Wilson v. Dollar General Corp.

122 F. Supp. 3d 460, 32 Am. Disabilities Cas. (BNA) 326, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103442, 2015 WL 4711409
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Virginia
DecidedAugust 7, 2015
DocketCase No. 4:14-cv-00033
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 122 F. Supp. 3d 460 (Wilson v. Dollar General Corp.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Virginia primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Wilson v. Dollar General Corp., 122 F. Supp. 3d 460, 32 Am. Disabilities Cas. (BNA) 326, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103442, 2015 WL 4711409 (W.D. Va. 2015).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OPINION

JACKSON L. KISER, Senior District Judge.

Before me' is Defendants’ Second Motion for Summary Judgment. [ECF No. 67.] The issues presented in the Motion were fully briefed by the parties, and they appeared before me on July 31, 2015, to argue their respective positions on the facts and the law. The matters are now ripe for disposition. For the reasons stated in herein, Defendahts’" Second Motion for Summary Judgment will be granted with respect to Coutít I (discrimination) and denied with respect to Count II (retaliation). Plaintiffs retaliation claim will proceed to trial.

I. STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Plaintiff Lamont Wilson (“Plaintiff’) is a resident of Blairs, VA, and is blind in his right eye. Defendant Dollar General (“Defendant”)1 is a small-box discount re[462]*462tailer with over 11,000 stores in 40 states. Plaintiff was previously employed by Defendant in 2010. Around that time, Plaintiff developed iritis and began having difficulty seeing in his left eye, his only functioning eye. Following several visits with his physician, Plaintiffs doctor removed him from work until his eyesight could be restored. Dollar General terminated Plaintiffs employment in April of 2010. Plaintiff contends that he was terminated because he could not return to his work as a result of his disability; Dollar General refutes that rationale. In 2012, Plaintiff filed suit against Dollar General alleging discrimination in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. I granted summary judgment to Dollar General, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed that decision.

Subsequent to his termination, Plaintiff had two surgeries to restore the vision in his left eye. On or about June 12, 2013, Plaintiff reapplied for a job through Defendant’s on-line employment portal. Because Plaintiff is not comfortable with computers, Plaintiff went to the Virginia Employment Commission (“VEC”) where a counselor helped Plaintiff complete and submit the application on-line. Defendants contend that Plaintiff never completed its multi-step application process.

According to Dollar General, the on-line application process is a two — step process. The first step-the “Gateway Questionnaire” — solicits information concerning an applicant’s employment history, education history, shift availability, and other general information. After completing the Gateway Questionnaire, the applicant must then complete the “Assessment.” Defendant does not assert what additional information is needed or solicited in the Assessment, but only that it is a second step. At his deposition, Plaintiff described the type of number of questions on the Assessment part of the application; Defendant does not dispute his description and, in fact, conceded at oral argument that his description of the Assessment was correct.

On June 12, 2013, Plaintiff completed, at a minimum, the Gateway Questionnaire. Defendant then e-mailed him an auto-generated e-mail message the same day that read, in relevant part:

Thank you for the time you took applying for employment with Dollar General. We have received your application for the position of 3410 GENERAL WAREHOUSE — South Boston VA Distribution Center — 1037BR and are currently reviewing your experience and qualifí-cations. If your profile corresponds to our requirements, a member of our team will contact you.

Plaintiff maintains that he completed the full application — the Gateway Questionnaire and the Assessment — yet yet Defendant asserts that its record do not show that Plaintiff even started the Assessment. According to Dollar General, the June 12 e-mail was not meant to inform Plaintiff that it had received his whole application or that his application was under review.

Defendant asserts that, on June 14, 2013, its computer systems sent Plaintiff an auto-generated e-mail which read, in relevant part:

You recently began the process of applying for a position at Dollar General, but did not finish the assessment(s). Your application will not be complete and you will not be considered for employment until you have completed the assessment(s). Please follow the link below to access your pending assessments).

According to Defendant, this message “would not have been generated if Mr. Wilson had completed the Assessment at [463]*463that time (i.e., by June 14, 2013).” Subsequent to these events, Plaintiff was not offered an interview or. a job with Dollar General. Both Henry Braining (Senior Manager of Human Resources) and Amanda Dalton (Human Resources Representative), the two people who were responsible for reviewing applications and filling positions, filed declarations stating that they never reviewed an application filed by Plaintiff.

On July 8, 2014, Plaintiff filed suit in this Court against Dollar General, DolgenCórp, LLC, and Dolgen, LLC (collectively “Defendants”). Plaintiff alleged that Defendants refused to hire him because he was disabled, and that they refused to hire him in retaliation for his filing of a charge of discrimination against Dollar General stemming from his prior employment and termination, all in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Defendants filed their Answer on September 4, 2014. A little over a month later, on October 8, 2014, Defendants filed a Motion for Summary Judgment, in which they argued that Plaintiff never fully completed an application for employment. I denied this motion, holding that the June 12 e-mail established a genuine issue of material fact with regard to Plaintiffs application status.

On June 25, 2015, Defendants filed a second motion for summary judgment, arguing that Plaintiff cannot establish a pri-ma facie case of either discrimination (Count I) or retaliation (II). Alternatively, even if Plaintiff can establish the prima facie case, he cannot establish that Defendants legitimate, non-diseriminatory and non-retaliatory reasons for its actions were false and a pretext for discrimination or retaliation. Plaintiff responded, and Defendants filed their reply.

II. STANDARD OF REVIEW

Summary judgment is appropriate where there is no genuine dispute of material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. Fed. R.Civ.P. 56(c); George & Co. LLC v. Imagination Entertainment Ltd., 575 F.3d 383, 392 (4th Cir.2009). A genuine dispute of material fact exists “[wjhere the record taken as a whole could ... lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party.” Ricci v. DeStefano, 557 U.S. 557, 586, 129 S.Ct. 2658, 174 L.Ed.2d 490 (2009) (internal quotation marks and citing reference omitted); see also Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc., 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). A genuine dispute cannot be created where there is only a scintilla of evidence favoring the nonmovant; rather, the Court must look to the quantum of proof applicable to the claim to determine whether a genuine dispute exists. Scott v. Harris, 550 U.S. 372, 380, 127 S.Ct. 1769, 167 L.Ed.2d 686 (2007); Anderson, 477 U.S. at 249-50, 254, 106 S.Ct. 2505.

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122 F. Supp. 3d 460, 32 Am. Disabilities Cas. (BNA) 326, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 103442, 2015 WL 4711409, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/wilson-v-dollar-general-corp-vawd-2015.