10-1423 Davis v. Time Warner

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Employment
Race discrimination; retaliation; direct method

Where a manager of an almost-exclusively African-American sales team posted “motivational” signs with a tagline that was an amalgam of his surname and “Ebonics;” he spoke of rumors of problems among the team as “allowing my blacks to get away with murder;” and where the same manager commented “I got him now” when plaintiff was later terminated for violating Employee Guidelines, these incidents do not constitute sufficient evidence under the direct method that plaintiff’s termination was racially motivated.

“…Davis has not demonstrated ‘a real link between the bigotry and an adverse employment action.’ Gorence v. Eagle Food Ctrs., Inc., 242 F.3d 759, 762 (7th Cir. 2001). There is some evidence in the record indicating that Cleboski was at best insensitive and at worst a bigot. Chief among this are the ‘Clebonics’ signs and his inappropriate characterization of the rumors. But while these occasional incidents demonstrate that Cleboski could be boorish and tactless, Davis has not shown how, if at all, they are linked to his termination. See Hemsworth v. Quotesmith.com, Inc., 476 F.3d 487, 491 (7th Cir. 2007) (‘Isolated comments that are no more than stray remarks in the workplace are insufficient to establish that a particular decision was motivated by discriminatory animus.’). Davis theorizes that Cleboski fired him in an effort to stop the rumors, but he has not presented any evidence that the rumors continued at the time of his termination or that Cleboski—or any of the six other individuals he consulted—was motivated by anything other than a genuine belief that Davis flouted Time Warner’s stringent Employee Guidelines. See Gates v. Caterpillar, Inc., 513 F.3d 680, 686 (7th Cir. 2008).

“Davis attempts to get around his lack of proof by pointing to Cleboski’s comment to Parker (‘I got him now’), which he claims was not only a ‘flagrant and slanderous lie’ but also ‘compelling evidence that . . . Cleboski had attempted to set-up and frame’ him. While we must infer that Cleboski was referring to Davis when he used the undefined pronoun ‘him,’ we fail to see how the statement implicates Davis’s race or demonstrates any type of set-up. If anything, it shows the opposite—that Cleboski had suspected Davis of overstepping the bounds set forth in the Guidelines but had been unwilling to take disciplinary action until presented with evidence of a transgression. Indeed, Davis repeatedly emphasizes both the lack of prior disciplinary action against him and his prowess in earning commissions.”

The district court’s grant of summary judgment is affirmed.

10-1423, Davis v. Time Warner

Eastern District of Wisconsin, Adelman, J., Tinder, J.

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