holding that a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the plaintiff suffered materially adverse actions based on the “cumulative effect” of certain actions, including referring plaintiff to a fitness-for-duty exam, placing her on leave, escorting her out of the office, removing her badge, and setting her email to send out an automated reply that she was no longer employed and upon her return, offering her an inferior position
How later courts described this case
- holding that a reasonable factfinder could conclude that the plaintiff suffered materially adverse actions based on the “cumulative effect” of certain actions, including referring plaintiff to a fitness-for-duty exam, placing her on leave, escorting her out of the office, removing her badge, and setting her email to send out an automated reply that she was no longer employed and upon her return, offering her an inferior position
- finding cumulative effect of being referred for a fitness for duty exam, placed on leave, escorted out of the office, having her badge removed, and an out-of-office email stating that plaintiff was no longer with the company sufficient to satisfy the third element of McDonnell Douglas
- finding that a roughly two-month period between the employee’s protected activity and the material adverse event was, alone, “sufficient temporal proximity to establish a causal connection”
- noting that pretext can be shown “by showing that the proffered reason (1) has no basis in fact, (2) did not actually motivate the defendant’s challenged conduct, or (3) was insufficient to warrant the challenged conduct”
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
KETHLEDGE, Circuit Judge, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Monica Rogers argues that Henry Ford transferred her to a new position (with the same pay) in retaliation for her EEOC complaint against Henry Ford. Yet she lacks evidence that the person who offered her the transfer-Derick Adams-had any animus toward her. That leaves us with the benign motive Henry Ford proffers: namely, that Adams offered the transfer to defuse the tension between Rogers and the many coworkers who had independently raised concerns about her behavior.
For two reasons, the majority thinks this motive might be pretextual. First, Rogers had been cleared to return to her original position despite her coworkers' concerns. But that suggests at most that Adams was overly cautious, not "that retaliation was the real reason" for his actions. Tingle v. Arbors at Hilliard , 692 F.3d 523 , 530 (6th Cir. 2012). Second, Adams testified that he had wanted to give Rogers "some space" from the people at the core of her complaint. But that shows that Adams was "actually motivate[d]" to keep the peace, not to retaliate. Id . I therefore respectfully dissent from this part of the opinion, and concur in the rest.