McDonnaugh v. Teva Specialty Pharmaceuticals, LLC ( 2012 )

NOT PRECEDENTIAL
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT
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No. 11-3462
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LLOYD MCDONNAUGH,
Appellant
v.
TEVA SPECIALTY PHARMACEUTICALS, LLC,
Also known as TEVA USA,
Also known as TEVA PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRIES, LTD.
__________
On Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania
(D.C. No. 2-09-cv-05566)
District Judge: The Honorable Mitchell S. Goldberg
Submitted Under Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a)
June 5, 2012
BEFORE: SCIRICA, GREENAWAY, Jr., and NYGAARD, Circuit Judges
(Filed: July 26, 2012 )
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OPINION OF THE COURT
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NYGAARD, Circuit Judge
Lloyd McDonnaugh appeals the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in
favor of Teva Specialty Pharmaceuticals, Inc. McDonnaugh asserts that the District
Court erred by deciding that McDonnaugh failed to make a prima facie case of
employment discrimination based on his race, and in the alternative, failed to adduce
evidence from which a fact-finder could reasonably conclude that the explanation offered
by Teva for his dismissal was pretextual. Additionally, he asserts that the District Court
erred by concluding that McDonnaugh failed to properly support his claim that Teva
treated comparable non-protected employees differently. We will affirm.
Since we write solely for the parties who are already familiar with this case, we
will only briefly review the undisputed facts. Teva hired McDonnaugh, an African
American, in August 2006 as a sales representative. He had six years experience in
pharmaceutical sales. Primarily, he was responsible for selling two asthma treatment
products, making sales calls principally on physicians and pharmacists.
McDonnaugh’s supervisor, also African American, rated his job performance in
2006 as ―meets expectations.‖ In 2007, however, the supervisor reduced his overall
rating to ―mostly meets expectations.‖ The supervisor had concerns about, inter alia,
McDonnaugh’s sales skills, product knowledge and territory management.
Teva moved McDonnaugh’s original supervisor to another position. The new
supervisor, Jaylene Penrod, is Caucasian. She issued a set of expectations for the sales
representatives she supervised and accompanied them on sales calls. After
accompanying McDonnaugh, Penrod noted concerns about a sales style that did not
present a clear, concise message. She wrote multiple coaching guides in subsequent
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months, consistently rating his selling skills as below expectations, or, mostly meets
expectations. Throughout this time, his sales results were below regional and national
averages.
McDonnaugh complained to others that Penrod spoke to him in a dehumanizing
way and he disagreed with her criticism. He also complained that Penrod’s mid-year
review was inconsistent with the coaching guides. The review contained ratings in some
areas that were lower than the guides.
Penrod had her own supervisor and a senior sales representative accompany
McDonnaugh on sales calls and they, too, were critical of his sales skills. Penrod did,
over time, raise McDonnaugh’s rating in some areas of his performance, but her
evaluation of his sales skills remained below average. Teva placed McDonnaugh on a
performance management plan in November 2008, an action intended to both put
McDonnaugh on notice that he could be terminated if his job performance did not
improve, and also to highlight specific areas that needed improvement. Penrod rated
McDonnaugh’s performance as ―below expectations‖ in his year-end review.
Penrod accompanied McDonnaugh on sales calls in January 2009. On that day he
called upon a physician who had moved months prior, and he was unable to see two other
physicians because he had not made appointments. Penrod concluded after this that
McDonnaugh was not going to raise his performance to acceptable levels. Penrod and
her supervisor met with McDonnaugh on January 23, 2009 and terminated him. Teva
hired a Caucasian male to replace McDonnaugh.
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McDonnaugh first asserts that the District Court erred by concluding that he had
not met his evidentiary burden of showing a prima facie case. McDonnaugh belongs to a
protected class, had prior experience in pharmaceutical sales, and was replaced by a
Caucasian male. Teva replacing McDonnaugh with a Caucasian male is sufficient (along
with the other evidence) to meet the prima facie burden of showing that the employment
action occurred in circumstances that ―give rise to an inference of unlawful
discrimination.‖ Anderson v. Wachovia Mortgage Corp., 621 F.3d 261, 274 (3d Cir.
2010) (quoting Texas Dept. of Community Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 253 (1981)).
The District Court erred.
Nonetheless, McDonnaugh failed to meet the shifting burden under McDonnell
Douglas of adducing evidence sufficient for a fact-finder to conclude that Teva’s
employment action against him was pretextual. McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411
U.S. 792, 802–04 (1973). There is no dispute that, starting in 2007 before Penrod
supervised him, McDonnaugh never met the company’s performance expectations in the
area of sales skills, a skill that all agree was central to his job. We are aware that, from
2007 through 2009, evaluation of other metrics of his performance varied between ratings
of ―meets expectations‖ and ―mostly meets expectations.‖ We also take note that
McDonnaugh’s sales statistics fluctuated, and that there was occasional improvement in
this regard. Yet, we do not accept McDonnaugh’s general argument that these other
ratings, or their movement, provide evidence of pretext. It is within the employer’s
domain and discretion to determine both the skills sets, and the level of competence
necessary to fulfill the requirements of a particular position of employment. Where, as
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here, an employee consistently under-performs in a skill-set fairly designated as critical
to his job, the employee cannot preclude summary judgment on the issue of pretext
merely by showing better or satisfactory performance in other skill-sets.
Nor does McDonnaugh’s termination after Teva issued a performance
management plan undermine its proferred reason for the action. By giving him this plan,
Teva indicated its intent to intensely monitor him on the job for a defined period of time.
However, there is no evidence that, by issuing a performance management plan, Teva
placed itself under an obligation to continue his employment through the end of the
period—particularly where substandard conduct showed no improvement.
Finally, regarding the comparators that McDonnaugh presented, the District Court
correctly decided that they were not similarly situated. Although they had the same
supervisor, and also had performance issues, one of the comparators had significantly less
experience in pharmaceutical sales, but showed improvement over time. The other
employee had performance problems in areas different from McDonnaugh, and also
showed improvement. Such differences support a conclusion that these employees were
not similarly situated to McDonnaugh. Thus, they are not proper comparators.
For all of these reasons, we will affirm the order of the District Court.
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