Lorene Williams v. Brunswick County Board of Education

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 10-1884
LORENE WILLIAMS,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
BRUNSWICK COUNTY BOARD OF EDUCATION,
Defendant - Appellee.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of North Carolina, at Raleigh. James C. Dever, III,
District Judge. (7:08-cv-00140-D)
Submitted: June 14, 2011 Decided: July 22, 2011
Before TRAXLER, Chief Judge, and WYNN and DIAZ, Circuit Judges.
Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.
Romallus O. Murphy, Sr., Greensboro, North Carolina, for
Appellant. Curtis H. Allen, III, Christine T. Scheef, Kathleen
P. T. Kennedy, THARRINGTON SMITH, L.L.P., Raleigh, North
Carolina, for Appellee.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
PER CURIAM:
Lorene Williams appeals a district court order
granting summary judgment against her in her employment
discrimination action brought against the Brunswick County
(North Carolina) Board of Education (“the Board”). Finding no
error, we affirm.
I.
Williams has been employed by the Board since 1975 in
various roles, including as Director of Exceptional Children
from 1985 to 1996 and Director of Federal Programs from 1996 to
June 2005. In June 2005, Williams returned to her position of
Director of Exceptional Children. In December 2005, however,
Superintendent Katie McGee transferred Williams to Director of
Pre-K and Student Services.
On June 4, 2007, Williams submitted a letter to her
supervisor, Dr. Zelphia Grisset, requesting a six-month medical
leave of absence to begin June 8, 2007, as a result of her
diabetes and other related problems. Grisset shared the letter
the same day with McGee.
Unbeknownst to Williams, at the time of Williams’s
request, McGee had been preparing to recommend a reorganization
of central office personnel that would affect approximately 15
Board employees and would move Williams to the position of Dean
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of Students at Shallotte Middle School. McGee had planned to
present her recommendations to the Board at its meeting on
June 5, 2007. As she had done two years earlier when she had
recommended a similar restructuring, McGee notified the affected
employees (including Williams) of her intentions on the day she
was to present her plan to the Board.
The Board approved McGee’s plan at its June 5, 2007,
meeting. However, Williams was unhappy with her transfer and
requested to meet with the Board to challenge it. The Board
heard from her at a subsequent meeting but voted to uphold the
transfer.
Williams later brought suit against the Board in
federal district court, alleging, as is relevant here, that the
Board’s transfer violated the antiretaliation provisions of the
Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (“ADA”) and the
Rehabilitation Act of 1973. See 42 U.S.C. § 12203(a); 29 U.S.C.
§ 794(d). The Board subsequently moved for, and was granted,
summary judgment.
II.
Williams argues that the district court erred in
granting summary judgment against her on her retaliation claim.
We disagree.
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We review the district court’s grant of summary
judgment de novo, viewing the facts and the reasonable
inferences therefrom in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party. See EEOC v. Navy Fed. Credit Union, 424 F.3d
397, 405 (4th Cir. 2005). Summary judgment is appropriate when
“the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any
material fact and the movant is entitled to a judgment as a
matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
Williams concedes that her retaliation claim should be
reviewed using the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework.
See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).
Thus, to establish a prima facie case of retaliation, Williams
must show that: “(1) that she has engaged in conduct protected
by the ADA; (2) that she suffered an adverse action subsequent
to engaging in the protected conduct; and (3) that there was a
causal link between the protected activity and the adverse
action.” Freilich v. Upper Chesapeake Health, Inc., 313 F.3d
205, 216 (4th Cir. 2002). Even assuming that Williams could
show that her leave request constituted protected activity and
that her transfer was an adverse action, she cannot show any
causal relationship between her transfer and her leave request.
In arguing that she created a genuine issue of
material fact regarding whether such a causal connection
existed, Williams directs us to the fact that McGee learned of
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her leave request on June 4, 2007, and informed Williams the
very next day that she would be transferred. Williams also
points to what she asserts are “conflicting reasons” given by
McGee for the transfer, namely, “[Williams’s] health, [her] lack
of performance and [her] outstanding performance.” Brief of
Appellant at 11. We conclude, however, that Williams has not
created a genuine issue of material fact.
First, the record shows that the temporal proximity of
McGee’s learning of Williams’s leave request and her informing
Williams of the transfer recommendation were purely coincidence.
McGee explained in her affidavit that Williams’s recommended
transfer was part of a central office reorganization that
involved approximately 15 employees and that had been planned
before Williams submitted her leave request. McGee informed
Williams of her recommendation the same day that she informed
the other people affected by the reorganization, which was the
day that the school board was to vote on her recommendations.
Indeed, she had followed the very same procedure during her
reorganization of the central office staff in 2005.
Second, Williams does not explain how the multiple
reasons on which McGee based her transfer decision were in
conflict. McGee’s affidavit provides a detailed explanation of
why the strengths and weaknesses McGee identifies in Williams’s
performance support the transfer decision. And, the fact that
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McGee believed that Williams’s impending six-month absence
provided additional justification for the transfer in no way
casts doubt on McGee’s claim that she decided to recommend the
transfer before Williams submitted her leave request.
III.
In sum, we conclude that the district court properly
granted summary judgment against Williams on her retaliation
claim. We dispense with oral argument because the facts and
legal contentions are adequately presented in the materials
before the court and argument would not aid the decisional
process.
AFFIRMED
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