Willford v. United Airlines, Inc.

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
• Decided: January 19, 2023
• Docket: 21-2483
• Status: Unpublished

Opinion

21-2483 Willford v. United Airlines, Inc.

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 19th day of January, two thousand twenty-three.

PRESENT: DENNIS JACOBS, ROBERT D. SACK, ALISON J. NATHAN, Circuit Judges. _____________________________________

HEIDI WILLFORD, aka CELESTE WILLFORD,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v. 21-2483

UNITED AIRLINES, INC.,

Defendant-Appellee.

_____________________________________

FOR PLAINTIFF-APPELLANT: MELISSA Z. KELLY, Tucker Ellis LLP, Cleveland, OH (Benjamin C. Sassé, on the brief).

FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLEE: KRISTEN MCCAW GROSSMAN, Nukk- Freeman & Cerra, P.C., Chatham, NJ (Punam P. Alam, on the brief). Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of

New York (Daniels, J.).

UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND

DECREED that the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED.

Plaintiff-Appellant Heidi Willford worked as a flight attendant for Defendant-Appellee

United Airlines, Inc. from March 2006 until she was fired in February 2016. Willford

subsequently filed this action in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York

asserting, as relevant to this appeal, that she was terminated due to gender discrimination and in

retaliation for seeking medical leave. Specifically, Willford argued that her supervisor was

biased against her because she pursued in vitro fertilization (“IVF”) and that this bias led to her

firing. After discovery, United moved for summary judgment dismissing all of Willford’s

claims, which the district court granted. Willford appeals the district court’s ruling dismissing

her claims of gender discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the New York

State Human Rights Law (“NYSHRL”), and the New York City Human Rights Law

(“NYCHRL”), and her claim of retaliation under the Family and Medical Leave Act (“FMLA”),

29 U.S.C. §§ 2601 et seq. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and the

procedural history of the case, which we discuss only as necessary to explain our decision.

I. Background

Willford’s discrimination claims are based on allegations related to her supervisor, Winson

Waterman. In October 2015, Willford requested an emergency transfer from Dulles Airport in

Washington D.C., where she was based, to an airport in the New York City area, where she was

undergoing IVF treatment. The following week, Waterman called Willford to inform her that

her request had been denied. Willford alleges that Waterman told her during this call that if she

2 “wanted to take time off to be a mother, then this wasn’t the job for [her] and [she] should quit.”

Joint App’x 491.

A couple months later, on December 31st, Willford was on call to work flights on short

notice out of Dulles but flew home to New York City on the 30th. Once there, she learned that

she was assigned to take a flight from Dulles to Los Angeles early the next morning. About eight

hours before she was scheduled to depart, Willford called the Dulles crew desk and took medical

leave for the following morning, which relieved her from her assignment on the flight to Los

Angeles. The next morning at 8:30 a.m., she called the crew desk back and volunteered to work

a flight out of New York, where she was living at the time, stating that she had taken sick leave

the night before because, in part, “I just felt so worn out I just couldn’t get to an early checkout I

was so tired.” Supp. App’x Ex. V at 0:40–1:10. Employees at the crew desk thought that this

call was suspicious and emailed Waterman expressing concerns over Willford’s use of sick leave.

Waterman then consulted with his own supervisor and together they agreed that an investigation

into Willford’s conduct was appropriate. A hearing was held before United’s Dulles Base

Director, Mary Kay Panos, where Willford had the opportunity to make statements and submit

evidence. Afterwards, Panos concluded that Willford was dishonest and misused medical leave

and that termination of Willford’s employment was appropriate.

II. Discussion

We review orders granting summary judgment de novo, “construing the evidence in the

light most favorable to the party against which summary judgment was granted and drawing all

reasonable inferences in [her] favor.” Harris v. Miller, 818 F.3d 49, 57 (2d Cir. 2016). 1

Summary judgment is appropriate only if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and

1 Unless otherwise indicated, all internal citations, quotation marks, and alterations are omitted.

3 the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a). A material dispute

exists if a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party, but not if “the evidence

to support [her] case is so slight” that no rational factfinder could find in her favor. Brown v. Eli

Lilly & Co., 654 F.3d 347, 358 (2d Cir. 2011).

Title VII prohibits an employer from discriminating on the basis of sex. 42 U.S.C.

§ 2000e-2(a)(1). This prohibition includes discrimination against “women affected by

pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions.” Id. § 2000e(k). Discrimination claims

under Title VII are analyzed under the McDonnell Douglas three-step burden shifting framework.

See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792 (1973). At issue on appeal is step three

of this framework: whether Willford proffered sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to

conclude that United’s asserted non-discriminatory reasons for her termination were pretextual.

Willford argues that Waterman’s comment—that if she wanted to be a mother she should

quit—evidences his bias, which led him to (1) initiate an investigation against her for misusing

medical leave, (2) reject proffered evidence that would have shown her use of medical leave was

legitimate, and (3) improperly influence the ultimate decision to terminate her employment. As

explained below, even drawing every inference in Willford’s favor, these arguments do not “show

circumstances that would be sufficient to permit a rational finder of fact to infer that [United’s]

employment decision was more likely than not based in whole or in part on discrimination.”

Aulicino v. N.Y.C. Dep’t of Homeless Servs., 580 F.3d 73, 80 (2d Cir. 2009).

As a preliminary matter, it is undisputed that United’s ultimate decision to fire Willford

was made by Panos, not Waterman. But this fact alone does not necessarily foreclose Willford’s

Title VII claim because “the impermissible bias of a single individual at any stage of the

[decision-making] process may taint the ultimate employment decision in violation of Title VII.”

4 Bickerstaff v. Vassar Coll., 196 F.3d 435, 450 (2d Cir. 1999). However, to prevail, Willford must

point to evidence establishing a “causal link between [Waterman’s] alleged discriminatory bias

and” the decision to terminate her employment. Id. at 451. Willford failed to do so for several

reasons. First, Waterman was not solely, or even primarily, responsible for initiating the

investigation into Willford’s use of FMLA leave. As explained above, Waterman only took

action, in consultation with his supervisor, after an employee at the crew desk became suspicious

of Willford’s conduct and expressed that suspicion to Waterman. Second, even assuming that

Waterman had initiated and conducted the investigation in a biased manner, no reasonable

factfinder could conclude that the ultimate decision to fire Willford was tainted by bias. Willford

does not allege that Panos harbored any bias, and there is no genuine dispute that Panos considered

all the evidence—including corroborating medical evidence that Willford alleges Waterman

initially refused to collect—and determined that Willford used poor judgment when she flew to

New York City despite being on call out of Dulles, misused FMLA leave, and was dishonest after

the fact to cover it up. See Joint App’x at 114, 256, 259. Panos did not passively acquiesce to

Waterman’s recommendation or factual conclusions; she engaged in independent and—as

Willford concedes—unbiased factfinding, which severs any “causal link” between Waterman’s

allegedly biased investigation and Willford’s termination. Willford has therefore failed to point

to any evidence showing that United’s non-discriminatory justifications for her termination were

pretextual and that her firing was instead caused in whole or in part by Waterman’s discriminatory

bias.

Willford’s rejoinders amount to arguments that her firing was unfair and that she did not

actually violate company policy. But “we do not sit as a super-personnel department that

reexamines an entity’s business decisions,” and our concern is whether Willford’s firing was the

5 result of illegal discrimination, not whether it was otherwise fair or appropriate. Delaney v. Bank

of Am. Corp., 766 F.3d 163, 169 (2d Cir. 2014). On this record, no reasonable jury could find

that United’s “proffered explanation is unworthy of credence.” Meiri v. Dacon, 759 F.2d 989,

997 (2d Cir. 1985). We therefore affirm the dismissal of Willford’s Title VII and NYSHRL

claims. 2

Willford’s NYCHRL claim must be evaluated independently, but summary judgment

dismissing this claim was still proper “if the record establishes as a matter of law that

‘discrimination played no role’” in United’s decision. Mihalik v. Credit Agricole Cheuvreux N.

Am., Inc., 715 F.3d 102, 110 n.8 (2d Cir. 2013) (quoting Williams v. N.Y.C. Hous. Auth., 872

N.Y.S.2d 27, 38 n.27 (1st Dep’t 2009)). New York courts have held that a single discriminatory

comment made outside of the decision-making process is not sufficient to survive summary

judgment when the defendant has produced “uncontroverted evidence supporting the

nondiscriminatory reasons” for dismissal. Kosarin-Ritter v. Mrs. John L. Strong, LLC, 986

N.Y.S.2d 453, 453–54 (1st Dep’t 2014). For the reasons discussed above, we conclude that

Panos’s decision was her own and that discrimination played no part in it. We therefore affirm

the dismissal of this claim.

Finally, we affirm the dismissal of Willford’s FMLA retaliation claim. The district court

assumed without deciding that Willford could establish a prima facie case of retaliatory intent, and

concluded the claim failed for the same reason her discrimination claims did: Willford did not

2 “We typically treat Title VII and NY[S]HRL discrimination claims as analytically identical, applying the same standard of proof to both claims.” Salamon v. Our Lady of Victory Hosp., 514 F.3d 217, 226 n.9 (2d Cir. 2008). The parties addressed these claims together in their briefs, and we do so as well.

6 show that United’s rationale for her firing was pretextual. For the reasons stated above, we

agree. 3

Because Willford has failed to show discriminatory or retaliatory intent played any part in

United’s decision to terminate her employment, we must affirm the district court’s grant of

summary judgment on Willford’s Title VII, NYSHRL, NYCHRL, and FMLA claims. We have

considered all of Willford’s remaining arguments and find them to be without merit. For the

foregoing reasons, we AFFIRM the judgment of the district court.

FOR THE COURT: Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

3 We need not decide whether the McDonnell Douglas burden shifting framework or some lower standard applies to an FMLA claim at the summary judgment stage because Willford has not challenged the district court’s application of the burden shifting framework. See Graziadio v. Culinary Inst. of Am., 817 F.3d 415, 429 n.7 (2d Cir. 2016).