By: Derek Hawkins//July 20, 2015//
Civil
7th Circuit Court of Appeals
Officials: EASTERBROOK, KANNE, and HAMILTON, Circuit Judges.
Racial Discrimination – Impermissible Retaliation
No. 14-2707 Frank Burks v. Union Pacific Railroad Company
Where appellants claim fell short for failure to provide evidence that he was prevented from taking an examination necessary for promotion.
“We cannot draw the conclusion that Burks was “given the run-around,” for the following reasons. First, Burks has not provided any evidence that anyone—Storbeck or any other individual—communicated to Burks that Stearns was setting up the SCBT for him. In order for Kachnowski’s statement to carry any retaliatory force, Burks must show that it prevented him from following the proper application procedures. Burks has not provided any facts to show he was even aware of Kachnowski’s statement—let alone that he acted upon it. Second, Burks has provided no evidence that Kachnowski had any knowledge of Burks’s prior race- discrimination complaint. Without that knowledge, Kachnowski would have had no basis for retaliatory behavior. And third, in order to impute a retaliatory motive to the other two members of the communication—Storbeck and Gutmann—one would have to believe that the email communication constitutes evidence of a silent conspiracy to mislead Burks into believing that the SCBT was being set up for him.
Affirmed