Tanisha C. Foster v. Biolife Plasma Services, LP

566 F. App'x 808
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedMay 15, 2014
Docket13-13883
StatusUnpublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 566 F. App'x 808 (Tanisha C. Foster v. Biolife Plasma Services, LP) 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
Tanisha C. Foster v. Biolife Plasma Services, LP, 566 F. App'x 808 (11th Cir. 2014).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Tanisha Foster appeals the district court’s grant of defendant BioLife Plasma Services, LP’s (“BioLife”) motion for summary judgment as to her complaint alleging race discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) and 42 U.S.C. § 1981. She argues that: (1) she presented sufficient evidence to permit a jury to disbelieve BioLife’s proffered legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason for terminating her; and (2) the district court improperly weighed witness credibility. After careful review, we affirm.

The relevant, undisputed facts are these. Foster, an African-American, was employed as a lab technician at BioLife, which was in the business of collecting high-quality plasma and processing it into therapies to be used in the treatment of medical disorders. Under the company’s standard operating procedures, shipments *810 of plasma that it received were required to have a shipping date that was consecutive to the receiving date, or else an external nonconformance (“ENC”) form had to be initiated to determine if the plasma was still usable. On July 13, Foster came across a partially reviewed lab folder, and noticed that the shipping and receiving dates on a shipping form in the folder were July 5 and July 7. She alerted Marvin King, a co-worker who had trained her, about the nonconsecutive dates, and they initiated an ENC form.

BioLife later discovered that the shipping date on the shipping form had been changed from July 2 to July 5 at some point on July 13. The company launched an investigation into the matter, and Foster was interviewed by management about her contact with the form, as well as that of two other African-American employees, King and Carmela Montgomery. The investigation was unable to pinpoint who had changed the date on the form, but it determined that Foster, King, and Montgomery were the individuals most likely to have falsified the form, and BioLife terminated all three, allegedly because it lost confidence in them. None of the Caucasian employees who had come into contact with the form in question were disciplined.

We review a district court’s order granting summary judgment de novo, “viewing all the evidence, and drawing all reasonable inferences, in favor of the non-moving party.” Vessels v. Atlanta Indep. Sch. Sys., 408 F.3d 763, 767 (11th Cir.2005). Summary judgment is proper if the pleadings, depositions, and affidavits show that there is no genuine issue of material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Mayfield v. Patterson Pump Co., 101 F.3d 1371, 1374 (11th Cir.1996). A mere “scintilla” of evidence supporting the opposing party’s position will not suffice; instead, there must be a sufficient showing that the jury could reasonably find for that party. Brooks v. Cnty. Comm’n of Jefferson Cnty., 446 F.3d 1160, 1162 (11th Cir.2006).

A court should not generally grant summary judgment or a directed verdict based solely on the favorable testimony of an interested witness. See Hibiscus Assocs. Ltd. v. Bd. of Trustees of the Policemen & Firemen Retirement Sys., 50 F.3d 908, 921 (11th Cir.1995) (directed verdict). However, if the testimony of an interested witness is inherently plausible and corroborated by other evidence, then summary judgment may be appropriate. See id.

Title VII makes it unlawful for employers to “discriminate against any individual with respect to [her] compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment, because of such individual’s race....” 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-2(a)(1). Under 42 U.S.C. § 1981, “[a]ll persons ... shall have the same right ... to make and enforce contracts ... as is enjoyed by white citizens,” which in an employment context means protection against discrimination based on race. 42 U.S.C. § 1981(a); see, e.g., Standard v. A.B.E.L. Servs. Inc., 161 F.3d 1318, 1330-34 (11th Cir.1998). Title VII and 42 U.S.C. § 1981 have the same requirements of proof and use the same analytical framework, so it is appropriate to “explicitly address [a] Title VII claim with the understanding that the analysis applies to the § 1981 claim as well.” Standard, 161 F.3d at 1330.

Claims based on circumstantial evidence are evaluated under the McDonnell Douglas 1 burden-shifting framework. Burke-Fowler v. Orange County, 447 F.3d 1319, 1323 (11th Cir.2006). If a plaintiff establishes a prima facie case, and the employer *811 shows a legitimate nondiscriminatory reason for its employment action, then the plaintiff must prove that the employer’s reason is a pretext for unlawful discrimination. Id. at 1323. A plaintiff seeking to show pretext must “meet [the reason] head on and rebut it.” Wilson v. B/E Aerospace, 376 F.3d 1079, 1088 (11th Cir.2004).

We do not judge whether an employer’s decisions are “prudent or fair,” and the sole concern is whether unlawful discriminatory animus motivated an employment decision. Damon v. Fleming Supermarkets of Fla., Inc., 196 F.3d 1354, 1361 (11th Cir.1999). Furthermore, a reason is not pretextual “unless it is shown both that the reason was false, and that discrimination was the real reason.” St. Mary’s Honor Ctr. v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515, 113 S.Ct. 2742, 125 L.Ed.2d 407 (1993). A plaintiff cannot show pretext merely by showing that an employer’s good faith belief that she engaged in misconduct is mistaken. EEOC v. Total Sys. Servs., Inc., 221 F.3d 1171, 1176-77 (11th Cir.2000).

To the extent a plaintiff seeks to show disparate treatment of comparators, those individuals must still be similarly situated. See Silvera v. Orange County Sch. Bd., 244 F.3d 1253, 1259 (11th Cir.2001) (concluding that plaintiffs comparator evidence did not support a showing of pretext because the comparator was not “similarly situated”).

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566 F. App'x 808, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/tanisha-c-foster-v-biolife-plasma-services-lp-ca11-2014.