Alvarez v. Royal Atl. Developers, Inc.
574 F. Supp. 2d 1301 (S.D. Fla. 2008)
The court held that an employer was entitled to summary judgment on a Title VII discrimination claim wherein plaintiff, a Cuban, alleged she was terminated because of her national origin because plaintiff failed to establish a proper claim because she did not establish that the employer treated similarly situated, non-Cuban employees more favorably or that the employee was replaced by someone outside of her protected class. Some time after the employer had taken steps to look for a replacement for the employee, the employee wrote a letter to the company’s CEO that indicated that she knew she was going to be replaced and felt the reason she was going to be fired was because she was Cuban. The employee also failed to rebut three of the four legitimate nondiscriminatory reasons articulated by the employer for terminating the employee. The employer satisfied its light burden of providing legitimate reasons for terminating the employer by pointing out (1) that the employee’s work performance had been unsatisfactory and that it was contemplating replacing the employee before she ever complained of being discriminated against; (2) a letter sent to the employer from the employee made it clear that she was not happy working for the employer; (3) other employees felt that it would be awkward and counterproductive to continue the employee’s employment; and (4) there was concern that the employee would sabotage the employer’s operations.