Santana-Vargas v. Banco Santander Puerto Rico

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 18-1990
ANTONIO SANTANA-VARGAS,
Plaintiff, Appellant,
v.
BANCO SANTANDER PUERTO RICO; SANTANDER FINANCIAL SERVICES, INC.,
Defendants, Appellees.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
Before
Howard, Chief Judge,
Thompson and Kayatta, Circuit Judges.
Carlos R. Paula, with whom Jaime E. Picó-Rodríguez and Labor
Counsels, LLC were on brief, for appellant.
Alberto J. Bayouth-Montes, with whom Carlos E. George-Iguina
and O'Neill & Borges LLC were on brief, for appellees.
January 27, 2020
KAYATTA, Circuit Judge. Antonio Santana-Vargas
("Santana"), a former branch manager at Santander Financial
Services, claims that Santander Financial Services and Banco
Santander fired him because of his age in violation of the Age
Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 ("ADEA"), 29 U.S.C. § 621et seq., and Puerto Rico law. The district court granted summary
judgment to the defendants on Vargas's ADEA claim and relinquished
supplemental jurisdiction over his claims under Commonwealth law.
See Santana-Vargas v. Santander Fin. Servs., Inc., No. 15-cv-1521,
2018 WL 9616878 (D.P.R. Sept. 4, 2018) (unpublished opinion).
Santana now appeals the district court decision. For the following
reasons, we affirm.
I.
We set forth the facts of this case "in the light most
favorable to" Santana. Del Valle-Santana v. Servicios Legales de
Puerto Rico, Inc., 804 F.3d 127, 128 (1st Cir. 2015). Santana
began work as a collections agent at Island Finance in 1986. He
received various promotions over the years and ultimately became
a branch manager in 2001. In March 2006, Santander Financial
acquired Island Finance, and Santana became an employee of
Santander Financial (and, according to Santana, of Banco
Santander). Santana's success at the company eventually stalled.
Beginning in 2009 and continuing through 2013, Santana's
supervisors documented his and his branches' underperformance. In
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March or April 2014, Santana was placed on a six-month performance
improvement plan. The defendants' reports from May and June of
2014 state that Santana failed to comply with the plan. He was
fired in August -- before the plan ran its full course. By that
time, Santana was forty-nine years old and had worked at Island
Finance or Santander Financial for twenty-eight years. His
replacement was thirty-two.
II.
A.
Santana offers no direct proof of age discrimination.
Rather, to prove that he was fired on account of his age, he relies
on indirect proof under the so-called McDonnell-Douglas framework.
See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802–05 (1973).
Under that framework, he can make out a prima facie case by showing
that:
(i) [he] was at least 40; (ii) [his] work was
sufficient to meet the employer's legitimate
expectations; (iii) [his] employer took
adverse action against [him]; and (iv) either
younger persons were retained in the same
position upon [his] termination or the
employer did not treat age neutrally in taking
the adverse action.
Del Valle-Santana, 804 F.3d at 129–30 (citing Brennan v. GTE Gov't
Sys. Corp., 150 F.3d 21, 26 (1st Cir. 1998)). To rebut the
presumption of discrimination generated by a prima facie case, the
defendants must then "articulate a legitimate, nondiscriminatory
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reason for dismissing the employee." Id. at 130. If the
defendants successfully do so, "the presumption vanishes and the
burden shifts once again." Id. At that point, Santana must point
to evidence sufficient to show that the defendants' given reason
was pretextual and that age was the true cause of his termination.
Id.The district court found that Santana's claim failed at
the first step because he failed to "put forth evidence that he
was complying with the legitimate job performance expectations for
his position." See Santana-Vargas, 2018 WL 9616878, at *11-12.
"[O]ut of an abundance of caution," the district court also went
on to apply the entire burden-shifting framework in its analysis,
finding that Santana failed at each step. Id. at *12-17. We
review the district court's reasoning de novo. Murray v. Kindred
Nursing Ctrs. W. LLC, 789 F.3d 20, 25 (1st Cir. 2015).
B.
The requirement that the plaintiff show he was meeting
the defendants' legitimate performance expectations is "not
particularly onerous." Meléndez v. Autogermana, Inc., 622 F.3d
46, 51 (1st Cir. 2010) (citing Benoit v. Tech. Mfg. Corp., 331
F.3d 166, 173 (1st Cir. 2003)); see also Vélez v. Thermo King de
Puerto Rico, Inc., 585 F.3d 441, 447 (1st Cir. 2009) ("We have
described this prima facie showing as 'modest,' and a 'low
standard.'" (quoting Rathbun v. Autozone, Inc., 361 F.3d 62, 71
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(1st Cir. 2004) and Zapata-Matos v. Reckitt & Colman, Inc., 277
F.3d 40, 44 (1st Cir. 2002))). Whether the district court
correctly found that Santana failed to make this prima facie
showing poses a close question that we need not decide.
We instead take advantage of the district court's
caution and assume that Santana has established a prima facie case.
We train our focus on whether a reasonable jury could find pretext.
The defendants clearly advanced a legitimate reason to terminate
Santana: his poor performance documented by over three years of
poor reviews. And for the reasons set out by the district court,
Santana has failed to show that his poor performance reviews were
pretextual. See generally Santana-Vargas, 2018 WL 9616878; see
also Seaco Ins. Co. v. Davis-Irish, 300 F.3d 84, 86 (1st Cir. 2002)
("[W]hen a lower court accurately takes the measure of a case and
articulates a cogent rationale, it serves no useful purpose for a
reviewing court to write at length."). We also agree generally
with the district court's analyses of Santana's allegations of
disparate treatment and a hostile work environment (including
possibly biased remarks by higher-ups in the companies and the
deprivation of tools to accomplish business goals). See Santana-
Vargas, 2018 WL 9616878, at *14–15, *16–18.
We add only a response to Santana's argument on appeal
that the defendants' decision to let him go before he completed
his six-month performance improvement plan showed pretext. The
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March 2014 letter setting out the plan made clear that Santana
could lose his job if he "fail[ed] to comply [with] and
successfully surpass" the minimum requirements set forth in the
plan. The plan neither stated nor implied that Santana could not
be fired until six months had run. Rather, it pointed to an
expected performance score of 2.65, and stated that he would be
"monitored monthly . . . for a period of six (6) months," warning
that a failure to comply could result in dismissal. Santana signed
that letter on April 4, 2014. He then promptly failed to meet the
minimum performance requirements in April and May, in each month
rating even less than he had before the plan began. So it was not
as if Santana was not given a chance to show that he could meet
expectations for six consecutive months. Rather, he failed from
the outset. Santana does argue that his branch's "production
numbers" improved in May, June, and July 2014. But he makes no
argument that the numbers satisfied the plan's minimum
requirements. On such a record, we see no reasonable basis for
inferring age discrimination from the fact that the defendants
chose not to overlook his initial and repeated failures.
Santana also points to another employee whose
performance improvement plan was extended after the first six
months. But there is no evidence in the record about that other
employee's work, her progress during her improvement plan, or her
history of performance at the company. Although evidence "that an
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employer has deviated inexplicably from one of its standard
business practices," can demonstrate pretext, Kouvchinov v.
Parametric Tech. Corp., 537 F.3d 62, 68 (1st Cir. 2008), Santana
has failed to put forward evidence to establish any real deviation
here.
C.
The district court declined to exercise supplemental
jurisdiction over Santana's state-law claims given its decision
that the ADEA claims failed. See Santana-Vargas, 2018 WL 9616878,
at *18. Although state law claims should often be dismissed when
"the federal claims are dismissed before trial," United Mine
Workers of Am. v. Gibbs, 383 U.S. 715, 726 (1966), "a district
court must exercise 'informed discretion' when deciding whether to
assert supplemental jurisdiction over state law claims," Redondo
Const. Corp. v. Izquierdo, 662 F.3d 42, 49 (1st Cir. 2011) (quoting
Roche v. John Hancock Mut. Life Ins. Co., 81 F.3d 249, 256–57 (1st
Cir. 1996)). Courts must consider "concerns of comity, judicial
economy, convenience, and fairness." Id. (citing Roche, 81 F.3d
at 257).
We have previously found that a district court abused
its discretion in dismissing state-law claims where the case had
been pending for six years, the trial was only four days away, the
discovery that had already been taken was relevant to the state-
law claims, the plaintiff would have faced a significant burden in
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shifting to litigate the state-court claims in Spanish instead of
English, and principles of comity did not favor dismissal because
the state-law issues required only an additional damages
calculation. Id. at 49–50. We have also found that a district
court acted within its discretion by continuing to exercise
supplemental jurisdiction where "[t]he litigation had matured well
beyond its nascent stages." Roche, 81 F.3d at 257.
This litigation was also well beyond its nascent stages,
having been pending for three years by the time it was dismissed.
Although a final trial date was not yet set, discovery was
complete, presumably largely in English. And there is clearly
some substantive overlap between the federal and Commonwealth
claims. Nevertheless, the premise of Santana's continuing
litigation will be that the Commonwealth causes of action are
indeed materially different. And the defendants, who would benefit
most from retention if the differences in the applicable law are
not material, raise no objection to the district court's decision.
All in all, while retention was certainly an option, the district
court did not exceed the outer boundary of its discretion in
declining to exercise continued supplemental jurisdiction.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the district
court's grant of summary judgment to the defendants and its
dismissal without prejudice of the non-federal claims.
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