Ramseur v. Concentrix CVG Customer Mgmt. Grp. Inc.

467 F.Supp.3d 316

Porsha RAMSEUR, Plaintiff,

v.CONCENTRIX CVG CUSTOMER MANAGEMENT GROUP INC., Defendant.

CIVIL ACTION NO. 5:19-CV-00065-KDB-DCK

United States District Court, W.D. North Carolina, Statesville Division.

Signed June 15, 2020

Wilson Frank Fong, Hensel Law PLLC, Greensboro, NC, for Plaintiffs.

Benjamin Robert Holland, Sara Abigail Littrell, Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC, Charlotte, NC, for Defendants.

ORDER

Kenneth D. Bell, United States District Judge

Plaintiff Porsha Ramseur is a former employee of the Defendant, Concentrix CV Customer Management Group, Inc. ("Concentrix"), who alleges that she was discriminated against because of her religious beliefs in violation of 42 U.S.C. § 2000e, et seq. ("Title VII"). Now before the Court is Concentrix's Motion for Summary Judgment on all claims (Doc. No. 15). For the reasons discussed below, the Court will grant the motion.

As a matter of law, Concentrix is entitled to summary judgment because Ramseur has not established a prima facie case of religious discrimination on either a disparate treatment theory or a failure to accommodate theory. The Court finds that her allegation that she was discriminated against because of her refusal to work on Sundays as prescribed by her religious faith fails under a disparate treatment theory because she can neither establish that her job performance was satisfactory nor demonstrate that other similarly situated employees who had different beliefs were treated better than she. Ramseur's allegations also do not adequately support her claim of discrimination based on Concentrix's alleged failure to accommodate her religious beliefs. Based, among other evidence, on her long record of absenteeism and Concentrix's prior history of accommodating her request to not work on Sundays, a reasonable trier of fact could not conclude that her religious beliefs were a motivating factor in Concentrix's decision to terminate her.

I. LEGAL STANDARD

Summary judgment must be granted "if the movant shows that there is no genuine dispute as to any material fact and the movant is entitled to judgment as a matter of law." Fed. R. Civ. P. 56. A factual dispute is considered genuine "if the evidence is such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the nonmoving party." Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. , 477 U.S. 242, 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505, 91 L.Ed.2d 202 (1986). "A fact is material if it might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law." Vannoy v. Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond , 827 F.3d 296, 300 (4th Cir. 2016) (quoting Libertarian Party of Va. v. Judd , 718 F.3d 308, 313 (4th Cir. 2013) ).

The party seeking summary judgment bears the initial burden of demonstrating the absence of a genuine issue of material fact through citations to the pleadings, depositions, answers to interrogatories, admissions or affidavits in the record. See Celotex Corp. v. Catrett , 477 U.S. 317, 323, 106 S.Ct. 2548, 91 L.Ed.2d 265 (1986) ; Bouchat v. Baltimore Ravens Football Club, Inc. , 346 F.3d 514, 522 (4th Cir. 2003). "The burden on the moving party may be discharged by ‘showing’ ... an absence of evidence to support the nonmoving party's case." Celotex , 477 U.S. at 325, 106 S.Ct. 2548. Once this initial burden is met, the burden shifts to the nonmoving party. The nonmoving party "must set forth specific facts showing that there is a genuine issue for trial," Id. at 322, 106 S.Ct. 2548 n.3. The nonmoving party may not rely upon mere allegations or denials of allegations in his pleadings to defeat a motion for summary judgment. Id. at 324, 106 S.Ct. 2548.

When ruling on a summary judgment motion, a court must view the evidence and any inferences from the evidence in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party. Tolan v. Cotton , 572 U.S. 650, 657, 134 S.Ct. 1861, 188 L.Ed.2d 895 (2014) ; see also Anderson , 477 U.S. at 255, 106 S.Ct. 2505. "Summary judgment cannot be granted merely because the court believes that the movant will prevail if the action is tried on the merits." Jacobs v. N.C. Admin. Office of the Courts , 780 F.3d 562, 568-69 (4th Cir. 2015) (quoting 10A Charles Alan Wright & Arthur R. Miller et al., Federal Practice & Procedure § 2728 (3d ed. 1998)). "The court therefore cannot weigh the evidence or make credibility determinations." Id. at 569 (citing Mercantile Peninsula Bank v. French (In re French) , 499 F.3d 345, 352 (4th Cir. 2007) ).

However, "[w]here the record taken as a whole could not lead a rational trier of fact to find for the nonmoving party, there is no genuine issue for trial." Ricci v. DeStefano , 557 U.S. 557, 586, 129 S.Ct. 2658, 174 L.Ed.2d 490 (2009) (internal citations omitted). "Only disputes over facts that might affect the outcome of the suit under the governing law will properly preclude the entry of summary judgment. Factual disputes that are irrelevant or unnecessary will not be counted." Anderson , 477 U.S. at 248, 106 S.Ct. 2505. Also, the mere argued existence of a factual dispute does not defeat an otherwise properly supported motion. Id. If the evidence is merely colorable, or is not significantly probative, summary judgment is appropriate. Id. at 249-50, 106 S.Ct. 2505.

In the end, the question posed by a summary judgment motion is whether the evidence as applied to the governing legal rules "is so one-sided that one party must prevail as a matter of law." Id. at 252, 106 S.Ct. 2505.

II. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Ramseur is a member of the Discipline of the Fire Baptized Holiness Church of God, which prohibits its members from working on Sundays. She began working for Concentrix in its Hickory, North Carolina call center on January 5, 2009. At that time, the company did not require its employees to work on Sundays, but the company adopted a seven-day workweek in 2011. To avoid working on Sundays, Ramseur requested a religious accommodation. She provided Concentrix with a letter from her pastor and literature from her church explaining that working on Sundays violated her beliefs. Concentrix granted Ramseur's accommodation request, and, beginning in 2012, the company did not schedule her for Sunday shifts. In addition to her religious accommodation, Ramseur also received permission to take leave under the Family Medical Leave Act to care for her son, who has Down syndrome, beginning in 2012.

Ramseur's Attendance Issues from 2010 to July 2017

Concentrix uses a point system to track each employee's attendance (the "Attendance Policy"). Employees receive points when they are absent or fractions of a point when they are late. For example, employees receive 2 points when they are absent without calling Concentrix—what the company calls a "No-Call-No-Show." As employees receive attendance points, Concentrix's management may make notations on the employee's personnel file, give verbal counselings or issue written counselings. If an employee accumulates 12 attendance points, then he or she can be terminated under the Attendance Policy. Ramseur signed and acknowledged that she understood the Attendance Policy, which remained the same throughout her employment.¹

Ramseur received several verbal counselings regarding her attendance points throughout 2010. By October 2010, Ramseur had received 8.75 attendance points. In December 2011, Ramseur received a written counseling because she had 24.5 attendance points (which partially reflected points for Sunday absences because Concentrix had begun to schedule its employees on Sundays earlier that year). However, in April 2012 Ramseur's supervisor removed 16 points from her attendance record for her prior absences on Sundays. With this modification, Ramseur had accrued a total of 10 attendance points, none of which related to Sunday absences.

In January 2014² , Ramseur received a verbal counseling because she had 10.75 points. In May 2014, Ramseur received a written counseling because she had received 12.25 attendance points, and she signed the corresponding Counseling/Separation Record to acknowledge the written counseling. Thus, as of May 2014, Concentrix's records show that Ramseur had received enough attendance points to permit her termination. Ramseur concedes that from April 2012 to May 2014, Concentrix did not schedule her on Sundays.

By May 2017 Ramseur had accrued 40 attendance points and received another written counseling for her absences. However, Ramseur refused to sign the written counseling document because she believed that the 40 points included ones that should have been taken off for FMLA time. In July 2017, Ramseur received more written counseling for her 40 attendance points and again she refused to sign the written counseling document.

When asked at her deposition about the total number of her points as of July 2017, Ramseur explained that she did not know whether she had more than 12 attendance points "because the points were not being deducted like they should have." Ramseur asserts that she believes that her points would have been under 12 had her FMLA and religious accommodation been deducted correctly. Ramseur's claimed basis for this belief is that she "went to work and [she] worked. And if they would have taken the points off correctly from – for my FMLA and with the Sundays, [she] would not have had 12 points." When asked if she had any documents supporting her belief, Ramseur said that she did not. Ramseur has also not produced any evidence specifically disputing the days / absences documented by Concentrix to support her beliefs regarding her record of absences. Instead, she testified that she had not "actually ... done the math to figure out how many points [she] would have had." Finally, at oral argument Ramseur's counsel acknowledged that Ramseur could not provide any evidence other than her stated general belief that she had fewer than 12 attendance points at the time of her termination.

Concentrix's August 2017 Shift-Bid and Ramseur's Termination

On August 6, 2017 Concentrix held its semi-annual shift bid, during which...