Cases

Appellant was a former employee of the Gadsden County School Board who filed a discrimination action against the Board and thereafter resigned her employment. Following her resignation, she continued to serve a volunteer with the Board, until the Board informed her she was no longer allowed to serve as a volunteer. The circuit court granted the Board’s motion for summary judgment, finding that as a volunteer she was not eligible to bring a Title VII action for retaliation and would unable to demonstrate that she experienced a materially adverse employment action. The First DCA reversed, agreeing that volunteers are not afforded Title VII protection, but finding that as a former employee she was entitled to bring a retaliation action and that the issue of whether she experienced a materially adverse employment action was one of fact and not appropriate for disposition on Defendant’s motion for summary judgment.

Plaintiff below, a Cuban-American, initially filed an action for national origin discrimination and retaliation pursuant to both the Federal and Florida Civil Rights Acts. The district court granted summary judgment in favor of Plaintiff’s former employer on all counts; the Eleventh Circuit affirmed as to the national origin discrimination, and reversed on the retaliation claims. Plaintiff’s former supervisor, Royal Atlantic’s CFO, was “impossible to please” and had fired several others from Plaintiff’s position for unsatisfactory performance, none of whom were Cuban-American. The Eleventh Circuit agreed with the district court that Plaintiff’s supervisor treated all her employees poorly, and because Plaintiff was unable to show she was treated any differently that those outside her protected class, summary judgment on her national origin claim was appropriate. However, prior to her termination, Plaintiff informed Royal Atlantic that she believed she was being discriminated against for being Cuban-American, and Plaintiff’s former supervisor admitted that she terminated Plaintiff because of the letter. Plaintiff’s former supervisor had already decided to terminate Plaintiff and was actively searching for her replacement, however, the letter accelerated the process. The Eleventh Circuit reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment and held that because the issue of whether the early termination was retaliatory, because of the letter’s description of discrimination, or not retaliatory, because of the Royal Atlantic’s belief that Plaintiff was disgruntled and could potentially bring harm to the company through her continued employment, was an issue of fact not suitable for summary judgment.

After his employment was terminated, an employee filed a racial discrimination and retaliation suit against his former employer. In the span of around a week in December 2004, the employee became sick and missed work on several occasions. On the 8th, he called and stated that he would likely not be in that day or the next. After he did not show up on the 9th and did not call that day, his supervisor left him a message stating that his “job was in jeopardy” because he “pulled a no call/no show.” When they spoke on the phone a few days later, the employee told his supervisor that he did not appreciate his job being threatened and that he was going to complain to company higher ups. Later that month, the employee wrote a letter to the company’s management office complaining about the way he was being treated. He was fired by his supervisor that same day. At trial, the employer twice moved for judgment as a matter of law, but the trial judge twice denied that motion. The jury awarded the employee $300,000 based on his retaliation claim, but found against him on the discrimination claim. The judge denied a motion for a new trial following this award. The circuit court reversed and remanded for an entry of judgment for the employer. The court first rejected the employee’s assertion that the employer was barred from raising various issues on appeal because while it did so in its motion for judgment as a matter of law after trial, it had not done so on its initial motion for judgment as a matter of law after the employee’s case in chief; because the employee had not raised that issue before the lower court, he was prohibited from raising it on appeal. The court further held that there was no reasonable basis for a retaliation claim when the only allegedly discriminatory conduct was the supervisor’s phone message, which was not an adverse employment action as a matter of law.

Krutzig, a former employee of Pulte Home Corp., began the process of securing leave pursuant to the Family and Medical Leave Act, but was terminated two days after her initial conversation with human resources for poor performance. Her supervisors, the ultimate decision makers, were unaware of her impending leave. The Eleventh Circuit held that the FMLA right to commence leave is not absolute, and an employee can be dismissed, preventing her from exercising her right to commence FMLA leave, without thereby violating the FMLA, if she would have been terminated regardless of her request for FMLA leave. Here, Pulte showed Krutzig would have been terminated for poor performance regardless of her leave, and Krutzig was unable to show any genuine issue of material fact to the contrary sufficient to reverse the district court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Pulte.

The trial court granted a directed verdict to the employer in a sexual harassment case. The employee alleged that her boss consistently made lewd comments to her female coworkers and was generally inappropriate in every way. However, the plaintiff testified that the boss’ sexual advances were always aimed at other women and not to her. She testified that he eventually fired her when she stood up for another female employee. The employer argued that she just quit. On appeal, the Court reversed the directed verdict. It held that the abusive language did not have to be directed at the plaintiff and would be sufficient if it simply had the effect of creating a discriminatory and abusive work environment. The Court also noted that the plaintiff was a member of the protected class (women) being discriminated against.

After the hearing, plaintiff requested overtime pay for the time she testified at the hearing, which Defendant refused to provide. Plaintiff later received the payment, and the police chief requested that the police department investigate the discrimination concerns plaintiff raised. Plaintiff subsequently tendered her resignation, which she attempted to later rescind. The chief did not accept her rescission because the department had already accepted her resignation.

The court found that Plaintiff

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