Jones v. Alpha Rae Personnel, Inc.

903 F. Supp. 2d 680, 2012 WL 5195989, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150566
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Indiana
DecidedOctober 18, 2012
DocketCase No. 3:11-CV-0302
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 903 F. Supp. 2d 680 (Jones v. Alpha Rae Personnel, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Indiana primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Jones v. Alpha Rae Personnel, Inc., 903 F. Supp. 2d 680, 2012 WL 5195989, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150566 (N.D. Ind. 2012).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

PHILIP P. SIMON, Chief Judge.

Plaintiff Christina Jones brought this action against her employer, defendant Alpha Rae Personnel, and Alpha Rae’s contractor, defendant Affiliated Computer Services, asserting retaliation claims under Title VII. Jones alleges that Alpha Rae and ACS removed her from ACS’s South Bend job site in retaliation for filing two formal concurrent complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the South Bend Human Rights Commission claiming race-based discriminatory conduct by her supervisor and other ACS employees. Jones also brought a defamation claim, but she appears to have abandoned it. Alpha Rae and ACS now seek summary judgment.

The main problem for Jones is that it’s pretty clear from the record that she wasn’t a model employee — far from it, in fact. ACS cited Jones for numerous deficiencies before Jones filed her first discrimination complaint. And her inadequate performance continued after her complaints were filed, which led to her termination. Jones’s only response to this evidence is that the timing of her removal is suspicious. But that’s not enough, for two reasons. First, she mistakes the event that must be the predicate for any suspicious timing argument — the protected activity that is the basis for the retaliation claim, which in this case occurred many months before her removal. And even setting that aside, Seventh Circuit precedent is clear that suspicious timing alone is generally insufficient to prove a retaliation claim. That principle is particularly applicable where, as here, an overwhelming weight of evidence shows that the adverse [682]*682action was undertaken for reasons apart from any retaliatory motive.

I therefore must conclude that the evidence in this case — when viewed in the light most favorable to Jones — shows that her prior discrimination complaints did not play a substantial role in Alpha Rae’s and ACS’s decision to remove her from the ACS job site. This is true whether I apply a “but for” causation requirement or a more lenient “mixed motive” test (though as I’ll address later, I think the former analysis is the correct one to use). Therefore, for the reasons discussed below, ACS’s and Alpha Rae’s summary judgment motions are GRANTED.

BACKGROUND

Alpha Rae is an employment staffing company. One of its clients was ACS, an information technology company. ACS had a contract with the State of Indiana to process welfare applications, and Jones was assigned by Alpha Rae to ACS to perform the duties of an eligibility specialist beginning in August 2008. (DE 1 at 2.) An ACS eligibility specialist is responsible for handling and processing cases from clients of the state in order to determine eligibility for a number of state welfare programs like Medicaid or food stamps. (DE 36-5 at 1-2.) Jones initially was assigned to the ACS center in Trigon, but after a few voluntary transfers, she ended up in South Bend. (DE 36-3 at 2.) Her immediate ACS supervisor in South Bend was team leader Jeanette Riegle (DE 36-4 at 1), who in turn reported to Assistant Strategic Business Unit Manager Tara Richie. (DE 36-5 at 1.)

Jones’s performance prior to her discrimination complaints was spotty. Although Jones did not receive any formal warnings or disciplinary actions prior to November 2009 (DE 39 at 4), she was the subject of at least six “coaching moments” (a sort of informal — but apparently documented — citation issued when a case processing error has been made (DE 36-5 at 2)) between April 14, 2009 and October 10, 2009. (DE 36-6 at 1.) Jones “believes” that she did not receive any more coaching moments than any of her colleagues. (DE 39 at 6.) But her belief is not proof, and ACS and Alpha Rae have produced unrebutted evidence indicating that this was the highest number of all eligibility specialists on Jones’s team during that time period. (DE 36-6 at 5-6.) Alpha Rae and ACS also cite Jones’s production record, which reflects that she failed to meet performance goals in eleven out of thirteen months. (DE 36-5 at 2, 7-8.) Finally, on October 13, 2009, Richie’s supervisor, Charles Smith, received an email from another team leader complaining about Jones’s disruptive and disrespectful behavior. (Id. at 3, 9.)

I should note at this point that one issue in the case involves the potential “conversion” of Jones from an Alpha Rae employee to an ACS one. This is an action whereby — after some undefined probationary period — an Alpha Rae employee ceases employment with that company and begins working full-time for ACS. (Id. at 3.) Conversion apparently is desirable because it gives an employee benefits like health insurance and sick time. (DE 39-2 at 6.) The parties agree that Jones approached a senior ACS manager (as well as Smith) on October 23, 2009 to ask why she had yet to be converted. (DE 36-6 at 9; DE 39-3 at 6.) Jones seems to imply that this inquiry was the impetus for the increasingly negative attention that she subsequently received, though she doesn’t clarify why asking about her conversion status might provoke that scrutiny, and she certainly doesn’t suggest that her inquiry is related to the repeated coaching moment citations and the October 13, 2009 email criticism that preceded it.

[683]*683In any event, there is no dispute that ACS became sharply critical of Jones starting in November 2009. On November 6, 2009, Richie sent an email to Alpha Rae raising a number of complaints about Jones’s behavior, attitude and performance. (DE 36-6 at 2, 9.) Alpha Rae subsequently issued a formal Employee Warming Notice to Jones citing her for deficiencies in work quality, work productivity and professionalism, and it placed her on a thirty-day probationary period. (DE 33-5.) It further stated that she would be reconsidered for conversion after another ninety day probationary period. (Id.) Jones responded with an email disagreeing with this criticism (DE 36-2 at 20-21), and on November 13, 2009, she filed a Charge of Discrimination with the South Bend Human Rights Commission and the EEOC. (DE 1-9.)

ACS’s complaints about Jones and her performance continued to escalate after the filing. On December 22, 2009, Riegle contacted Alpha Rae to request that it instruct her to sign quality review forms that she had apparently been refusing to sign until that point. (DE 36-4 at 1, 3.) Richie sent an email to Alpha Rae on January 22, 2010 assessing Jones’s performance; she agreed that Jones had demonstrated some improvement in her productivity since the November warning, but wrote that Jones still demonstrated a perceived lack of respect (due to her failure to take responsibility for her errors) and needed to improve her work quality. (DE 36-6 at 2, 10-12.) .Jones then met with Richie and an Alpha Rae representative on January 29, 2010 to further discuss the potential for conversion and was told that she needed to demonstrate more improvement. (DE 36-6 at 2.) Jones filed a second discrimination complaint with the South Bend Human Rights Commission and the EEOC ten days later. (DE 1-10.) An EEOC factfinding and mediation proceeding was held on June 4, 2010, but it did not resolve Jones’s claims. (DE 39-3 at 14-17.)

The incidents involving Jones continued throughout the spring and early summer of 2010. On March 23, 2010, she did not show up for her shift or call to explain her absence (DE 36-5 at 3-4), though there is some dispute as to whether she had a plausible excuse for it.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
903 F. Supp. 2d 680, 2012 WL 5195989, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 150566, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/jones-v-alpha-rae-personnel-inc-innd-2012.