Caesar White, Jr. v. Wendall Hall

[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
________________________ FILED
U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
No. 09-15072 ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
JULY 29, 2010
Non-Argument Calendar
JOHN LEY
________________________
CLERK
D. C. Docket No. 07-00461-CV-3-LAC-MD
CAESAR WHITE, JR.,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
WENDALL HALL,
M. E. SEEVERS,
Major (Detention),
PAUL CAMPBELL,
Captain (Detention),
RENA SMITH,
Captain (Detention Support),
HOBBS,
Lieutenant (Detention Support),
et al.,
Defendants-Appellees.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Florida
_________________________
(July 29, 2010)
Before CARNES, MARCUS and MARTIN, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
Caesar White, Jr., proceeding pro se in this employment discrimination
lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42
U.S.C. § 2000e-2, appeals from the district court’s grant of summary judgment in
favor of the following individual defendants associated with his former employer,
the Sheriff’s Office of Santa Rosa County, Florida: Sheriff Wendall Hall, Major
M.E. Seevers, Captain Paul Campbell, Captain Rena Smith, Lieutenant Diedre
Hobbs, Lieutenant Jerry Ranger, Sergeant Jody Cochran, and Field Training
Officer Pamela Moorer. White was fired for insubordination during his first-year
probationary period as a jail deputy. White, who is black, claims that the
defendants, some of whom are white and others of whom are black, discriminated
against him by treating him differently than they treated white employees, and
fired him because of his race.
White first argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment
2
to the defendants on his claims for due process and equal protection violations
under § 1983. He challenges the district court’s conclusions that he failed to make
a prima facie case of discrimination because (1) as to Hall, Seevers, Campbell,
Smith, and Hobbs, he failed to identify a similarly situated comparator who was
treated more favorably, and (2) as to Ranger, Cochran, and Moorer, he failed to
show that he was subjected to an adverse employment action. He also argues that
the district court erred in granting summary judgment on his Title VII claims on
the ground that White failed to exhaust his administrative remedies. White further
contends that the magistrate judge abused his discretion in denying White’s motion
to compel production of documents for discovery, that the district judge should
have recused himself, and that the defendants violated White’s rights under the
First and Fifth Amendments.1
“[We review] a grant of summary judgment de novo, applying the same
familiar standards as the district court.” Wilkerson v. Grinnell Corp., 270 F.3d
1314, 1317 (11th Cir. 2001). “Summary judgment is appropriate when the
evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party, presents no
1
We reject the defendants’ argument that we lack jurisdiction to consider summary
judgment as to Title VII and the denial of the motion to compel, both of which occurred before
the final disposition of the case. See Aaro, Inc. v. Daewoo Int’l (Am.) Corp., 755 F.2d 1398,
1400 (11th Cir. 1985) (holding that an order granting summary judgment that failed to resolve all
the claims asserted by the plaintiff was interlocutory and not appealable as of right, was merged
into the final judgment, and was open to review on appeal from that judgment).
3
genuine issue of material fact and compels judgment as a matter of law in favor of
the moving party.” Holloman v. Mail-Well Corp, 443 F.3d 832, 836–37 (11th Cir.
2006) (citing Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(c)). “[We have] consistently held that conclusory
allegations without specific supporting facts have no probative value.” Leigh v.
Warner Bros., Inc., 212 F.3d 1210, 1217 (11th Cir. 2000) (quotation omitted).
I.
A.
A § 1983 action alleging a violation of procedural due process requires proof
of “a deprivation of a constitutionally-protected . . . property interest.” Cryder v.
Oxendine, 24 F.3d 175, 177 (11th Cir. 1994). “Property interests protected by the
Constitution are created and their dimensions are defined by existing rules or
understandings that stem from an independent source such as state law . . . .” Silva
v. Bieluch, 351 F.3d 1045, 1047 (11th Cir. 2003) (quotation omitted). “Because
employment rights are state-created rights and are not ‘fundamental’ rights created
by the Constitution, they do not enjoy substantive due process protection.” Id. at
1047 (quotation omitted).
Florida law has established a civil service system for Santa Rosa County,
and under that system, employees who have served less than one year are
probationary employees. Act of April 24, 2002, 2002 Fla. Laws 385 § 1(16). With
4
respect to dismissals, such employees “do not have appeal rights and shall be
deemed at-will employees.” Id. § 21(1). When White was fired, he was an at-will
probationary employee with no appeal rights, and did not have a constitutionally
protected property interest in his job. Accordingly, his due process claim fails.
B.
In a § 1983 action, “discriminatory intent is an element to be shown in the
same manner as in an alleged Title VII violation when the two claims arise from
the same conduct and constitute parallel remedies.” Abel v. Dubberly, 210 F.3d
1334, 1338 n.3 (11th Cir. 2000). White has offered no direct evidence of
discrimination or racial animus. While he was employed, White never complained
about any racial discrimination or harassment. The insubordination charge
stemmed from a disagreement between White and his training officer, Moorer,
who is also black. Sheriff Hall, who was ultimately responsible for the termination
decision, never met White in person and was unaware of his race.
Discrimination claims based on circumstantial evidence are evaluated under
the McDonnell Douglas framework. Burke-Fowler v. Orange County, Fla., 447
F.3d 1319, 1322–23 (11th Cir. 2006); see McDonnell Douglas v. Green Corp., 411
U.S. 792, 93 S.Ct. 1817 (1973). A plaintiff establishes a prima facie case by
showing that (1) he is a member of a protected class; (2) he was subjected to an
5
adverse employment action; (3) his employer treated similarly situated employees
outside of his protected class more favorably than he was treated; and (4) he was
qualified to do the job. Burke-Fowler, 447 F.3d at 1323.
[T]o determine whether employees are similarly situated, we evaluate
whether the employees are involved in or accused of the same or
similar conduct and are disciplined in different ways. When making
that determination, we require that the quantity and quality of the
comparator’s misconduct be nearly identical to prevent courts from
second-guessing employers’ reasonable decisions and confusing
apples with oranges.
Id. at 1323 (quotations, citation, and alteration omitted).
With respect to the five defendants who were involved in the termination
decision—Hall, Seevers, Campbell, Smith, and Hobbs—White failed to show that
they gave more favorable treatment to similarly situated non-minority employees
who engaged in similar misconduct. White could not identify any other
probationary deputy, of any race, who had been insubordinate and had not been
fired. Summary judgment for these defendants was proper because White failed to
establish a prima facie case and therefore failed to raise an inference of
discrimination.
White also alleged that his immediate supervisors discriminated against him
by giving him more difficult assignments and less favorable performance
evaluations than the white deputies in his training class. In the public employment
6
context § 1983, like Title VII, prohibits discrimination with respect to an
employee’s “compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment.” See
Davis v. Town of Lake Park, Fla., 245 F.3d 1232, 1238 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting
42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)). Courts have uniformly read this language to require a
plaintiff to establish, as part of his prima facie case, that he suffered an “adverse
employment action.” See id. However, “not all conduct by an employer
negatively affecting an employee constitutes adverse employment action.” Id. In
Davis, we described an adverse employment action as follows:
[I]t is clear that to support a claim under Title VII’s
anti-discrimination clause the employer’s action must impact the
‘terms, conditions, or privileges’ of the plaintiff’s job in a real and
demonstrable way. Although the statute does not require proof of
direct economic consequences in all cases, the asserted impact cannot
be speculative and must at least have a tangible adverse effect on the
plaintiff's employment. . . . [T]herefore, . . . to prove adverse
employment action in a case under Title VII’s anti-discrimination
clause, an employee must show a serious and material change in the
terms, conditions, or privileges of employment. Moreover, the
employee’s subjective view of the significance and adversity of the
employer’s action is not controlling; the employment action must be
materially adverse as viewed by a reasonable person in the
circumstances.
Id. at 1239. Criticisms, negative evaluations, and temporary and non-substantial
changes in work assignments are not actions that have a “serious and material
effect” on the terms and conditions of employment. See id. at 1241–44.
7
With respect to the three defendants who were not involved in the
termination decision—Ranger, Cochran, and Moorer—they were entitled to
summary judgment because White did not show that he suffered an adverse
employment action at their hands. No alleged action by these three defendants
tangibly, seriously, or materially adversely affected the “terms, conditions, or
privileges” of White’s employment “as viewed by a reasonable person in the
circumstances.” Davis, 245 F.3d at 1239. Thus, White failed to make a prima
facie case as to them and the court correctly granted summary judgment for these
defendants.
II.
A plaintiff may sue for discrimination under Title VII only after he first
exhausts his administrative remedies, a process that begins with the filing of a
timely charge of discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission. Wilkerson, 270 F.3d at 1317. It is not necessary for us to decide
whether the district court was correct in determining that White’s intake
questionnaire and correspondence with the EEOC and the Florida Commission on
Human Relations failed to constitute a “charge” that would satisfy the exhaustion
requirement. Even if White did file a proper charge and exhaust his administrative
remedies, the legal elements and analysis for a discrimination claim under Title VII
8
are identical to the proof and analysis required under § 1983. See Stallworth v.
Shuler, 777 F.2d 1431, 1433 (11th Cir. 1985). White’s failure to present a prima
facie case of discrimination under § 1983, as discussed above, also supports
summary judgment for the defendants on his Title VII claims.
III.
We review the denial of a motion to compel discovery under an abuse of
discretion standard. Holloman, 443 F.3d at 837. The court “is allowed a range of
choice in such matters, and we will not second-guess [its] actions unless they
reflect a clear error of judgment.” Id. (quotation marks and citations omitted). The
magistrate judge repeatedly instructed White to work with defense counsel and
clarify his discovery requests, but White failed to do so. The record shows that the
defendants cooperated with White’s discovery requests to the extent they could
understand them. Aside from “surveillance video” that did not exist, it was never
clear exactly what records White was demanding that the defendants had not
already turned over. Under the circumstances, we cannot say that the magistrate
judge abused his discretion in denying White’s motion to compel.
IV.
We will not consider White’s arguments concerning judicial recusal or
alleged violations of his First and Fifth Amendment rights, because White never
9
raised them before the district court. See Access Now, Inc. v. Southwest Airlines
Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1331 (11th Cir. 2004). Even if he had, his arguments on those
issues are without merit.
AFFIRMED.
10