Anthony Schmidt v. City of Atlanta, Georgia

Filing

Opinion issued by court as to Appellant Anthony Schmidt. Decision: Affirmed. Opinion type: Non-Published. Opinion method: Per Curiam.

Case: 13-11468

Date Filed: 03/11/2014

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[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 13-11468
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cv-02544-JOF

ANTHONY SCHMIDT,
Plaintiff-Appellant,
versus
CITY OF ATLANTA,
Defendant-Appellee.
________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Northern District of Georgia
________________________
(March 11, 2014)
Before CARNES, Chief Judge, WILSON and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:

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Anthony Schmidt appeals the district court’s grant of summary judgment on
his retaliation claim under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C.
§ 2000e-3(a). Schmidt contends that the district court erred in granting the City of
Atlanta’s motion for summary judgment because he had established a prima facie
case of retaliation.
I.
Schmidt began working for the City in January 2007 as a Senior Safety and
Training Officer in the Department of Watershed Management’s Office of Safety
and Security. He was promoted to Principal Safety and Training Officer in
February 2008, and in that role, he also took on the special project of building a
safety and security database related to the Watershed Department’s work.
For reasons not relevant to this appeal, in May 2010 Schmidt filed a
discrimination claim against the City with the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission, alleging racial discrimination. One year later, in May of 2011, he
filed a grievance, this time through his union, in response to a formal reprimand he
had received for using foul and offensive language toward a supervisor. That same
month, the City hired Jo Ann Macrina to be the Watershed Department’s new
Commissioner. As Commissioner, Macrina oversaw the entire Watershed
Department and sought to restructure it to improve its efficiency. As part of her

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restructuring efforts, Macrina ultimately let go three Watershed Department
employees, one of whom was Schmidt.
Before Schmidt’s employment was terminated on September 14, 2011,
Macrina had two interactions with him. First, she personally met with him in June
of 2011 to talk about the safety and security database that he had been working on,
a meeting that led her to conclude that neither Schmidt nor his database would fit
into her restructuring plans. Second, on July 15, 2011, she responded by letter to
Schmidt’s May 2011 grievance. In that letter, she rejected Schmidt’s allegation
that the reprimand he had received was somehow a form of retaliation for his 2010
EEOC claim.
Schmidt later sued the City under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), alleging that he
had been terminated in retaliation for his 2010 EEOC claim. The district court
granted summary judgment to the City, finding that Schmidt had not established a
prima facie case of retaliation because he had not shown a causal link between his
EEOC claim and his firing. This is Schmidt’s appeal.
II.
We review de novo a district court’s grant of summary judgment, viewing
all of the facts in the record in the light most favorable to the non-moving party.
Weeks v. Harden Mfg. Corp., 291 F.3d 1307, 1311 (11th Cir. 2002). Summary
judgment is appropriate if “there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and
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the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 56(a).
“Speculation does not create a genuine issue of material fact.” Shiver v. Chertoff,
549 F.3d 1342, 1343 (11th Cir. 2008) (quotation marks and emphasis omitted).
To establish a prima facie case of retaliation under 42 U.S.C. § 2000e-3(a), a
plaintiff must show that: (1) he engaged in a statutorily protected activity; (2) he
suffered a materially adverse action; and (3) there was a causal relation between
the events. Pennington v. City of Huntsville, 261 F.3d 1262, 1266 (11th Cir.
2001). A plaintiff may establish a causal connection by demonstrating that the
protected activity and the employer’s adverse action “are not completely
unrelated.” Id. at 1266. One way the plaintiff can demonstrate that the events are
“not completely unrelated” is by showing a close temporal proximity between the
employer’s discovery of the protected activity and the adverse action against the
plaintiff. Higdon v. Jackson, 393 F.3d 1211, 1220 (11th Cir. 2004). But temporal
proximity, without more, must be “very close.” Thomas v. Cooper Lighting, Inc.,
506 F.3d 1361, 1364 (11th Cir. 2007) (quotation marks omitted). A three to fourmonth gap between a protected activity and the adverse action is too long to show
a causal connection, while a one-month gap can suffice to show a link. Thomas,
506 F.3d at 1364; Higdon, 393 F.3d at 1220.
Here Schmidt has not established when Macrina learned of his EEOC claim.
He speculates, however, that Macrina discovered the EEOC claim on July 15,
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2011, when she sent the letter rejecting the allegation that he had been reprimanded
in retaliation for that claim. The July 15 letter came only seven weeks before
Schmidt’s September 14, 2011 firing, and based on that temporal proximity,
Schmidt contends that there is a causal link between the two events. We disagree.
While Macrina’s letter demonstrates that she was aware of Schmidt’s EEOC claim
by July 15, the letter does not indicate that she learned about the claim only then.
Macrina may have learned of Schmidt’s EEOC claim in May 2011 on the date she
was hired. She may have looked into the claim in June 2011 when preparing a
response to Schmidt’s grievance. Whatever the case may be, the record does not
indicate that Macrina did not learn of the EEOC claim until July 15, and we will
not speculate that was when she did. See Raney v. Vinson Guard Serv., Inc., 120
F.3d 1192, 1197 (11th Cir. 1997) (requiring more than evidence of “mere curious
timing coupled with speculative theories” to show when a defendant became aware
of a plaintiff’s protected expression); Shiver, 549 F.3d at 1343.
Schmidt asserts that certain circumstantial evidence also supports a causal
connection between his EEOC claim and his firing. While circumstantial evidence
can be used to show a causal connection between events, Goldsmith v. City of
Atmore, 996 F.2d 1155, 1163 (11th Cir. 1993), the circumstances here do not
indicate that Schmidt’s EEOC claim and his firing were causally linked. Thus,

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temporal proximity is the only evidence that Schmidt has for causation, and under
the facts of this case, it is not enough to create a genuine issue of material fact.
In conclusion, Schmidt has not demonstrated that his firing and his EEOC
claim are causally connected or that a genuine dispute of material fact exists with
respect to that causal link. Because Schmidt has not established a prima facie case
for retaliation, the district court properly granted summary judgment to the City on
Schmidt’s claim.
AFFIRMED.

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