Filed: Apr. 08, 2005
Latest Update: Feb. 21, 2020
Summary: United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit F I L E D IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 8, 2005 FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Charles R. Fulbruge III _ Clerk No. 04-20199 _ WALTER BREGON, Plaintiff - Appellant, versus AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; ET AL Defendants, AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; AUTONATION USA; AUTONATION INC AUTONATION INC, formerly known as Mercedes Benz of Houston Greenway; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD, also known as Park Place Motorcars
Summary: United States Court of Appeals Fifth Circuit F I L E D IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS April 8, 2005 FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT Charles R. Fulbruge III _ Clerk No. 04-20199 _ WALTER BREGON, Plaintiff - Appellant, versus AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; ET AL Defendants, AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; AUTONATION USA; AUTONATION INC AUTONATION INC, formerly known as Mercedes Benz of Houston Greenway; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD, also known as Park Place Motorcars S..
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United States Court of Appeals
Fifth Circuit
F I L E D
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
April 8, 2005
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT
Charles R. Fulbruge III
__________________________ Clerk
No. 04-20199
__________________________
WALTER BREGON,
Plaintiff - Appellant,
versus
AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; ET AL
Defendants,
AUTONATION USA CORPORATION; AUTONATION USA; AUTONATION INC
AUTONATION INC, formerly known as Mercedes Benz of Houston Greenway; HOUSTON
AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD, also
known as Park Place Motorcars South; HOUSTON AUTO IMPORTS GREENWAY LTD, also
known as Mercedes Benz of Houston Greenway,
Defendants - Appellees.
___________________________________________________
Appeal from the United States District Court
For the Southern District of Texas, Houston
(No. 4:02-CV-192)
___________________________________________________
Before JOLLY, DAVIS, and CLEMENT, Circuit Judges.
EDITH BROWN CLEMENT, Circuit Judge:*
Plaintiff-appellant Walter Bregon appeals the district court’s grant of defendants’ motion for
summary judgment and denial of Bregon’s Motion for Leave to Extend Time and his Motion to
*
Pursuant to 5th Cir. R. 47.5, the Court has determined that this opinion should not be
published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5th Cir. R.
47.5.4.
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Reopen Discovery, Amend Designation of Experts and Third Motion to Compel. For the following
reasons, we reverse and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I.
Walter Bregon, an Hispanic male, wo rked from 1997 until March 20, 2001 as a Sales
Consultant at Houston Auto Imports Greenway, Ltd. (HAIG).1 Bregon was an effective if abrupt
salesman, garnering the Mercedes Benz USA Star Achiever Award in 2000 for his “significant role
in making [his] dealership successful.” In November 2000, as Bregon began to agitate for a
managerial position at the Dealership, he contemporaneously began to receive disciplinary warnings
about his behavior. On March 13, 2001, he filed a co mplaint with the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) for discriminatory failure to promote. One week later, he was
fired. He amended his complaint to include retaliatory discharge.
Bregon filed suit in district court alleging discriminatory failure to promote,
discriminatory/retaliatory termination under the Texas Commission on Human Rights Act
(“TCHRA”), Tex. Lab. Code Ann. § 21.001 et seq., and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
(“Title VII”), 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq., intentional infliction of emotional distress, and negligent
hiring, retention and supervision under state law. Defendants moved for summary judgment.
The district court, adopting the magistrate judge’s findings and recommendations, concluded
that Bregon failed to provide competent summary judgment evidence that he was directly employed
by defendants AutoNation USA Corporation, AutoNation USA, AutoNation, Inc., and AutoNation,
1
Bregon first was employed with Mercedes Benz of Houston – Greenway, which was
owned by Park Place Motor Cars of Houston, Ltd. In 1999, that dealership was purchased by
Houston Auto Imports Greenway, Ltd., a subsidiary of AutoNation. Bregon concedes that he has
no complaint against any of the Park Place defendants and has indicated he will dismiss them from
his complaint.
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Inc., formerly known as Mercedes Benz of Houston-Greenway. Those entities were dismissed from
the suit, leaving only HAIG. The district court’s order also dismissed all of the state law claims.
Bregon does not raise these issues on appeal, and these matters therefore are not before us.
The district court also dismissed Bregon’s discriminatory failure to promote and the
discriminatory/retaliatory termination claims. The district court concluded that Bregon failed to
satisfy the third prong of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting requirement for discriminatory
failure to promote, failed to make a prima facie case for discriminatory termination, and failed to
make a prima facie case for retaliatory termination. See McDonnell Douglas Corp. v. Green, 411
U.S. 792 (1973). For the reasons contained in Part III, those decisions are reversed.
The district court denied Bregon’s motions to compel based on the reasons set forth in its
conclusions regarding the discrimination and retaliation claims. To the extent that the denials of the
motions rely on the reasoning now reversed, those denials are vacated. We remand those motions
with instructions to reconsider in a manner consistent with this opinion.
II.
This Court reviews a grant of summary judgment de novo. Price v. Fed. Express Corp., 283
F.3d 715, 719 (5th Cir. 2002). Summary judgment must be granted if “the pleadings, depositions,
answers to interrogatories, and admissions on file, together with the affidavits, if any, show that there
is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that the moving party is entitled to judgment as a
matter of law.” FED. R. CIV. P. 56(c); see also
Price, 283 F.3d at 719. “On a motion for summary
judgment, a court must review the facts in the light most favorable to the non-movant.”
Id.
III.
The analysis of Title VII claims under the McDonnell Douglas framework is as follows:
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First, the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case of discrimination. . . . . The burden
the[n] shift[s] to respondent to produc[e] evidence that the plaintiff was rejected, or
someone else was preferred, for a legitimate, nondiscriminatory reason. . . . [Finally]
the plaintiff . . . must be afforded the opportunity to prove by a preponderance of the
evidence that the legitimate reasons offered by the defendant were not its true
reasons, but were a pretext for discrimination.
Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Prods., Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 142–43 (2000) (internal quotations and
citations omitted). Claims of discrimination under the TCHRA are evaluated under the same burden
shifting analysis as Title VII claims. Shackelford v. Deloitte & Touche, L.L.P.,
190 F.3d 398, 404
n.2 (5th Cir. 1999).
A. Discriminatory Failure to Promote
The district court determined that Bregon met his prima facie case for discriminatory failure
to promote. HAIG responded with testimony from the dealership’s general manager, Mike Sullivan,
that he believed Bregon to be unqualified for the position because he “had a temperament problem”
and “exploded at other employees.” For the final prong of the McDonnell Douglas burden-shifting
test, Bregon must show that the employer’s reason is pretext either by offering evidence that would
disprove the reason or demonstrate ulterior motive. Reeves, 530 U.S. at 147–48. The district court
concluded that “there is no evidence that Sullivan denied Plaintiff a promotion because of his national
origin, which is the only issue before the court.” In fact, Bregon offered testimony from another of
his supervisors, Matt Burkholder, that Bregon had a good relationship with Burkholder, his
colleagues, and the customers. This evidence contradicts defendant’s stated reason that Bregon was
unqualified. Further, Bregon provided evidence that other minorities had complained about
promotion discrimination. Therefore, we conclude that Bregon had presented sufficient evidence to
find that HAIG’s asserted justification is false, which may permit a trier of fact to conclude that HAIG
unlawfully discriminated. See
id. at 148.
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B. Discriminatory Termination
The district court concluded that Bregon failed to make a prima facie case that he was fired
because of race discrimination. Bregon must demonstrate that he (1) is a member of a protected class,
(2) he was qualified for the position, (3) he was discharged, and (4) his employer filled the position
with a person who is not a member of the protected class, or in a disparate treatment case, was
treated less favorably than a similarly situated employee of another race. See, e.g., Okoye v. Univ.
of Tex. Houston Health Sci. Ctr., 245 F.3d 507, 512–13 (5th Cir. 2001). We conclude that Bregon
has made a prima facie case and has provided evidence that, when “taken as a whole[,] (1) creates
a fact issue as to whether each of the employer’s stated reasons was what actually motivated the
employer and (2) creates a reasonable inference that [race] was a determinative factor in the actions
of which plaintiff complains.” Rhodes v. Guiberson Oil Tools,
75 F.3d 989, 994 (5th Cir. 1996) (en
banc). The district court dismissed this claim in error and Bregon should be allowed to present his
discriminatory termination claim to the trier of fact.
C. Retaliatory Termination
The district court concluded that Bregon had not made a prima facie case for retaliatory
termination. Specifically, it found that he failed to show that “there was a causal connection between
the participation in the protected activity . . . and the adverse employment action.” Webb v.
Cardiothoracic Surgery Assocs., P.A., 139 F.3d 532, 540 (5th Cir. 1998). However, Bregon was
fired only a week after he filed his complaint and he offered evidence that people at work were likely
aware of his complaint. This Court has held that the combination of temporal proximity and
possibility of knowledge of the complaint is sufficient to satisfy a defendant’s prima facie burden for
a retaliation claim. See, e.g., Evans v. Houston,
246 F.3d 344, 354 (5th Cir. 2001) (finding a prima
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facie case when plaintiff was fired five days after complaint filed); Swanson v. Gen. Servs. Admin.,
110 F.3d 1180, 1188 (5th Cir. 1997) (one day); see also Handzlik v. United States, 93 Fed. Appx.
15, 19 (5th Cir. 2004) (unpublished) (two months). Bregon satisfied this burden.
IV.
For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE, VACATE and REMAND the grant of summary
judgment on the issues of discriminatory failure to promote and discriminatory and retaliatory
discharge under the TCHRA and Title VII. We VACATE the denial of Bregon’s motions to compel,
with instructions to reconsider them in a manner consistent with this opinion.
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