Gilani v. Teneo, Inc.

ASAD GILANI, Plaintiff, v. TENEO, INC., PIERS CAREY, RACHEL HEAD, BRETT AYRES, STEVE EVANS, and TENEO USA, INC., Defendants.

No. 20-CV-1785 (CS)

United States District Court, S.D. New York

August 4, 2021

Asad Gilani, Pro Se Plaintiff

Laura L. Rubenstein, Marc A. Campsen Wright, Constable & Skeen LLP, Jane B. Jacobs, Klein Zelman Rothermel Jacobs &amp Schess LLP Counsel for Defendants.

OPINION & ORDER

Seibel, J.

Before the Court are the parties' cross-motions for summary judgment. (Docs. 151, 163.) For the following reasons Defendants' motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part, and Plaintiff's motion is DENIED.

I. BACKGROUND

This case arises out of the alleged discrimination and retaliatory termination that Plaintiff Asad Gilani claims to have experienced at his former workplace, Teneo, Inc. (“Teneo”).

A. Facts

The following facts are based on the parties' Local Civil Rule 56.1 Statements, responsive 56.1 Statements, declarations, and supporting materials.^[1] The facts are undisputed except as noted.

1. Plaintiff's Hiring at Teneo

Teneo provides technology solutions along with software and hardware produced by several manufacturing partners. (Doc. 154 (“Ds' 56.1 Stmt.”) ¶ 1.) Its operations are based in Virginia and the United Kingdom. (Id. ¶ 2; see note 1 above.)

Plaintiff was born in Pakistan in 1956 and is Muslim, and he describes his race as “Asian-Middle East.” (Ds' 56.1 Stmt. ¶ 4; see note 1 above.) In August 2016, Vice President of Human Resources Rachel Head and Senior Vice President of Solutions Engineering Steve Evans interviewed Plaintiff for a solutions engineer position at Teneo and recommended to CEO Piers Carey that Teneo hire Plaintiff, which Carey approved. (Doc. 154-1 (“Carey Aff.”) ¶ 6; Doc. 154-5 (“Head Aff.”) ¶¶ 3-4; Doc. 154-6 (“Evans Aff.”) ¶¶ 3-4.)^[2] Plaintiff received an offer letter from Head shortly thereafter, which specified that his position was solutions engineer and that he would report to Evans on Teneo's U.S. Technical Team. (Doc. 154-7.) Plaintiff began working for Teneo on September 26, 2016 (shortly before his sixtieth birthday) from his home in Armonk, New York. (P's 56.1 Resp. ¶ 4.) As a solutions engineer, Plaintiff provided “presales” technical support for products; he was not responsible for managing any Teneo employees. (Id. ¶¶ 4, 6; Doc. 154-2 at 74:5-15.)

2. Complaints About Plaintiff

Over the course of Plaintiff's employment at Teneo, Evans received numerous complaints about Plaintiff's behavior. On February 7, 2017, Evans received a forwarded email from the sales manager for one of Teneo's partners. (Doc. 154-10.) The sales manager wrote that he was “uncomfortable” with what he was seeing from Plaintiff, who was not “thinking through things or taking time before saying things or sending e-mails.” (Id. at TI-000161.) As a result of Plaintiff's conduct, the sales manager feared he would miss an opportunity, and he requested that others take the technical lead on the project rather than Plaintiff. (Id.)

On March 20, 2017, Plaintiff sent an email asking to be excluded from any account planning and stating that he was not interested in sharing his contacts. (Doc. 154-11 at TI-000166.)^[3] Evans replied that Plaintiff did not need to share his personal contacts, but reminded Plaintiff that he could not engage personal contacts on Teneo's behalf and that he needed to go through a sales representative instead. (Id. at TI-000165.)

On April 26, 2017, Plaintiff notified Evans that he would be out of the office, and Evans emailed Plaintiff the procedure for taking days off for a “family emergency, ” adding that he “hope[d] everything [wa]s ok.” (Doc. 154-14 at TI-00469.) Evans's email explained that Plaintiff could get compassionate leave for the death or serious illness of a family member; that if the emergency leave was for other reasons, Plaintiff would need to disclose some details to receive paid leave; and that if he preferred not to share any details, Plaintiff could instead take a vacation day. (Id.) Plaintiff replied (copying Head) that patient privacy laws prevented Evans from asking for details and that he would take a vacation day. (Id. at TI-00468.) Evans responded that he was not asking Plaintiff to disclose any private medical information and he simply wanted more details about the nature of the emergency so that he could determine what type of leave was appropriate. (Id. at TI-00467 to 68.) Evans suggested that Plaintiff could share the details with Head if he felt uncomfortable disclosing them to Evans, and stated that Plaintiff was under no obligation to provide any additional information if he still wanted to use a vacation day. (Id.) Plaintiff replied, adding Carey to the thread, and wrote that Evans's conduct was “sad” and a “disgrace, ” and that the way Teneo treated its employees was “a shame.” (Id. at TI-00467.) Evans wrote back, commending Plaintiff for his hard work, expressing his hopes that Plaintiff's family emergency would work out well, and offering Plaintiff a paid day of leave instead of a vacation day. (Id.) Evans did, however, note that he was concerned about Plaintiff's “accusatory statements” about Teneo and suggested that a discussion with Head would be helpful to “clear the air.” (Id.) Plaintiff replied that he was not interested in having a discussion with Head and repeated his comments that Evans's conduct was “sad” and a “disgrace.” (Id. at TI-00466.)

On April 27, 2017, Evans completed a performance review of Plaintiff. (Doc. 154-12.)^[4]In his review, Evans wrote that Plaintiff needed to work on teamwork and respect. (Id. at TI-00340.) As an example, Evans noted that he had observed Plaintiff telling others what to do instead of asking them or working collaboratively with them, and he added that people felt bullied by Plaintiff. (Id.) Evans noted that refusing to participate in account planning hurts the business and team relationships, and he reiterated that although Plaintiff did not need to share his personal contacts and was not being asked to do so, Plaintiff could not engage personal contacts on behalf of Teneo directly and needed to go through the sales team instead. (Id. at TI-00340 to 41.) Evans also wrote that he had spoken to Plaintiff about the February email from the sales manager, and that Plaintiff denied the incident and blamed the sales manager for it. (Id. at TI-00341.) Evans noted that Plaintiff needed to improve his relationship with partners, allow the sales team to lead calls and sales strategy, and be more receptive to feedback and constructive criticism. (Id.)

Defendants assert that Evans received several additional complaints about Plaintiff, which I will not describe because Plaintiff disputes the truth of them. (See Ds' 56.1 Stmt. ¶¶ 19, 26-32; P's 56.1 Resp. ¶¶ 8, 14.) The upshot is that they culminated in Evans emailing Head and Carey on May 23 about Plaintiff's various behavioral problems. (See Doc. 154-16.)^[5] Evans wrote that he had spoken to Plaintiff over the phone, but “could not seem to get [Plaintiff] to understand some of the issues around the value of respect with regards to dealings with partners and others at Teneo.” (Id. at TI-00558.) As an example, Evans described how he had observed Plaintiff bullying an engineer at a partner company. (Id.) Evans also recounted the behavioral issues noted in Plaintiff's performance review, described above. (See id.) Evans wrote, “I will continue to work with [Plaintiff] to see if we can get these things inline as it would be a shame to lose someone with such strong technical capabilities.” (Id. at TI-00559.)

In October 2017, Plaintiff posted a picture on LinkedIn of himself with Teneo customers who had purchased Cisco products. (Evans Aff. ¶ 27; Doc. 163-12 at 24.)^[6] According to Evans, one of Teneo's partners - a Cisco competitor - observed the post and complained to Evans. (Evans Aff. ¶ 28.) This led Evans to call Plaintiff to tell him not to post about Teneo's customers without approval, which Evans then memorialized in an email to Plaintiff. (Doc. 154-18 at TI-00636.) Plaintiff agreed to Evans's terms but noted that he had “started to block [the] Teneo

Team from LinkedIn.” (Id. at TI-00635 to 36.) Evans forwarded the email to Head (changing the subject line from “RE: Linked-in” to “Linked-in Asad explosion in progress”), updated her about the upset partner, and asked for her input on a draft response. (Id. at TI-00635.) He noted that if Plaintiff refused to unblock Teneo on LinkedIn, he would “have to look at this as his determination to leave the company.” (Id.) According to Evans, Plaintiff ultimately agreed to unblock Teneo. (Evans Aff. ¶ 32.) Plaintiff asserts that he did not unblock Teneo. (P's 56.1 Resp. ¶ 34.)

On June 14, 2018, Evans posted on another social networking site about the technical requirements for a product and asked to speak to Plaintiff “offline” about them. (See Doc. 15419.) Plaintiff replied on the site that “you have to be a Network Professional to understand” the product. (Id.) Evans emailed Plaintiff about the reply, letting him know that he “had specifically said that we would discuss it [offline]” and that he “also found [Plaintiff's] reply disrespectful.” (Id.)

In July 2018, the winners of Teneo's “CEO Club, ” a performance incentive program with a trip to Iceland as a reward, were announced. (Doc. 154-39 at TI-00617-18; Ds' 56.1 Stmt. ¶ 154; see note 1 above.) The criteria for non-sales personnel such as Plaintiff were (1) “[a]chievement against objectives, ” (2) “[s]ubscription to the Teneo values, ” and (3) “[g]enerally doing a wonderful job!” (Doc. 154-39 at TI-00618.) Plaintiff was nominated for the CEO Club but did not win. (Id. at TI-00622 to 23.) According to Plaintiff, Evans recommended a white,...