AutoZone altercation does not give plaintiff a retaliation claim

This employment discrimination case reminds us that management has much leeway in disciplining employees, and that even if the plaintiff makes out a prima facie case, the employer can get around that by showing it still had good reason to demote the plaintiff.

The case is Carter v. AutoZone, LLC, a summary order issued on May 29. The Court of Appeals (Wesley, Livingston and Sack) does not provide much detail in the facts of the case, but it assumes that plaintiff has made out a prima facie of discrimination, i.e., that she engaged in protected activity in complaining of discrimination, and that she sustained an adverse action under circumstances creating an inference of retaliation. The battle centers on whether plaintiff can show that management's reason for the demotion are false and that the real reason was discrimination or retaliation. She cannot do so.

Proving pretext generally requires the plaintiff to show the employer's reasons for the demotion or termination were made in bad faith. There are many ways to prove bad faith, including an outright lie, or something suspicious or fishy about the employment decision, like shifting explanations or some excuse that makes no sense at all. Bear in mind, though, that employers often get the benefit of the doubt in this area, as courts do not want to serve as super-personnel boards second-guessing managerial decisions.

In this case, defendant can show it had good reason to demote plaintiff, even if she did complain about discrimination shortly before the demotion. Plaintiff got into some kind of altercation with a coworker. We don't know the details of that altercation, so use your imagination, and picture an altercation at an AutoZone. Maybe someone threw a tire iron, or an air-pressure gauge, at someone else. Maybe a fight broke out because no one wanted to clean up some oil spill near the entrance of the store. Management's investigation into that altercation revealed that plaintiff responded unprofessionally to the co-worker's verbal invective in the presence of a customer, and that plaintiff had previously failed to report conduct by her subordinate employees that violated corporate policies, including commentary on a shopper's physical appearance. This is why plaintiff was demoted, not her protected activity in complaining about discrimination. While plaintiff says her admittedly disrespectful and unprofessional responses to her co-worker during the altercation "were reasonable responses to his inflammatory statements," the Court of Appeals will not buy an argument like this. Plaintiffs need to have good work records to survive motions for summary judgment, and the judges usually do not tolerate bad acts by the plaintiff, or efforts to excuse them as a means to win the case.