Purtue v. Wisconsin Dept. of Corrections

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-employee’s Title VII and section 1983 action, alleging that defendant terminated plaintiff on account of her gender, where defendant claimed that plaintiff had filed false incident report involving inmate. Making false report was offense for which plaintiff could be dismissed, and plaintiff did not dispute that making false report could result in prisoner being sent to maximum-security facility, and that defendant had interest in deterring false reports. Fact that different report showing existence of disparate dismissal rates for female and male employees did not require different results, since said statistics did not reveal why any employee had been terminated. Moreover, while plaintiff identified male co-workers who had not been terminated for making false reports, none of said co-workers were suitable comparatives, since all but one were located in different prisons having different decision-makers, and plaintiff failed to provide any details about incident involving single male co-worker working at her facility.