Carla Calobrisi v. Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc.

UNPUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
No. 15-1331
CARLA CALOBRISI,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
v.
BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON, INC.,
Defendant - Appellee.
------------------------
AARP,
Amicus Supporting Appellant.
No. 15-1399
CARLA CALOBRISI,
Plaintiff - Appellee,
v.
BOOZ ALLEN HAMILTON, INC.,
Defendant - Appellant.
------------------------
AARP,
Amicus Supporting Appellee.
Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern
District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Anthony J. Trenga,
District Judge. (1:14-cv-00996-AJT-MSN)
Argued: March 24, 2016 Decided: August 23, 2016
Before GREGORY, Chief Judge, and MOTZ and KEENAN, Circuit
Judges.
Affirmed in part and vacated and remanded in part by unpublished
per curiam opinion.
ARGUED: Linda Marie Correia, CORREIA & PUTH, PLLC, Washington,
D.C., for Appellant/Cross-Appellee. Stephen William Robinson,
MCGUIREWOODS LLP, Tysons Corner, Virginia, for Appellee/Cross-
Appellant. ON BRIEF: Amber C. Trzinski Fox, Jonathan C. Puth,
CORREIA & PUTH, PLLC, Washington, D.C.; John R. Ates, ATES LAW
FIRM, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
Melissa L. Taylormoore, Sarah A. Belger, MCGUIREWOODS
LLP, Tysons Corner, Virginia, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
Daniel B. Kohrman, Laurie A. McCann, Dara S. Smith, AARP
FOUNDATION LITIGATION, Washington, D.C., for Amicus Curiae.
Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:
This case principally involves Carla Calobrisi’s contention
that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to
Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc. on her age- and gender-based
employment discrimination and retaliation claims.
Booz Allen is a professional services consulting firm with
offices throughout the country and around the globe. Beginning
in 2000, Calobrisi worked in the company’s Law Department. In
2004, Booz Allen promoted her to Principal, and she remained in
that position and gained more responsibility over the years,
until 2011.
On January 20, 2011, her supervisors met and agreed to
demote Calobrisi (then age fifty-five) back to the Senior
Associate level and to transfer many of her responsibilities to
two younger women. At a meeting on January 26, her supervisors
informed her of the demotion, explaining that it was due to
workload changes and not her performance; they also told her
that the demotion was non-negotiable. Although disappointed,
Calobrisi remained in her position. Shortly after her demotion
she sought Principal positions in other Booz Allen departments
but was informed that her reputation had been ruined by the
demotion. After Calobrisi raised concerns that her demotion was
the result of age and gender discrimination, her supervisor
suggested that she transition out of Booz Allen if she harbored
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such concerns. Calobrisi left Booz Allen on October 31, 2011.
The company selected a thirty-one-year-old male to fill her
position.
On May 31, 2013, Calobrisi filed a complaint in the
District of Columbia Superior Court alleging sex-based
discrimination under Title VII, age-based discrimination under
the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, violations of the
District of Columbia Human Rights Act, and retaliation claims
associated with each of these claims. Booz Allen removed the
case to the United States District Court for the District of
Columbia where, after discovery on jurisdictional and venue
issues, the court dismissed the Human Rights Act claims. The
court then transferred the case to the District Court for the
Eastern District of Virginia because most of the alleged acts
took place in McLean, Virginia. On March 24, 2015, the district
court granted Booz Allen’s motion for summary judgment on
Calobrisi’s discrimination and retaliation claims, but denied
Booz Allen’s motion for Rule 11 sanctions. Both parties noted
appeals to this Court.
We review a district court’s grant of summary judgment de
novo, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the
nonmoving party and making all reasonable inferences in her
favor. Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248-50
(1986). To survive summary judgment, a plaintiff must establish
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a genuine dispute of material fact supporting her claims. Fed.
R. Civ. P. 56(c); Celotex Corp. v. Catrett, 477 U.S. 317, 322-23
(1986). We affirm, on the reasoning of the district court, the
grant of summary judgment to Booz Allen on Calobrisi’s
retaliation claim and to Calobrisi on Booz Allen’s request for
sanctions. For the following reasons, however, we reverse the
grant of summary judgment to Booz Allen on Calobrisi’s
discrimination and constructive discharge claims.
Calobrisi has chosen to pursue her claims under the
McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting framework. See McDonnell
Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). There are three
steps to the McDonnell Douglas framework: (1) the plaintiff
starts with the burden of establishing a prima facie employment
discrimination case; 1 (2) once the plaintiff meets that burden,
1 To establish a prima facie case of gender-based employment
discrimination under Title VII, Calobrisi must show “(1) she is
a member of a protected class; (2) she suffered adverse
employment action; (3) she was performing her job duties at a
level that met her employer’s legitimate expectations at the
time of the adverse employment action; and (4) the position
. . . was filled by similarly qualified applicants outside the
protected class.” Hill v. Lockheed Martin Logistics Mgmt.,
Inc., 354 F.3d 277, 285 (4th Cir. 2004) (en banc). The same
analysis is conducted for age discrimination claims, except that
the replacement employee need only be “substantially younger”
rather than outside the protected class. Dugan v. Albemarle
Cty. Sch. Bd., 293 F.3d 716, 721 (4th Cir. 2002).
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the employer must articulate 2 a legitimate, non-discriminatory
reason for taking the adverse employment action at issue; (3)
finally, the burden shifts back to the plaintiff to show that
the stated reason for the adverse employment action is a mere
pretext for a true discriminatory purpose. Tex. Dep’t of Cmty.
Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 252-56 (1981). In the third
step, “the burden to demonstrate pretext merges with the
ultimate burden of persuading the court that [the plaintiff] has
been the victim of intentional discrimination.” Hill v.
Lockheed Martin Logistics Mgmt., Inc., 354 F.3d 277, 285 (4th
Cir. 2004) (en banc) (alteration in original) (internal
quotation marks omitted).
The parties and the district court agree that Calobrisi
established a prima facie case and that Booz Allen presented a
non-discriminatory justification. The determinative question,
therefore, is did Calobrisi produce sufficient evidence for a
jury to conclude that the stated reason for her demotion was
pretext disguising a discriminatory purpose.
Calobrisi alleges that Booz Allen maintained a glass
ceiling that prevented female employees, particularly those who
were older or in higher ranking positions, from advancing.
2The burden at this step is one of production, not
persuasion. Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S.
133, 142 (2000).
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According to Calobrisi, her demotion resulted from her running
headfirst into that glass ceiling. To support this theory,
Calobrisi offers “other employee” evidence, 3 which consists of
the testimony of seven former Booz Allen employees, all middle-
aged women, who contend that they had been targeted for adverse
employment actions similar to those that Calobrisi experienced.
The district court, summarily concluding that this other
employee evidence would not be admissible at trial, did not
consider this evidence when ruling on Booz Allen’s motion for
summary judgment.
The Supreme Court, however, has held that other employee
evidence “is neither per se admissible nor per se inadmissible.”
Sprint/United Mgmt. Co. v. Mendelsohn, 552 U.S. 379, 381 (2008).
Rather, a court must engage in the standard admissibility
inquiry for each piece of other employee evidence. That is, the
court must determine if the evidence is relevant under Rule 401,
and, if so, whether it should nevertheless be excluded under
Rule 403. Id. at 387-88. The question of whether other
employee evidence is relevant “is fact based and depends on many
factors, including how closely related the evidence is to the
plaintiff’s circumstances and theory of the case.” Id. at 388.
3
The parties and district court have referred to this
testimony as “me-too,” “other employee,” and “pattern and
practice” evidence.
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The factors that courts consider when determining the
admissibility of this evidence include: whether the other
discriminatory behavior described “is close in time to the
events at issue in the case, whether the same decisionmakers
were involved, whether the witness and the plaintiff were
treated in a similar manner, and whether the witness and the
plaintiff were otherwise similarly situated.” Griffin v.
Finkbeiner, 689 F.3d 584, 599 (6th Cir. 2012) (quoting Elion v.
Jackson, 544 F. Supp. 2d 1, 8 (D.D.C. 2008)). “As a general
rule, the testimony of other employees about their treatment by
the defendant is relevant to the issue of the employer’s
discriminatory intent.” Spulak v. K Mart Corp., 894 F.2d 1150,
1156 (10th Cir. 1990).
The district court did not individually analyze each piece
of other employee evidence pursuant to factors like those listed
in Griffin. Nor did the court determine “how closely related
the evidence [was] to [Calobrisi’s] circumstances and theory of
the case.” Sprint, 552 U.S. at 388. Rather, in a single
sentence, the court conducted very nearly its entire
admissibility analysis, calling the witnesses “former employees
who held a variety of jobs, at a variety of times between 2007
and 2014, under a variety of managers, in different aspects of
the Booz Allen organization.” This analysis ignores both the
similar treatment experienced by Calobrisi and the other
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employee witnesses and the overlap of several decisionmakers at
Booz Allen. This approach is not the one contemplated by the
Supreme Court in Sprint.
The district court also placed too much emphasis on its
concern with “mini-trials.” While this concern “is legitimate,”
accommodating it in every case “would tend to exclude any ‘other
acts’ evidence, regardless of how closely related it is to the
plaintiff’s circumstances.” Griffin, 689 F.3d at 600. Rather,
a court should analyze whether the probative value of the other
employee evidence outweighs the potential for distraction.
On remand, the district court may find that some of
Calobrisi’s proffered other employee evidence is admissible, and
thus relevant for summary judgment purposes. For example, the
court could determine that some of the other employees’
testimony is relevant based on the common decisionmakers
involved in the witnesses’ departures and the similarities of
the departures’ circumstances. For example, members of Booz
Allen’s all-male “Leadership Team” triggered several of the
departures and each featured an abrupt demotion or revocation of
responsibilities after years of positive reviews, leading to a
separation from Booz Allen employment that the company
characterized as voluntary but that the witnesses characterized
differently.
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From our vantage point, this evidence appears relevant but
“because the inquiry required by [Rules 401 and 403] is within
the province of the [d]istrict [c]ourt in the first instance,”
Sprint, 552 U.S. at 388, we remand the case to that court. On
remand, the court can determine whether this evidence would be
admissible at trial and whether it creates a genuine dispute of
material fact such that Calobrisi’s discrimination and
constructive discharge claims should survive summary judgment. 4
AFFIRMED IN PART AND
VACATED AND REMANDED IN PART
4 On remand, the district court should also reconsider the
other evidence of discrimination Calobrisi presented. Calobrisi
proffered evidence that Booz Allen’s reasons for her demotion
shifted, that those reasons were false, that Booz Allen
attempted to obfuscate the decisionmaker, and other
circumstantial evidence. When considered along with the other
employee evidence, and in the light most favorable to Calobrisi,
this circumstantial evidence of intent may present a genuine
dispute of material fact that precludes summary judgment.
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