age
discrimination claim under Puerto Rico's employment discrimination
statute, colloquially known as "Law 100." See P.R. Laws Ann. tit.
29, § 146. On this claim, too, the district court granted judgment
as a matter of law in favor of the Credit Union. See Daumont II,
2019 WL 8809765, at *4.
We need not tarry. Although Law 100 brings to bear a
burden-shifting framework different from that applicable to the
ADEA, the two statutes are coextensive with respect to the ultimate
question of discrimination. See Rivera-Rivera v. Medina & Medina,
Inc., 898 F.3d 77, 97 (1st Cir. 2018); Dávila, 498 F.3d at 18.
Because we already have determined that Daumont did not adduce
evidence from which a jury could reasonably infer that she was
discharged because of her age, see supra Part II(C)(1), her appeal
of the adverse judgment on her Law 100 claim necessarily fails.
3. The Law 80 Claim. This leaves Daumont's claim under
Puerto Rico's wrongful discharge statute, colloquially known as
"Law 80." See P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29, § 185a. The district court
disposed of this claim by granting judgment as a matter of law in
the Credit Union's favor, see Daumont II, 2019 WL 8809765, at *5,
and Daumont assigns error.
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Law 80 provides for damages when an employee is
discharged without "just cause," which is defined as "such reasons
that affect the proper and regular operations of an establishment."
P.R. Laws Ann. tit. 29, § 185b. Helpfully, the statute lists
several specific examples of just cause, including "repeated
violations of the reasonable rules and regulations established for
the operation of the establishment."4 Id.
Under Law 80's burden-shifting framework, an employee
must allege not only that her employment was terminated but also
that the termination was unjustified. See Pérez v. Horizon Lines,
Inc., 804 F.3d 1, 9 (1st Cir. 2015). In response, the employer
bears the burden of showing "that it had a reasonable basis to
believe that an employee has engaged in one of those actions that
the law identifies as establishing [just] cause." Id. To prevail
at that juncture, the employee must rebut the showing of just cause
with "probative evidence that [the employer] did not genuinely
believe in or did not in fact terminate [the employee] for the
reason given." Id. at 11.
4 This exemplar is coupled with a proviso designed to ensure
that the employee was on notice of the rules of conduct. See
§ 185b. Here, however, the record reflects no genuine issue
regarding Daumont's awareness of the Credit Union's rules. Indeed,
the Credit Union introduced into evidence a 2012 letter, which
indicated that Daumont not only knew of the rules but that she had
been reprimanded under them for her role in a transaction involving
her daughter and put on notice of the potential consequences of
future misconduct.
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In the case at hand, the record makes manifest that the
Credit Union had a sound basis to believe that Daumont had engaged
in misconduct sufficient, on its face, to establish just cause.
After all, Daumont was discharged because she admittedly (and
repeatedly) engaged in conduct that directly violated the
employer's rules. So, too, the record is pellucid that, under the
rules, even a first offense for such a violation was a fireable
offense. To cinch the matter, Daumont offered nothing in the way
of probative evidence adequate to show that the Credit Union did
not discharge her based on her misconduct. On these facts, we
agree with the district court that a reasonable jury could only
conclude that the Credit Union had established just cause for
terminating Daumont's employment. See Daumont II, 2019 WL 8809765,
at *5; see also Pérez, 804 F.3d at 10 (explaining that, under Law
80, a "perceived violation suffices to establish that [the
employer] did not terminate [the employee] on a whim, but rather
for a sensible business-related reason" (emphasis and alterations
in original) (quoting Hoyos v. Telecorp Commc'ns, Inc., 488 F.3d
1, 10 (1st Cir. 2007))). We conclude, therefore, that the district
court appropriately granted judgment as a matter of law in favor
of the Credit Union on Daumont's Law 80 claim.
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III. CONCLUSION
We need go no further. For the reasons elucidated above,
the judgment of the district court is
Affirmed.
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