Smith v. Greater New Haven Transit District et al

Filing 95

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION re: 86 Oral Motion for Judgment as a Matter of Law. Signed by Judge Robert N. Chatigny on 5/19/15. (Reardon, C)

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
DISTRICT OF CONNECTICUT
MAURICE W. SMITH,
Plaintiff,

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v.
GREATER NEW HAVEN TRANSIT
DISTRICT,
Defendant.

Case No. 3:13-CV-00502 (RNC)

MEMORANDUM
Plaintiff Maurice W. Smith, proceeding pro se, brought this
lawsuit against his former employer, the Greater New Haven
Transit District ("District"), alleging that he was suspended in
retaliation for filing a complaint of racial discrimination with
the Connecticut Commission on Human Rights and Opportunities
("CHRO").

No motion for summary judgment having been filed, the

case proceeded to a jury trial without an assessment of the
sufficiency of Mr. Smith’s evidence by the Court.

After Mr.

Smith completed his presentation of evidence, the defendant moved
for judgment as a matter of law under Federal Rule of Civil
Procedure 50(a).

After argument by both parties, the motion was

granted from the bench.

This memorandum provides a more complete

statement of the reasons for the ruling.
I. Background
The evidence presented by the parties during the trial,
viewed fully and most favorably to Mr. Smith, shows the

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following.
2000.

Mr. Smith began work for the District in September

He worked as a bus driver, primarily transporting elderly

and handicapped passengers.
In June 2010, a supervisor reported seeing Mr. Smith talking
on a cell phone while driving his District vehicle, a violation
of District policy for which a driver may be suspended without
pay.

Mr. Smith was suspended for three days, beginning July 1,

2010.

That September, Mr. Smith filed a complaint with the CHRO

alleging that his suspension had been motivated by racial
discrimination.

In a document dated April 13, 2011, the CHRO

released its jurisdiction over the complaint, permitting Mr.
Smith to bring suit.
In the meantime, Mr. Smith was again reported for using his
cell phone while operating a District bus on duty.

On April 8,

2011 – five days before the CHRO issued its Release of
Jurisdiction – a District employee named Taleim Salters told his
supervisor that on April 7 he had seen Mr. Smith operating his
District bus while holding a cell phone to his ear.

Mr. Smith

has conceded that if the District credited the report of his cell
phone use, he could lawfully be suspended.

The District,

consistent with its usual practice, notified union steward Mary
Barber of the alleged violation instead of confronting Mr. Smith
directly.

At some point between April 8 and April 19, Ms. Barber

informed Mr. Smith that the District was considering “pulling him

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off the road” and he would have to meet with his supervisors
concerning an incident that occurred on April 7.

At a meeting on

April 19, Mr. Smith was informed of the allegation of cell phone
use and told he would be suspended.

Starting May 5, 2011, Mr.

Smith was suspended without pay for ten days.
Mr. Smith's suspensions in July 2010 and May 2011 are not
the only incidents on record relating to his impermissible cell
phone use.

On five occasions between 2007 and 2011, a District

employee reported having observed Mr. Smith using a cell phone
while operating his District vehicle.
suspended.

Ex. 28.

Each time Mr. Smith was

During the same period of time, seventeen

District passengers or passing motorists complained that Mr.
Smith had been using his phone while driving, but none of these
reports prompted formal discipline.

Id.

This case arises out of Mr. Smith's May 2011 suspension.

In

his complaint, Mr. Smith alleges that the District suspended him
not because he was reported for using a cell phone, but because
of his earlier CHRO complaint about racial discrimination.

He

asserts that the District would not have disciplined him but for
this protected activity, rendering his suspension unlawful under
Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et
seq.
II. Discussion
Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 50(a)(1) provides:

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If a party has been fully heard on an issue during a
jury trial and the court finds that a reasonable jury
would not have a legally sufficient evidentiary basis
to find for the party on that issue, the court may:
(A) resolve the issue against the party; and
(B) grant a motion for judgment as a matter of law
against the party on a claim or defense that, under the
controlling law, can be maintained or defeated only
with a favorable finding on that issue.
A court ruling on a Rule 50(a) motion should "review all of
the evidence in the record," drawing "all reasonable inferences
in favor of the nonmoving party."

Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing

Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 150–51, 120 S. Ct. 2097, 147 L.Ed.2d
105 (2000).

It is not the court's function to make credibility

determinations or weigh the evidence, but only to determine
whether any reasonable juror could, in light of the whole record
and the governing substantive law, return a verdict for the
nonmovant.

Id.

In this case, Title VII provides the substantive law.

Title

VII prohibits employers from retaliating against employees for
engaging in protected conduct.

Retaliation claims brought under

Title VII are evaluated using the McDonnell Douglas burden
shifting test.

McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411 U.S. 792,

802, 93 S. Ct. 1817, 36 L.Ed.2d 668 (1973).

The plaintiff bears

the initial burden of establishing 1) his participation in a
protected activity; 2) the defendant's awareness of that
activity; 3) an adverse employment action; and 4) a causal
connection between the adverse action and the protected activity.

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Kelly v. Howard I. Shapiro & Assocs. Consulting Eng'rs, P.C., 716
F.3d 10, 14 (2d Cir. 2013) (per curiam).

If the plaintiff makes

this showing, "a presumption of retaliation arises and the
employer must articulate a legitimate, non-retaliatory reason"
for the adverse employment action.

Dall v. St. Catherine of

Siena Med. Ctr., 966 F. Supp. 2d 167, 192 (E.D.N.Y. 2013).

If

the employer carries that burden, the plaintiff must establish
that the adverse employment action would not have occurred but
for the protected activity.

Univ. of Tex. Sw. Med. Ctr. v.

Nassar, 570 U.S. ___, ___, 133 S. Ct. 2517, 2534, 186 L.Ed.2d 503
(2013).
Here, assuming Mr. Smith has made a prima facie case, he has
not met his ultimate burden of adducing evidence sufficient to
permit the reasonable conclusion that his protected activity was
the but-for cause of his suspension.

In other words, viewing the

trial evidence fully and most favorably to Mr. Smith, no
reasonable juror could find that were it not for his complaint to
the CHRO, he would not have been suspended.
In attempting to establish a causal connection between his
CHRO complaint and his suspension, Mr. Smith relies on the timing
of events.

He points out that the CHRO issued its Release of

Jurisdiction on April 13, 2011.1

Six days later, on April 19, he

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Mr. Smith has not suggested that the temporal relationship
between the filing of the complaint and his suspension gives rise
to an inference of retaliation, and at all events the seven
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was informed he would be suspended, and his suspension took
effect on May 5.
Whatever inference this sequence of events might raise
standing alone, any concern about retaliation is dispelled when
the events are viewed in context.

Mr. Smith was reported for

using a cell phone on April 8, 2011, five days before the CHRO
issued its Release of Jurisdiction.

The report was made by a

District employee who claimed to have observed the event.

As was

its usual practice, the District notified Mr. Smith's union
steward of the allegation, and she contacted Mr. Smith at some
point between April 8 and April 19.

Consistent with its response

on the four previous occasions when a District employee had
reported Mr. Smith for talking on his cell phone while driving,
the District suspended Mr. Smith.
These facts are undisputed.

At trial Mr. Smith offered no

evidence to undermine their effect, which is to demonstrate not
only that the District had a non-retaliatory reason for its
action but that it would have suspended Mr. Smith whether he had
filed a CHRO complaint or not.

When in the past employees had

approached the District to complain about Mr. Smith's cell phone

months separating the two incidents is too long to suggest a
causal connection. See Chukwueze v. NYCERS, 891 F. Supp. 2d 443,
457 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) ("[T]he temporal proximity between
[plaintiff's] testimony and the alleged adverse employment action
– somewhere between three and six months – is insufficient,
standing alone, to establish a causal connection.").
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use, its invariable practice had been to suspend Mr. Smith.

In

this case an employee reported Mr. Smith for cell phone use
nearly a week before the CHRO released jurisdiction in his
administrative matter.

Thus, by the time the Release of

Jurisdiction issued, the District's disciplinary process, which
had always culminated in suspension before, was already underway.
Nothing suggests that a suspension would not have been imposed in
this instance were it not for the CHRO’s action in issuing a
release.

Absent some additional evidence on Mr. Smith's side of

the ledger – for instance, comparator evidence tending to show
that other drivers reported for cell phone use had not been
suspended – this leads inevitably to the conclusion that Mr.
Smith's protected activity was not the but-for cause of his
suspension.

For that reason, it would be futile to submit the

case to a jury, which could not consistent with the law return a
verdict for Mr. Smith.
III. Conclusion
Accordingly, the defendant's Rule 50(a) motion for judgment
as a matter of law has been granted.
Dated this 19th day of May, 2015.

/s/
Robert N. Chatigny
United States District Judge

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