Beckles v. Federal Express Corp.

489 F. App'x 380
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 11, 2012
DocketNo. 11-14283
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 489 F. App'x 380 (Beckles v. Federal Express Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Beckles v. Federal Express Corp., 489 F. App'x 380 (11th Cir. 2012).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Wendell Beckles, á black male, appeals the district court’s grant of defendant Federal Express Corporation’s (“FedEx”) motion for summary judgment as to Beekles’s complaint alleging race discrimination, raised pursuant to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq., and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. Beckles, a former Managing Director for FedEx Air Ground and Freight Services (“AGFS”) South, asserts that the district court improperly granted summary judgment on his Title VII and § 1981 race discrimination claims because: (1) he es[382]*382tablished a prima facie case of discrimination by showing that white FedEx Managing Directors Jackie Nichols and Flynn Wallace were valid comparators; (2) the district court abused its discretion when it excluded past racial comments made by FedEx Senior Vice President Michael Pi-gors because they showed that FedEx’s legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating him — that he failed to detect and possibly knew about mileage reimbursement fraud perpetrated by two of his subordinates — was a pretext for race discrimination; and (3) even without Pigors’s past comments, he established that FedEx’s nondiscriminatory reason for his termination was pretextual. After thorough review, we affirm.1

We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment. Vessels v. Atlanta Indep. Sch. Sys., 408 F.3d 763, 767 (11th Cir.2005). We view all evidence, and draw all reasonable inferences, in favor of the non-moving party. Id. We review the district court’s evidentiary decisions for abuse of discretion. Chapman v. AI Transp., 229 F.3d 1012, 1023 (11th Cir.2000).

Title VII prohibits an employer from discharging an employee, or otherwise discriminating against him with respect to his employment, on the basis of race. See 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(l). Section 1981 provides that “[a]ll persons ... shall have the same right ... to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens.” 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a). Furthermore, the elements of a race discrimination claim under § 1981 are the same as Title VII disparate treatment claims in the employment context. Shields v. Fort James Corp., 305 F.3d 1280, 1282 (11th Cir.2002).

In reviewing discrimination claims supported by circumstantial evidence, courts may use the three-step burden-shifting framework established in McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792, 802-04, 93 S.Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973). First, the plaintiff must make out a prima facie case of employment discrimination. Vessels, 408 F.3d at 767. Second, the burden of production shifts to the employer to provide a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for its employment action. Id. at 767-68. Third, the plaintiff must then show that the employer’s reason was false and a pretext for race discrimination. Id. at 768. While district courts may analyze employment discrimination claims under the McDonnell Douglas framework, a plaintiff need not establish the McDonnell Douglas elements in order to survive summary judgment. Smith v. Lockheed-Martin Corp., 644 F.3d 1321, 1328 (11th Cir.2011). The plaintiff will survive summary judgment where he presents “a convincing mosaic of circumstantial evidence that would allow a jury to infer intentional discrimination by the decisionmaker.” Id. (quotations omitted).

In order to establish a prima facie case of discriminatory discharge, the plaintiff must show that he (1) was a member of a protected class, (2) was qualified for the job, (3) suffered an adverse employment action, and (4) was discharged for misconduct that was nearly identical to that engaged in by employees outside of his protected class who were not discharged. Nix v. WLCY Radio/Rahall Commc’ns, 738 F.2d 1181, 1185 (11th Cir.1984). In addressing whether comparator employees were similarly situated to the plaintiff, we consider whether the comparators were [383]*383involved in, or accused of, the same or similar conduct and disciplined differently. Maniccia v. Brown, 171 F.3d 1364, 1368 (11th Cir.1999). The quality and quantity of the misconduct must be nearly identical in order to prevent courts from second-guessing reasonable employer decisions, “and confusing apples with oranges.” Id.

Here, the district court did not err when it determined that Beckles failed to establish a prima facie case of discriminatory termination because he did not establish valid comparators. As for Nichols, Beckles did not establish that the quantity or quality of Beckles’s misconduct was nearly identical to Nichols’s misconduct. Reggie Owens, Vice-President (“VP”) of AGFS South, said that he terminated Beckles for his “absolute failure to be responsible with the finances of the company” by allowing gross fraud to happen in his chain-of-command. Beckles’s subordinates perpetrated approximately $180,000 in mileage reimbursement fraud, while under Nichols FedEx was defrauded of only $18,378 (and it is not even clear whether it was committed by Nichols’s “subordinates”). Indeed, when asked why he did not also terminate Nichols, Owens said that Nichols’s actions were “not as egregious as hundreds of thousands of dollars being defrauded from the company.” Additionally, the quality of Beckles’s and Nichols’s respective misconduct differed— Beckles’s misconduct was the complete abandonment of his acknowledged responsibility to audit and approve mileage reimbursement requests, which he completely delegated to his administrative assistant, whereas Nichols’s misconduct involved giving his password to an employee on one occasion for a purpose other than mileage approval.

Nor did Beckles establish that Wallace was a valid comparator because, among other things, the fraud committed by their subordinates differed. Wallace’s subordinate falsified check requests, forged Wallace’s signature, and then submitted those false check requests directly to accounting. Beckles’s subordinate, on the other hand, submitted her fraudulent mileage reimbursement requests directly to Beckles, who approved them via his delegation to his administrative assistant. Moreover, Wallace only directly approved $288.77 in fraudulent check requests, making the scale of the fraud for which he was responsible significantly less than the massive amounts of mileage reimbursement fraud that Beckles approved through his administrative assistant.

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Bluebook (online)
489 F. App'x 380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/beckles-v-federal-express-corp-ca11-2012.