Melissa Williams v. The School Board of Palm Beach County

DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA

FOURTH DISTRICT

MELISSA WILLIAMS,

Appellant,

v.

THE SCHOOL BOARD OF PALM BEACH COUNTY,

Appellee.

No. 4D2023-0078

[May 15, 2024]

Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Fifteenth Judicial Circuit, Palm

Beach County; Richard L. Oftedal, Senior Judge; L.T. Case No. 50-2020-

CA-005983-XXXX-MB.

William R. Amlong, Karen Coolman Amlong, and Jennifer Daley of The

Amlong Firm, Fort Lauderdale, for appellant.

Sean Fahey, Office of General Counsel, The School Board of Palm Beach

County, Florida, West Palm Beach, for appellee.

WARNER, J.

Appellant challenges the trial court’s final summary judgment on her

complaint against the Palm Beach County School Board on counts of

employment discrimination, racial harassment based on a hostile work

environment, and retaliation for reporting racial discrimination. We

affirm.

As to the claim of employment discrimination, appellant failed to meet

the McDonnell Douglas 1 test for a prima facie case of discrimination. See

Lewis v. City of Union City, Ga., 918 F.3d 1213, 1220–21 (11th Cir. 2019)

(holding that to meet the McDonnell Douglas test for a prima facie case of

employment discrimination, comparators must be substantially similar in

material respects). Appellant has also failed to provide a convincing

mosaic of circumstances to prove substantive discrimination; her evidence

is based upon speculation, and the mere fact that an employee outside her

protected class replaced her “is not enough to carry the day on the

1 McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973).

substantive question of discrimination.” Ossmann v. Meredith Corp., 82

F.4th 1007, 1019 (11th Cir. 2023).

As to appellant’s harassment claim, she failed to provide any evidence

that the alleged hostile work environment was based upon race. See Jones

v. UPS Ground Freight, 683 F.3d 1283, 1297 (11th Cir. 2012) (“It is a

‘bedrock principle that not all objectionable conduct or language amounts

to discrimination under Title VII.’ Reeves v. C.H. Robinson Worldwide, Inc.,

594 F.3d 798, 809 (11th Cir. 2010) (en banc). Therefore, only conduct

that is ‘based on’ a protected category, such as race, may be considered in

a hostile work environment analysis.”). As the trial court found, all of the

incidents which appellant considered harassment were related to issues

with her job performance.

Finally, appellant’s retaliation claim fails because she did not show that

her protected activity was the “but-for” cause of the adverse employment

action, rather than just a motivating factor. See Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr.

v. Nassar, 570 U.S. 338, 360 (2013) (“Title VII retaliation claims must be

proved according to traditional principles of but-for causation, not the

lessened causation test stated in § 2000e–2(m). This requires proof that

the unlawful retaliation would not have occurred in the absence of the

alleged wrongful action or actions of the employer.”). The evidence is

undisputed that her supervisor was contemplating terminating her prior

to her protected activity. See Drago v. Jenne, 453 F.3d 1301, 1308 (11th

Cir. 2006) (“[I]n a retaliation case, when an employer contemplates an

adverse employment action before an employee engages in protected

activity, temporal proximity between the protected activity and the

subsequent adverse employment action does not suffice to show

causation.”).

Affirmed.

CONNER and ARTAU, JJ., concur.

* * *

Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing.

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