A federal judge from the District of South Carolina has denied a school district’s motion to reconsider an earlier ruling, which denied the school district’s motion for summary judgment in a wrongful termination case involving an athletic director.
Plaintiff Lauren Massey West, the AD at Northwestern High School (NWHS), sued her former employer, Rock Hill School District Three, after she was fired in 2019. She alleged discrimination and retaliation based on her sex in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000e-2000e-17.
In the opinion denying the motion to dismiss, the court noted that “even though Superintendent Cook made the ultimate decision to terminate the plaintiff, and his decision was upheld by the District’s Board of Trustees, their actions cannot legalize a termination that was based on discriminatory reasons.” See Ludlam v. School Dist., 317 S.C. 509, 455 S.E.2d 177, 181 (S.C. Ct. App. 1995)
It added that the defendant’s first ground for the plaintiff’s termination was “an Athletic Director Evaluation submitted by NWHS Principal Massey on July 23, 2019. The court finds that because the resolution of the issue of pretext in the context of the plaintiff’s evaluation requires weighing the credibility of witnesses, the defendant is not entitled to summary judgment. Atkins v. Computer Scis. Corp., 264 F. Supp. 2d 404, 413 (E.D. Va. 2003)
“More specifically, the court observes that the plaintiff’s testimony, whether regarding Principal Massey’s attendance at sporting events, financial support of sports teams, and/or choosing to support Coach Martin over the plaintiff, creates an inference that he had a sexist predisposition of supporting males, but not supporting females. Cf. Weldon v. Kraft, Inc., 896 F.2d 793, 800 (3d Cir. 1990)
“Moreover, Principal Massey’s alleged sexist predisposition in conjunction with his failure to remember what date he learned that the plaintiff had voiced complaints about him to Dr. Campbell, which occurred on March 26, 2019, creates a question of fact as to whether sexual animus affected the plaintiff’s evaluation.” Weldon, 896 F.2d at 800
Turning to the defendant’s second argument supporting the plaintiff’s termination, the court focused on an audit report submitted on June 18, 2019 by the District’s Internal Auditor Bettina Feaster.
The audit report contains a finding that the plaintiff had “authorized payments and acted in a supervisory role over her immediate family members, which is a violation of District Policy GBEA, Staff Ethics/Conflict of Interest.” Moreover, the audit report contains an observation that former Principal Blake had “a discussion with both Mr. and Mrs. West explaining nepotism and their approved roles as a means to help them maintain compliance while performing work within the District.” With the audit report of NWHS, the district determined that the violation of the GBEA Policy as applied to the plaintiff warranted her termination. “Ordinarily, a violation of policy is a legitimate reason for terminating an employee. Laing, 703 F.3d at 721. However, the plaintiff is the only employee of the defendant to have been fired for violation of the GBEA Policy.
“The evidence in the record also demonstrates that two other male Athletic Directors were subject to similar findings in audit reports, but the then district chose not to terminate them. On September 25, 2019, Feaster submitted an audit report wherein she found that Bill Warren, the Athletic Director at Rock Hill High School (RHHS), and Eric Rollings, the Assistant Athletic Director at Rock Hill High School, had “acted in a supervisory role over their immediate family members, which is a violation of District Policy GBEA, Staff Ethics/Conflict of Interest.” Feaster further observed in the audit report that “[i]n talks with Mr. Rollings and Mr. Warren, neither have had training on nepotism and they were unaware of the district’s policy against it . . . [and] it is recommended that all staff receive formal training on nepotism.”
With the audit of RHHS, the district found that a violation of the GBEA Policy as applied to Warren and Rollings warranted only a reminder regarding the existence of the GBEA Policy, training on the GBEA Policy that it did not conduct, and an instruction to not engage in any further violations.
“The court is troubled by the district’s position that no male who violated the GBEA Policy (i.e., Warren, Rollings, the plaintiff’s husband) warranted the termination of his employment. The issue should not be whether an employee had prior notice, especially when the information regarding how that notice (i.e., Principal Blake’s communications to the plaintiff) ended up in the audit creates an inference of retaliatory animus, but whether the district considers a violation of the GBEA Policy/State Ethics law warrants automatic termination.
“In light of the aforementioned comparator evidence, the court is persuaded that a jury should consider whether the second reason for Plaintiff’s termination was pretextual for discriminatory conduct. E.g., Laing, 703 F.3d at 721 (“Significantly, [plaintiff] has not identified any similarly situated employee—that is, an employee accused of violating the same company policy but . . . who was given more favorable treatment. Such comparator evidence, of course, would be ‘especially relevant’ to a showing of pretext, but [plaintiff] has none.” (citing McDonnell Douglas Corp., 411 U.S. at 804)).
“Therefore, upon consideration of the foregoing, the court is persuaded that the plaintiff has produced evidence that would permit a reasonable factfinder to conclude that the defendant’s legitimate, non-discriminatory reason was a pretext for discrimination on the basis of sex and/or retaliation.”
Motion for Reconsideration
In its motion for reconsideration, the defendant claimed the ruling “contains an error of law and manifest injustice in finding that the plaintiff has provided sufficient evidence to present a triable issue of fact as to pretext” and “did not specifically address the plaintiff’s retaliation claim.”
Specifically, the defendant argued that it is entitled to reconsideration of the March Order “because the plaintiff has not shown that the district’s reasons for her termination were pretext and because the plaintiff has not stated a prima facie case of retaliation.” Further, it claims that it is entitled to reconsideration on the basis that the March order “contains an error of law and manifest injustice.”
In the instant opinion, the court wrote that it considered “the entirety of the defendant’s assertions, statements of alleged error and/or manifest injustice.” It found that reconsideration of the March Order’s pretext finding is not appropriate. The denial of reconsideration is appropriate because the court already considered the defendant’s arguments regarding pretext presented herein when the court in the March Order rejected the Magistrate Judge’s conclusion “that the plaintiff has not provided sufficient evidence to present a triable issue of fact as to whether the defendant’s proffered reason for terminating her when it did was pretextual.” It continued: “As a result, the court is not persuaded that its entry of the March Order resulted in the commission of either clear error or manifest injustice.” Consulting Eng’rs, Inc. v. Geometric Software Solutions & Structure Works LLC, 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49398, 2007 WL 2021901, at *2.
Next, it turned to the defendant’s argument that the court erred by considering pretext when the Report and Recommendation found “there was no causation to establish [a prima facie case of] retaliation.”
However, in the March Order, the court addressed pretext in the context of the plaintiff’s retaliation claim because the Magistrate Judge expressly found that the plaintiff had established a prima facie case of retaliation. The court cited the Report’s findings that (1) “Defendant does not contest that this [July 30, 2019] communication is protected under Title VII”; (2) “Plaintiff’s termination from employment is an adverse employment action”; and (3) “prima-facie causation has been shown based on the timing of when Plaintiff sent the email and when the adverse action to place her on administrative leave occurred.”
As a result of the foregoing, “the premise of the defendant’s argument on reconsideration is not substantiated by the plain text of the Report and Recommendation. Therefore, the court finds that it did not commit clear error or manifest injustice in the March Order in denying the defendant’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the plaintiff’s retaliation claim.”
Lauren Massey West v. Rock Hill School District Three; D.S.C., Civil Action No.: 0:20-cv-01952-JMC; 6/13/22
Attorneys of Record: (for plaintiff) Shannon Polvi, LEAD ATTORNEY, J Lewis Cromer and Associates, Columbia, SC. (for defendant) Fred Adam Williams, Lillian Marshall Coleman Newton, LEAD ATTORNEYS, Gignilliat Savitz and Bettis, Columbia, SC.
