Barbera v. Pearson Education Inc.

Federal 7th Circuit Court
Civil Court
Employment Discrimination
Citation
Case Number: 
No. 18-1085
Decision Date: 
October 12, 2018
Federal District: 
S.D. Ind., Indianapolis Div.
Holding: 
Affirmed

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-employee’s Title VII action alleging that defendant had failed to give plaintiff severance pay on account of her gender, when it gave severance pay to three male co-workers when they had voluntarily retired. None of said male co-workers were sufficiently similar to plaintiff for purposes of establishing prima facie case of discrimination, since, unlike said male co-workers: (1) plaintiff informed defendant of her desire to retire at time when defendant had decided to transfer business to third-party who had offered plaintiff continued employment; and (2) plaintiff was ineligible for severance pay under defendant’s policy because her request for severance pay was related to instant transfer of business. Also, Dist. Ct. did not err in curing prejudice arising out of defendant’s failure to preserve certain emails by requiring jury to take as true plaintiff’s proposed stipulations of fact as to contents of said emails; plaintiff failed to show that additional sanctions , where there was no showing that defendant had destroyed said emails in bad faith.