Chanell A.,1 Complainant,v.Megan J. Brennan, Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Agency.Download PDFEqual Employment Opportunity CommissionJan 6, 20160120142881 (E.E.O.C. Jan. 6, 2016) Copy Citation U.S. EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY COMMISSION Office of Federal Operations P.O. Box 77960 Washington, DC 20013 Chanell A.,1 Complainant, v. Megan J. Brennan, Postmaster General, United States Postal Service, Agency. Appeal No. 0120142881 Agency No. 4G-752-0097-12 DECISION Complainant filed an appeal from the Agency’s final decision concerning her equal employment opportunity (EEO) complaint alleging employment discrimination in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 2000e et seq. and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (ADEA), as amended, 29 U.S.C. § 621 et seq. The Commission deems the appeal timely and accepts it for de novo review pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 1614.405(a). For the following reasons, the Commission AFFIRMS the Agency’s final decision. BACKGROUND Complainant worked as a Customer Services Supervisor at the Joe Pool Station within the Post Office in Dallas, Texas. On January 20, 2012, she filed an EEO complaint in which she alleged that the Postmaster assigned to the Joe Pool station and a Purchasing Specialist discriminated against her on the bases of race (African-American), sex (female), and age (59)2 1This case has been randomly assigned a pseudonym which will replace Complainant’s name when the decision is published to non-parties and the Commission’s website. on June 9, 2011, by notifying her that no work was available and again on December 5, 2011, when she was made aware that another employee had been assigned to do the same work she 2On appeal, Complainant contends that the Agency failed to add reprisal as a basis. For purposes of analysis, we will do so. 0120142881 2 had done prior to being placed on administrative leave and sent home pursuant to the Agency’s National Reassessment Process (NRP).3 The Agency investigated the claim as a mixed case complaint, and at the conclusion of the investigation, Complainant appealed the Agency’s ensuing decision to the Merit Systems Protection Board, which ultimately dismissed the claim for lack of jurisdiction. On April 15, 2014, after receiving the Board’s decision, the Agency notified Complainant of her right to request a hearing before an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Administrative Judge (AJ). When Complainant did not request a hearing within the time frame provided in 29 C.F.R. § 1614.108(f), the Agency issued a final decision (FAD) pursuant to 29 C.F.R. § 1614.110(b). The FAD concluded that Complainant failed to prove that the Agency subjected her to discrimination as alleged. As of June 6, 2011, Complainant had two active claims before the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs which had resulted in her being placed on limited duty status for more than eight years: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) since November 12, 2003; and Trigger Finger / Carpal Tunnel Syndrome in the left hand since January 4, 2010. Investigative Report (IR) 51-54, 124-28, 181-208, 215-16. Her PTSD arose as a result of being held at gunpoint and knocked down during a robbery at the Joe Pool Station. Notes from her treating physicians indicated that Complainant was unable to engage in the repetitive hand motions required for such tasks as typing and data entry for more than a few hours at a time, and that she continued to be traumatized by the robbery, to the point of not being able to supervise window clerks at the Joe Pool Station. Complainant herself averred that she could not work for more than six hours per day. IR 42, 44-45, 53, 67, 70, 81, 213-14. On June 6, 2011, Complainant was notified by the Joe Pool Station Manager and the Purchasing Specialist in her capacity as a member of the NRP review team that there was no 3Complainant also contends on appeal that the Agency failed to include disability as a basis for discrimination. The thrust of her claim, however, is that the Agency used the NRP to justify sending her home from work and not allowing her to return. On February 8, 2012, the Agency informed Complainant that the disability claim originally raised in her complaint was identical to the claim raised in a class complaint involving the NRP, Complaint No. 4B-140- 0062-06, and would be subsumed into that class action. FAD, p. 1; IR 76, n. 1. We find that the Agency’s handling of Complainant’s disability claim was correct. See McConnell v. United States Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0720080054 (January 14, 2010) (claim defined and class defined as all limited duty and other permanent rehabilitation employees who had been taken off the rolls in reliance upon the NRP since May 5, 2006); Complainant v. United States Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0120131969 (May 20, 2014) (disability claim in which employee was told that no work was available and sent home under NRP subsumed into McConnell class complaint); and Complainant v. United States Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0120141764 (September 17, 2014) (claim of being placed off work under NRP on bases other than disability not subsumed into McConnell class complaint). 0120142881 3 work available for her within the Agency’s operational needs, and that as a result of this determination, Complainant would be placed in administrative leave status, effective immediately. IR 46-49, 55-58, 64-65, 69, 120-23, 231-42. The Purchasing Specialist averred that prior to being sent home, Complainant was on a limited duty detail to the Main Post Office, pulling reports and performing other clerical tasks, but that the need for this work had greatly diminished. She also testified that the lack of work within Complainant’s medical restrictions at Joe Pool had prompted the Station Manager to request an NRP assessment, and that such an assessment was conducted within a 50-mile radius of her home, with negative results. IR 26, 90-92. The Postmaster averred that she was not involved in the decision to place Complainant on administrative leave. IR 101. ANALYSIS AND FINDINGS The Commission cannot second-guess an Agency’s decisions involving personnel unless there is evidence of a discriminatory motivation on the part of the officials responsible for those decisions. See Texas Department of Community. Affairs v. Burdine, 450 U.S. 248, 259 (1981). Therefore, in order to prevail on her disparate treatment claim, Complainant would have to prove, by a preponderance of the evidence, that the PS or the PM had denied her restoration since June 9, 2011, and were motivated to do so by unlawful considerations of her race, sex, age, or previous EEO activity. See Reeves v. Sanderson Plumbing Products, Inc., 530 U.S. 133, 143 (2000). In circumstantial-evidence cases such as this, Complainant can prove the existence of an unlawful motivation by showing that the PS’s or the PM’s articulated reasons for denying her restoration are pretextual. St. Mary’s Honor Society v. Hicks, 509 U.S. 502, 515 (1993) citing Burdine, 450 U.S. at 253. Evidence of pretext can take the form of discriminatory statements or past personal treatment attributable to the Postmaster or the Purchasing Specialist, comparative or statistical data showing differences in treatment across racial, gender, or age-related lines, unequal application of Agency policy, deviations from standard procedures without explanation or justification, or inadequately explained inconsistencies in the evidentiary record. Mellissa F. v. United States Postal Service, EEOC Appeal No. 0120141697 (November 12, 2015). Complainant essentially claims that the Agency’s reliance on the NRP to justify sending her home from work and not allowing her to return was a pretext for race, sex, and age discrimination as well as reprisal. When asked by the investigator why she believed this, Complainant responded that no other options were explained to her and that she had been told by another employee in December 2011, rather than by management that the work she had been doing prior to being placed on administrative leave was being done by others. IR 82-83. According to an email from the Health and Human Resources Manager, none of the employees to whom Complainant was referring were on limited duty. IR 218. The statutes the Commission enforces cannot prevent employers from making personnel decisions that employees disagree with unless those decisions are rooted in expressly 0120142881 4 proscribed considerations. And on this crucial issue, Complainant did not provide evidence of any of the indicators of pretext described above. She has not submitted any sworn statements from other witnesses or documents that contradict the explanations provided by the Purchasing Specialist or the Postmaster, or which call their veracity into question, particularly with regard to the Purchasing Specialist’s affidavit testimony that the clerical work that Complainant was doing before going on administrative leave was no longer available. We therefore agree with the Agency that Complainant failed to establish the existence of an unlawful motive on the part of the Purchasing Agent with respect to her being placed on administrative leave on June 9, 2011. CONCLUSION Based on a thorough review of the record and the contentions on appeal, we AFFIRM the Agency’s final decision. STATEMENT OF RIGHTS - ON APPEAL RECONSIDERATION (M0815) The Commission may, in its discretion, reconsider the decision in this case if the Complainant or the Agency submits a written request containing arguments or evidence which tend to establish that: 1. The appellate decision involved a clearly erroneous interpretation of material fact or law; or 2. The appellate decision will have a substantial impact on the policies, practices, or operations of the Agency. Requests to reconsider, with supporting statement or brief, must be filed with the Office of Federal Operations (OFO) within thirty (30) calendar days of receipt of this decision or within twenty (20) calendar days of receipt of another party’s timely request for reconsideration. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.405; Equal Employment Opportunity Management Directive for 29 C.F.R. Part 1614 (EEO MD-110), at Chap. 9 § VII.B (Aug. 5, 2015). All requests and arguments must be submitted to the Director, Office of Federal Operations, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, P.O. Box 77960, Washington, DC 20013. In the absence of a legible postmark, the request to reconsider shall be deemed timely filed if it is received by mail within five days of the expiration of the applicable filing period. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.604. The request or opposition must also include proof of service on the other party. Failure to file within the time period will result in dismissal of your request for reconsideration as untimely, unless extenuating circumstances prevented the timely filing of the request. Any supporting documentation must be submitted with your request for reconsideration. The Commission will consider requests for reconsideration filed after the deadline only in very limited circumstances. See 29 C.F.R. § 1614.604(c). 0120142881 5 COMPLAINANT’S RIGHT TO FILE A CIVIL ACTION (S0610) You have the right to file a civil action in an appropriate United States District Court within ninety (90) calendar days from the date that you receive this decision. If you file a civil action, you must name as the defendant in the complaint the person who is the official Agency head or department head, identifying that person by his or her full name and official title. Failure to do so may result in the dismissal of your case in court. “Agency†or “department†means the national organization, and not the local office, facility or department in which you work. If you file a request to reconsider and also file a civil action, filing a civil action will terminate the administrative processing of your complaint. RIGHT TO REQUEST COUNSEL (Z0815) If you want to file a civil action but cannot pay the fees, costs, or security to do so, you may request permission from the court to proceed with the civil action without paying these fees or costs. Similarly, if you cannot afford an attorney to represent you in the civil action, you may request the court to appoint an attorney for you. You must submit the requests for waiver of court costs or appointment of an attorney directly to the court, not the Commission. The court has the sole discretion to grant or deny these types of requests. Such requests do not alter the time limits for filing a civil action (please read the paragraph titled Complainant’s Right to File a Civil Action for the specific time limits). FOR THE COMMISSION: ______________________________ Carlton M. Hadden’s signature Carlton M. Hadden, Director Office of Federal Operations January 6, 2016 Date Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation