Bragg v. Munster Medical Research Foundation, Inc.

Dist. Ct. did not err in granting defendant-employer’s motion for summary judgment in plaintiff-employee‘s Title VII action alleging that defendant failed to place her into full-time RN position at defendant‘s hospital on account of her race and in retaliation for having made prior discrimination complaints. Record showed that plaintiff underwent training for said position, during which she received low job performance scores from three different evaluators. Defendant explained that plaintiff was not given said position because of sub-par performance during her training, and plaintiff failed to provide evidence to establish that abundant evidence of her substandard performance that was documented in meetings and progress forms was pretext for either race discrimination or unlawful retaliation. Ct. rejected plaintiff’s contention that: (1) defendant had failed to adequately apprise her of her substandard job performance; and (2) substance of her job evaluations was inaccurate. Also, Ct. rejected plaintiff’s cat’s paw theory of liability based on alleged racial animosity of her evaluators, since: (1) there was no evidence indicating that first evaluator had any input into decision not to place plaintiff into said position; and (2) plaintiff’s evidence with respect to other two evaluators did not permit finding that they harbored any discriminatory animosity against plaintiff. Fact that one evaluator closely monitored plaintiff’s work for purposes of developing “legal record” in event of plaintiff’s termination did not require different result.