Employment & Labor Law
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Brown v. Sybase, Inc.
17 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. D143b (S.D. Fla. September 23, 2003)
An African-American employee brought suit against his former employer alleging race discrimination under Title VII and retaliation under the Florida Civil Rights Act. On the employer's motion for summary judgment, the District Court applied the McDonnell Douglas framework. The court found that the supervisor's failure to provide good sales leads to employee, supervisor's delay in informing employee that his territory had changed, and employee's placement on performance improvement plan did not constitute a "tangible adverse effect," so as to support a prima facie case of race discrimination under Title VII. Under the second and third steps of the analysis, the Court found that the employee's poor performance and failure to meet requirements of the performance improvement plan were legitimate, non-discriminatory and non-retaliatory reasons for employee's termination, and such reasons were not pretexts for race discrimination or retaliation. As for plaintiff's claim under the Florida Civil Rights Act, the court held that even if the court found a causal connection between plaintiff's complaint to his supervisor of a racial comment and his termination four months later, there was insufficient evidence of pretext. Defendant's motion for summary judgment was granted.
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